 "Vijay Mallya")
The reason for his frustration is simple: the co-owner of Sahara Force India told the website that he couldn’t be in Monaco to attend the Formula One Grand Prix in May, as well as in Baku, Azerbaijan for the 2016 European Grand Prix as he “can no longer just get on a plane”. So his full attention now is on the Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone in Northamptonshire, in the East Midlands region of England.
That shouldn’t be a problem as Mallya doesn’t need a passport to go to Silverstone. And the Indian government can’t chase him down there as extradition from the UK is a complicated and time-consuming exercise. So the road ahead for Indian banks is clear: instead of getting worked up about the Rs 9,000 crore that Mallya owes to them, they can just twiddle their thumbs, while the “wilful defaulter” divides his time between his estate and house near Baker Street in between his workouts and visits to the British Grand Pix event.
There is another thing the bankers can do: that is take some vicarious pleasure from the fact that Monaco and Baku are not the only two places that Mallya would have to give a miss for quite some to come in his passport-less existence.
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The list is pretty long even excluding Mallya’s famous Goa villa – once the venue of not-so-sober parties – which has been taken over by banks. It’s a different matter that some of the bankers have good memories of the hospitality they enjoyed at the king-sized mansion.
Let’s look at the other luxuries of life that Mallya would have to let go. On top of that list must be the Kingfisher Calendar event, which was more than an annual party. It had a TV show that covers the photo shoots and also a contest to choose the Kingfisher Calendar Girl of the Year. Mallya, who has this obsession for being photographed with models and starlets, was part of it all: the shoots, the shows and the party. All that must be distant memory now.
His other lavish parties were stuff of Page 3 lore: be it at the Saint Marguerite in France, or the plum penthouse apartment he owns at Trump Towers, New York, which he had bought for around $2.5 million. The guests to these parties must be crestfallen as the host has himself made it clear that he doesn’t think the time is right to return to India, which is a must if he has any hope in hell to get back his passport. Talking about the US, Mallya must be fondly remembering the private museum in California which houses his more than 260 cars, bicycles and race cars. Hope somebody is taking good care of them during the master’s absence.
That’s not all. Mallya’s homes on Johannesburg's luxurious Nettleton Road, which is one of South Africa's most expensive streets; and the one in Sausalito, in France, will all have to wait for the owner for many summers. So will the horses at the 400 acre Kunigal Stud Farm in Karnataka.
But the one home the industrialist would miss the most is yet to come up, as the regal property is scheduled to completed only by the year-end. That’s his penthouse – named by him as the “White House in the Sky” on the 32nd and 33rd floor of Kingfisher Towers in UB City, Bangalore. The tower is split into 82 houses, out of which 72 are given to other billionaires, while 10 of them are retained for his family members. The penthouse, split in two levels, will have a built-up area of around 40,000 sq ft. The roof of the penthouse will have a helipad and, of course, the stars above. The building has an exclusive entrance for him from the Vittal Mallya Road, named after his father.
But for quite some time to come, the entrance is expected to remain tightly shut. Mallya’s frustration with the Indian government snatching away his passport is thus understandable.
