What do the seriously rich do when they're on a junket - okay, make that a work trip - and find some time to spare? It turns out, they're not all that different from us. This week, the combined worth of New Delhi went up immeasurably when India's billionaires and millionaires turned up en masse to listen to the prime minister deliver his Make-in-India presentation. Post the media interviews, the poor little rich boys found themselves with a few unaccounted hours - the PM was in too much of a hurry to say hello - so they did what you and I would. They went shopping.
"Maybe they're buying jewellery for their spouses," I said to my wife, having spied some among them peep into the stores near my office. "That's hardly likely," my wife explained, "husbands don't know how to choose jewellery because they're so cheap." I thought her assessment was unfair, but agreed that since the luxury mall where they'd stopped before catching their private jets back home stocked only foreign brands, it would clearly be a spoiler given Narendra Modi's appeal to make, not buy, in India.
Nor, she pointed out, was it likely they were buying clothes because their wives preferred to entrust personal shoppers with the task, and size, of their fashion. So, the gentlemen - reports suggest the businesswomen went back to work without taking a shopping break - preferred to investigate the less luxe side of Delhi, clogging up the narrow lanes of Shahpur Jat, Lado Sarai and Hauz Khas Village with their Mercs and Beamers. They came with their local buddies, window-shopped (mostly), enjoying a roasted bhutta or gelato as they sauntered under the autumn sun almost as though they were footloose in Goa.
Quite by contrast, Delhi's newly rich shoppers went about tooting their horns, shouting angrily and demanding attention. A "birthday group" returning from lunch consisted of a fashionably trendy family that seemed to be having a disagreement. The birthday teenager was having a tantrum, insisting she "needed" to be home "right now", so where was the "bloody driver"? It turned out the chauffeur had been sent off elsewhere by her father. "You're such a fool, you've ruined my birthday," the girl shouted at her dad, who screamed at his wife, who wailed to her sibling, who pitched into her children, resulting in a slanging match that would have been amusing if it wasn't horrifying.
From the sidelines, one of India's wealthiest and among the most respected billionaires watched with some astonishment. The teenager stamped her feet and spewed a barrage of abusive language that should have earned her a slap. Her parents hurled accusations at each other's lineage. Sundry family members exchanged rude parentage. It was such an everyday scene on the capital's high street that no one but the visitor bothered to take notice.
After some time, he hastened towards the warring clan. "If you're in a hurry," he said to the brat, "my driver can take you home." He had to repeat himself a few times before he could be understood. The family shook its head in disbelief at this affront to their family affair and stood together. "Mind your own business," said her father. "Who are you?" shouted an uncle. "Leave me alone," said the child. It was only after he'd got into his car and left that someone identified him and his fiscal worth, resulting in renewed breast-beating and counter-accusations that could only have been made in India.
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