Rank Worth ($mil) Name Age Resident City
1 11,200 Lakshmi Mittal 54 London
2 10,000 Azim Premji 59 Bangalore
3 6,400 Mukesh & Anil Ambani -- Mumbai
4 3,500 Kumar Mangalam Birla 37 Mumbai
5 2,900 Pallonji Mistry 75 Mumbai
6 2,600 Sunil Mittal 47 Delhi
7 2,300 Shiv Nadar 59 Delhi
8 1,900 Adi Godrej 62 Mumbai
9 1,500 Dilip Shanghvi 49 Mumbai
9 1,500 Malvinder & Shivinder Mohan Singh Delhi
11 1,200 Anil Agarwal 51 London/Mumbai
12 1,100 Shashi & Ravi Ruia -- Mumbai
13 1,000 Om Prakash Jindal 74 Delhi
14 850 Rahul Bajaj 66 Pune
15 825 N R Narayana Murthy 58 Bangalore
16 760 Subhash Chandra 54 Mumbai
16 760 Yusuf Hamied 68 Mumbai
16 760 Brijmohan Lall Munjal 81 Delhi
19 630 Habil Khorakiwala 62 Mumbai
20 600 Vivek Burman 64 Delhi
21 570 Nandan Nilekani 49 Bangalore
22 555 S Gopalakrishnan 50 Bangalore
23 550 N S Raghavan 59 Bangalore
24 530 Narendra Patni 62 Boston/Mumbai
24 530 Ajay Piramal 49 Mumbai
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The lifestyle of India's richest people :
By Nandini Lakshman, BusinessWeek ( Nov 28,2006)
Even by the standards of Lonavala, a mountainous outpost 70 miles from Mumbai where India's nouveaux riches like to spend the weekend, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's country home is extravagant.
The 15,000-square-foot bungalow' features a swimming pool, jacuzzi, karaoke studio, and gym, as well as party rooms and terraces where Jhunjhunwala entertains family, friends, and business associates.
Meanwhile, back home in Mumbai, the chain-smoking, 47-year-old founder of investment house Rare Enterprises has just bought a $5.4 million, six-bedroom duplex apartment in the tony Malabar Hill neighborhood.
"I have far more wealth than I need," says Jhunjhunwala, whose estimated net worth is just shy of $1 billion. "But it gives me the freedom to do what I enjoy and enjoy what I do."
Although hundreds of millions of Indians still live in grinding poverty, the economy is growing at an 8% annual clip, and the ranks of the well-off and just plain loaded are ballooning. Some 83,000 Indians today have liquid assets greater than $1 million, up from 71,000 two years ago, American Express Co. AXP estimates, and their numbers are increasing by 13% a year.
By AmEx' math, in 2009 there will be 1.1 million individuals with $100,000 in assets, a princely sum in India--up from 700,000 today. "I'm amazed by the wealth in this country," says Sujay Chauhan, who in April quit his job at technology researcher Gartner Group to found Aquasale, a boat dealer in Mumbai that already has seven orders for yachts worth a total of $10 million.
A lot of this is new money, not legacy Indian wealth. Up-and-coming sectors such as software services, telecommunications, finance, and real estate are minting new millionaires every day. And the Bombay Stock Exchange has more than doubled in the past two years, handing many investors tremendous capital gains.
"India is the fastest-growing market for wealth creation," says Nicholas Windsor, head of personal financial services at HSBC India HSBC, which last year set up a private banking unit to cater to clients investing upwards of $500,000.
Adds Ravi Trivedy, head of Business Advisory Services at consulting firm KPMG, which helps banks tailor services for rich clients: "For us it's a fabulous time."
The first place the new moneyed class typically shows off its cash is with a big house or plush apartment. While demand for homes over 3,000 square feet--palatial by Indian standards--was once confined to Mumbai and Delhi, more and more Indians in smaller cities want big houses, according to real estate consulting firm Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
In September, Ambience Builders & Developers Inc. plunked down $120 million for a 60-acre parcel in Hyderabad, with plans to turn it into high-end homes. And each of India's large cities boasts 400 to 500 houses listed at $2 million-plus, estimates Mumbai real estate agency Knight Frank.
"It feels good giving your family a comfortable existence," says Rohit Roy, an actor and talk show host who last year moved into a four-bedroom apartment facing the sea in Juhu, a posh Mumbai suburb.
