The future business leaders could opt for the old Indian way of their grandparents, the 'live simply, splurge abroad and do lots of charity' approach or the Pillai-Mallya-Mehta 'spend it like its growing on trees' route
Now that 'King of Good Times' Vijay Mallya's celebrated lifestyle appears to have gone belly up and not a day passes when the sorry state of his business affairs isn't in the news, has the time finally come to admit that conspicuous consumption and ostentatious living just don't work in India?
There was a time when business barons were taught austerity, parsimony and restraint. A billionaire recalls how his generation was brought up on the morally upright tale of his flamboyant uncle who came to nought. "Every care was taken to impress upon us that we should not follow his footsteps," he recalled.
To be sure, the post-Independent India, fuelled by the engine of Gandhian self-denial and Nehruvian socialism, recoiled from the ogre of extravagance. But around the nineties, things began to change. Reform brought with it a certain financial giddiness amongst urban Indians.
Used to being the beggar at the world's banquet, the deprived child pressing its nose on the window of a feast, the sudden influx of international goods and services made even the most retiring of Indians exuberant.
They bought shiny new cars, drank premium malts and their wives carried de rigeur luxury bags. The following decades were something of an open season on materialism.
It was no surprise then that the three men who caught the imagination of the time were 'Big Bull' Harshad Mehta, Britannia chairman Rajan Pillai and UB Spirits dynamo Vijay Mallya.
With reform's collateral impact on media and its glossies, the lives of these three men were the stuff that readers fantasised about.
Mehta's notorious suitcase, which he famously carried into the Prime Minister's Office, and his stock wizardry had the media in a tizzy. So did Pillai and his annual marquee at Wimbledon, his jet set parties in Goa and his glamorous wife, Nina. These were corporate India's new samurais - dashing, flamboyant and very high-profile.
Unlike their elders, the famously exclusive and reclusive Tatas and Birlas, these corporate commanders had no qualms about being seen driving fast and expensive cars, living in glamorous homes and enjoying their wealth.
That two of them met unfortunate and tragic ends and the third's business has gone pear- shaped has got many corporate watchers wondering if the clock has swung back to the old days of austerity again.
How should future business leaders in India fashion their public image in today's times then? Young men and women in their twenties, who have newly returned from American universities to take over the reins of their family business, have a plethora of choices before them.
They could opt for the old Indian way of their grandparents, the 'live simply, splurge abroad and do lots of charity' approach; or they can take the Pillai-Mallya-Mehta 'spend it like its growing on trees' route.
Or they could fashion their images in a more nuanced response to the India that is coalescing around Modi's new direction. The India that even as it enjoys the fruits of its newfound welcome at the world's banquet, appears to be unimpressed, restrained, quietly confident and above all, work-driven
God lies in the details, and in Modi's care over his appearance (dressed impeccably but in Indian threads), his nod in the direction of luxury in his penchant for the troika of Mont Blanc, Bvlgari and Movado and his emphasis on burning the midnight oil, young corporate India has a blue print for its public representation.
So is the party over for young corporate business leaders?
Not if they live their lives - and calibrate their public images - intelligently.
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com
Now that 'King of Good Times' Vijay Mallya's celebrated lifestyle appears to have gone belly up and not a day passes when the sorry state of his business affairs isn't in the news, has the time finally come to admit that conspicuous consumption and ostentatious living just don't work in India?
There was a time when business barons were taught austerity, parsimony and restraint. A billionaire recalls how his generation was brought up on the morally upright tale of his flamboyant uncle who came to nought. "Every care was taken to impress upon us that we should not follow his footsteps," he recalled.
To be sure, the post-Independent India, fuelled by the engine of Gandhian self-denial and Nehruvian socialism, recoiled from the ogre of extravagance. But around the nineties, things began to change. Reform brought with it a certain financial giddiness amongst urban Indians.
Used to being the beggar at the world's banquet, the deprived child pressing its nose on the window of a feast, the sudden influx of international goods and services made even the most retiring of Indians exuberant.
They bought shiny new cars, drank premium malts and their wives carried de rigeur luxury bags. The following decades were something of an open season on materialism.
It was no surprise then that the three men who caught the imagination of the time were 'Big Bull' Harshad Mehta, Britannia chairman Rajan Pillai and UB Spirits dynamo Vijay Mallya.
With reform's collateral impact on media and its glossies, the lives of these three men were the stuff that readers fantasised about.
Mehta's notorious suitcase, which he famously carried into the Prime Minister's Office, and his stock wizardry had the media in a tizzy. So did Pillai and his annual marquee at Wimbledon, his jet set parties in Goa and his glamorous wife, Nina. These were corporate India's new samurais - dashing, flamboyant and very high-profile.
Unlike their elders, the famously exclusive and reclusive Tatas and Birlas, these corporate commanders had no qualms about being seen driving fast and expensive cars, living in glamorous homes and enjoying their wealth.
That two of them met unfortunate and tragic ends and the third's business has gone pear- shaped has got many corporate watchers wondering if the clock has swung back to the old days of austerity again.
How should future business leaders in India fashion their public image in today's times then? Young men and women in their twenties, who have newly returned from American universities to take over the reins of their family business, have a plethora of choices before them.
They could opt for the old Indian way of their grandparents, the 'live simply, splurge abroad and do lots of charity' approach; or they can take the Pillai-Mallya-Mehta 'spend it like its growing on trees' route.
Or they could fashion their images in a more nuanced response to the India that is coalescing around Modi's new direction. The India that even as it enjoys the fruits of its newfound welcome at the world's banquet, appears to be unimpressed, restrained, quietly confident and above all, work-driven
God lies in the details, and in Modi's care over his appearance (dressed impeccably but in Indian threads), his nod in the direction of luxury in his penchant for the troika of Mont Blanc, Bvlgari and Movado and his emphasis on burning the midnight oil, young corporate India has a blue print for its public representation.
So is the party over for young corporate business leaders?
Not if they live their lives - and calibrate their public images - intelligently.
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com