I first went to India 40 years ago when I lived and worked in Hong Kong. It was a sales trip to drum up advertisers for the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine and I arrived in Bombay from Karachi where I had been to see Pakistan International Airlines. Our dinner at the Pearl Continental Hotel had coincided with the Wimbledon final so 3 of us decamped to my room to watch it on the telly - and we, or rather I, could order beer from room service provided I sign a form saying I wasn’t muslim and nor was my father and could I have 6 beers please. This seemed rather a lot for one non muslim thought the chap who delivered the beers as he rather suspiciously looked round the room and under the bed. He forgot to check behind the shower curtain in the bathroom. Bombay was much more liberal if difficult to get to from Pakistan. About 3 flights a week back then and probably not much easier now. The two countries really don’t like each other.
I loved Bombay (let’s stick with that not Mumbai) and especially the Taj Hotel. What a different rarefied privileged world that was compared to the world outside. Yes there was security to get in but this was nothing compared to the security that was duly put in place after the horrific terrorist attacks in 2008. Going outside was optional anyway - the restaurants, the shopping arcade, the bookshop (especially the bookshop) were all incredible and welcoming and the shopkeepers keen to negotiate, certainly in the shirt shop. Air India were our biggest advertiser so this was duly lunch in the rooftop restaurant of the Taj plus meetings with the hotel itself and their rival across town The Oberoi Group. Two remarkable hotel groups and still are along with many other new Indian brands as the country strives to provide enough beds for the world’s most populous nation and her overseas visitors. There is nothing quite like Indian hospitality.
My second visit coincided with the cricket world cup in 1987; funny that. Our man Ronny Mistry had acquired us tickets in a cage beneath pitch level at a sold out Wankhede Stadium confident of an Indian victory against England in the semi final. In preparation the night before I had visited the gym then the steam bath - in those days one had to sign in for health and safety reasons and a few lines above me I saw the name and signature of my old pal from Hong Kong Nick Rhodes who was now running India for Cathay Pacific, curiously from Bahrain. Turned out he had also timed his monthly visit well and was indeed sitting next to the man who the stadium was named after! He had a better view of the surprise English victory than I did but it was nonetheless funereally silent as England squeaked through to the final in Calcutta. Cricket is enormous in India and its best players are treated like gods. As it was recently World Book Day I came across a book written by the England cricketer Vic Marks about the England tour of India in 84/85. Back then it was a 3 month ordeal and this tour was no different. However within days of their arrival Indira Ghandi, then President, was shot dead by her bodyguards and the England team fled to Sri Lanka unsure what to do next. After a few hastily arranged matches against local opposition they decided to continue with the tour and flew back to India for the first test in Bombay. The British High Commissioner invited the squad to his house for drinks a couple of days before the match. He was then assassinated in his car the following morning on the streets of the city. Remarkably England stayed on for the duration and even won the series - an immense achievement in India.
I finally returned as a bona fide tourist in 1988 returning home to England via India. In addition to taking in the Taj on a terrifying road trip from Delhi we also visited Kashmir, as you could in those days but only just. It was still very very tense and our plane from Delhi stopped off in Amritsar where a recent massacre had taken place at the Golden temple. Arriving at Srinagar airport one was very aware of the complex security guarding an even more complex situation as the Pakistan/India stand off continued. Sincethen things have gotten worse and then better. I shall never forget the advertisement for a hotel in the airport - ‘Worst hotel in town but worth a try’. What a magnificent tagline that is! Living on a houseboat on Lake Dal for a few days was quite memorable. Flower sellers on boats approaching every few hours and a bustling market taking place constantly on the lake itself. Famous for its carpets we felt obliged to take a look and see if we might take something home so a trip was duly arranged to a local shop. After an endless array of wonderful carpets were rolled out in front of us the shopkeeper/owner suggested we go and visit the place where all the carpets were made. Up went the budget when we saw the conditions that these carpets were made in before the owner pointed out that 2 carpets were being made on the same loom and if you were lucky enough to have the option to buy 2 identical carpets then you shouldn’t turn the opportunity down. Another 100% on the budget then. So 2 carpets duly bought at quite a price but with no cash. Do you accept Amex cards? We do but would prefer cash sir. Why don’t you take the carpets home with you and send us the money when you get home. Not often that happens and we still have the carpets. Having 2 of them works well in most divorces.
