The return of a city icon

For years, The Oberoi in Delhi has never stopped being the hugely profitable cash cow of the Rs 12 billion holding company, East India Hotels, which runs 33 hotels around the world

It was Napoleon who called the Piazza San Marco in Venice “the drawing room of Europe”. What he meant was that the views were wonderful, the cafes and restaurants excellent, and, sooner or later, you would run into anybody who mattered. The analogy may be imperfect but if ever there was a public drawing-room in New Delhi it is the extended marble lobby of The Oberoi, with its gallery of shops, informal or fine dining eateries, comfortable lounges, views of water bodies, fairways of the adjoining golf course, and, from the upper floors, vistas of Humayun’s Tomb.

On January 1 this