Cars, of course, are another great way to get mileage out of your millions. Despite duties that effectively double the price of imported autos, sales of super-luxury models are gathering speed. National Garage, a nationwide chain of dealerships selling an assortment of brands, including Ferraris, says demand for the $200,000-plus machines vastly outstrips supply.
To bolster the Ferrari image, it has turned away 700 customers that "didn't suit our product profile," says marketing director Farhad Vijay Arora. Across town at Navnit Motors, customers last year snapped up 200 BMWs for as much as $150,000 and 10 Rolls-Royces topping out at $600,000-plus--about quadruple the number five years ago. "We see a sudden surge of interest in these high-end luxury cars," says Navnit's marketing director, Sharad Kachalia.
To satisfy exploding demand, BMW next year plans to open an assembly plant in Chennai and hopes to expand its sales to some 1,800 Bimmers annually. That goal won't likely be hard to reach: Rival Mercedes-Benz DCX, which already has a factory in Pune, sold more than 2,000 cars last year.
Although well-to-do Indians have traditionally been wary of flaunting their money, more are wearing their wealth on their sleeves. Louis Vuitton CDI, Hugo Boss, Valentino, Gucci, and Fendi have all opened Indian stores in the past couple of years.
And Kimaya Fashions Ltd., a high-end shop in Juhu that has long sold Indian-designed clothes to society highfliers and Bollywood stars, is stocking more global brands such as Roberto Cavalli and Giorgio Armani. "The Indian story has just begun to unfold, and now we know this is for real," says Kimaya managing director Pradeep Hirani.
There's plenty of potential growth. All told, the market for high-end luxury clothing and accessories in India is worth some $434 million a year and is apt to hit $800 million by 2010, estimates consultant Technopak Advisors Ltd.
Indians last year spent $141 million on pricey wristwatches, a figure that's growing by some 40% a year, according to Technopak. "I'm not a gizmo person, but I like cars and watches," says Arun Mansukhani, 37, head of human resources at cellular carrier Hutch. His collection includes a Tag Heuer, a Mont Blanc, a Cartier--and a Porsche and a BMW. Wine sales are taking off, too, with help from the likes of the Wine Society of India.
The group, established in September, held a tasting at Mumbai's stately Taj Palace Hotel, where society divas and Bollywood stars nibbled on chicken tikka and sipped $160-a-bottle Ch�teau Latour � Pomerol.
Not all wealthy Indians are comfortable showing off their newfound riches. Umesh Chadha runs an oil and gas services company, Luminus Energy, based in Mumbai with offices in the U.S. and three other countries. He has three cars but is also happy to get around town in a rickety three-wheeled motorcycle taxi.
Although Chadha likes to vacation in the U.S.--he's planning an Alaskan cruise next year--he swears he hasn't changed much from his childhood days in Mumbai's Shivaji Park, a comfortable but not extravagant neighborhood. "I have maintained my middle-class values," he says.
Others are even more reluctant to show off. Three years ago eye surgeon Burjor Banaji bought a Mercedes C-Class sedan for his commute. He liked the Benz but sold it in September "to escape the attention, which was a nightmare." Today he drives an Octavia sedan from Volkswagen's Czech subsidiary, Skoda. "I love it," says Banaji, "because it's completely anonymous."
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'Dangers of ignoring India's poor are greater'
In Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger, a lowly villager called Balram Halwai rises in the ranks when he becomes a chauffeur in an affluent family. Nothing that goes on around him -- be it politics or family feuds -- escapes his eye, even as he feigns to be a meek servant. As the novel progresses, the homicidal chauffeur makes his own destiny, and becomes an entrepreneur.
He even thinks he can lecture a visiting Chinese leader about India's social hierarchy and the rise of the new entrepreneurial community.
The first novel from journalist Adiga, 34, has been translated into at least 16 languages and has received excellent reviews in publications ranging from New Yorker to The Times, London [Images].
He spoke to Arthur J Pais.
How did this book come about?
It came out of my experience of coming back to India. I grew up in the south; but I returned to the north (Delhi), after having lived in Australia, and studied English literature at Columbia University in New York and Oxford University. I lived abroad from the age of 15 until 28. Then I came back and worked for Time magazine in 2003.