I didn’t go back for a while until I was promoting an ‘Investing in India’ special report in Institutional Investor magazine and now for the sad part. I took with me a new colleague, Peter Record. The idea was to show him how these reports were produced in the hope that he could then go on to do the same in other Asian countries. Our first meeting was at the State Bank of India but we were refused entry by a burly Punjabi security guard who made the international bomb sign with his hands. You know the one I mean. No meeting then so it wasn’t the best of starts but we laughed about it for the rest of the week. It didn’t work out for Peter with the magazine; he moved to Hong Kong and went on to play for my old rugby club. Sadly Peter was one of the 202 (mainly rugby players) who lost his life in the Bali bomb in 2002. I shall never forget him or indeed our week together in India. RIP.
Yes or No - that is the question
In my ongoing global research into the interpretation of YES or NO, India is a fascinating study. Once on the train from Delhi to Agra payment was required on the train for food and drink and I didn’t have the exact amount of cash on me so if the price was say 10 rupees I only had a 100 note on me so I handed this over. Every time the food man came past me for the next 3 hours he acknowledged my presence with that wonderful slow shake/nod of the head and the wave of the hand in a sort of angled, upward karate chop. This can mean yes or no or probably simply ‘I know’. It’s a fabulous gesture and the nod/shake of the head is exacerbated wonderfully by the upward chop of the hand. I am not sure what advice I can offer the reader on this gesture but it is both yes and no and possibly maybe.
With the help of Mary Anne Denison Pender and her company MaHout I was back in India again in the noughties to promote indiachic in our new series of Chic Collection books. Mary Anne is a complete India expert - especially when it comes to finding smaller boutique style properties. She introduced me to the head of India tourism Amithab Kant and the next thing I knew I was back in Bombay and Delhi wondering how on earth I was going to get around India to see all these hotels. An impossible task but I managed Kerala and Rajasthan and Bangalore which is scarcely scratching the surface of this remarkable country. Later trips would take in Calcutta and Darjeeling, Ooti and Goa. Some incredible train trips and even more incredible hotels. I have often mentioned a sense of arrival being so important to any great hotel experience - well, it’s here in India that I had the best sense of arrival. I was flying from Managalore to Bombay to stay at The Leela and happened to see someone in the airport with a Leela uniform on so I approached her and said what a coincidence that was. Oh you must be Mr Bolding she said. Yes I replied - how did you know? The Chairman sent me to Mangalore to collect you. Indeed. Wow. So she had flown down to Mangalore that morning and spent the day in town with the instructions to find me in the airport. I can’t think of any sense of arrival that has ever come close to that! The Chairman of Leela was a very special man - CP Krishnan Nair was known to all simply as Chairman. He had made his fortune manufacturing lace and then in his 60s thought he could rival Taj and Oberoi in the luxury hotel space. He has indeed done so - Leela was named after his wife. He passed away whilst still working aged 92 and I had the pleasure of knowing him for 10 years or so with my occasional visits to Bombay and his regular visits to travel shows in London and Berlin.
India has always produced great hoteliers and continues to do so. The wonderful Biki Oberoi who passed away last year was a visionary amongst visionaries and has been succeeded by his son Vikram. What a success story Oberoi has been around the world, in close tandem with Taj. Jaisal and Anjali Singh - creators of Sujan, a collection of remarkable properties around the country. Sher Bagh in Ranthambore, The Serai in Jaisalmer are just 2 examples and they remain the only Indian properties in the Relais Chateaux portfolio. See below for a few hotel suggestions - all ones that I have visited.
Our book indiachic was great fun to create and a wonderful way of getting to know the country. Not everyone loves India - no-one sits on the fence about it. You either love it or hate it but whichever side of the fence you fall a trip to India will stay with you forever, one way or the other. The US magazine Vanity Fair used to do an article every month entitled My Desk - a picture of someone’s desk with explanations as to why everything is there. Desiree Rogers was the White House social secretary appointed by Barrack Obama and her job was to plan all the White House social events including Obama’s first ever event, a state dinner for the Indian President Manmohan Singh. In preparation for this occasion she had assembled a few India guide books as part of her research and guess what, indiachic was one of these - pictured! The story has an unfortunate ending as shortly after the state dinner Desiree lost her job. A couple of Washington socialites had gate crashed the dinner for 300 and managed to get their photos taken with then VP Joe Biden. They were most definitely not on the guest list so where did they sit? What a caper. Someone had to carry the can for this horrible breach of security and sadly it was Desiree. But, hey, indiachic made it to the White House!!!!
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