As a correspondent for Time, I traveled a lot in places I hadn't seen before, like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar. The book is a record of a discovery of a new side of India. These were an entirely new experience of India to me.
What was the most important of these experiences?
The first thing that came to mind that I had forgotten was the servant-master relationship, the class system in India. Especially in north India, even today, a middle-class person is well off and can have three, four servants, a driver, a gardener, someone to take care of the children.
The other thing that struck me is the disparity in income. The rich are so rich. The Indian economy is booming but the money was not really getting down to the poor and the difference in the world between the rich and the poor was phenomenal.
And that made you think�
And this led to the question why there was so little crime in India compared to that in New York, South Africa and Latin America, where poverty is the leading cause of [the high rates of] crime. In India, even if there is a phenomenal disparity in wealth there is very little crime due to poverty. The novel began as a kind of an experiment.
What kind of experiment?
Like, I was looking into why the class system stays in place, why there is so little crime, and what the conditions would be for the system to break down.
Was there something that struck you most?
I was buying furniture in New Delhi five years ago and the storeowner said, `Don't give me cash, give me a deposit of Rs 1,000 [$25], and give the rest to the man when he delivers it.' So when the man came to my house -- and he was a very poor man -- he put down the furniture and then I paid him the money. Then he asked for a Rs 10 tip which I gave it him. I was amazed that this man who made a maximum of Rs 1,000 a month or perhaps even less, was taking a bundle of money to give to his master.
What was the biggest question that came to your mind?
I wondered what made this man and people like him honest? This is something people in India take for granted.
In essence, the novel began as a way of understanding this phenomenon. The social structure of the master and the servants, I realised, was not anything like in the [rest of the] world.
But your servant in the book is very different from the ones you have been talking about.
My character is someone who breaks the system and I began to wonder under what circumstances would a servant deliberately and cold-bloodedly kill his master and take his money. What kind of a man does he have to be. Increasingly, I have become convinced that the social structure in India is beginning to shake. I am not saying that it will fall apart but the potential for social disruption is growing by the day.
Why do you think so many poor people remain honest and faithful to their masters?
It is, like, basically you follow your dharma or code of life because who you are depends on the economic well-being of your family and the name your family has. You cannot take the money and run because that will put your entire family in peril or in disgrace. Now, I believe this extraordinary social structure is beginning to come apart to some extent.
What do you think are some of the causes?
The shameless way wealth is flaunted is extraordinary. Poor people [see] the money the very rich have. Migration of labor is increasing in a big way, especially in north India. Old traditional ties and social structure in the villages and small towns are disappearing, and social unrest and resistance are growing. The Naxalite [Maoist] movement is reviving in many parts of the country and is gaining strength. My novel attempts to look at what kind of man would be prepared to break the structure. You can in essence say this is a warning story, a fable of things that might lie ahead for India.
The book is certainly not about India shining. What could be the tagline for the book?
It could be Shining and Dark India. I believe both sides of India have to be represented in fiction. My concern is to look at the vast disparity.
White Tiger
Could some people mistake Balram's voice to be your own?
I am quite studious and most of my life has been spent reading. Some of his [Balram's] opinions are quite distasteful to me. But it was important to create a picture of someone who will challenge you as a reader; it was important not to create a sentimental portrait of an oppressed, poor person.
Some people may say that this is book very negative about India, and some may say that you received good reviews in the West because the book focuses on poverty and social ills in the country.
This is a book that makes a passionate case for the better treatment of two-thirds of [all Indians] -- who are poorer. It is an attack on the system that governs India. But the system is not the same as the people in India. The novel has received very good reviews in India, too. I don't think everyone in the West who reads the book will be happy with it.
Why is that?
I don't think many people in the West will take comfort from this figure, the main character in the book. It is not a figure they can patronise or condescend to. This character is very entrepreneurial and smart and he has a very negative view of Westerners and of white people. He is quite happy to take on the West. He is quite an aggressive, confident character.
This could have been easily a very big book, running into more than 500 pages. You have it under 300 pages.
I can't expect from the readers to put up with more. I can't stand long and boring books. I admire writers such as Orhan Pamuk especially for such books as My Name is Red. It is a deep book and yet it moves very fast. I don't think serious books should bore anyone.
The book is full of dark humour.
Outsiders don't realize how funny we Indians are -- how much wit and sarcasm is present in the day-to-day speech of poor people in states like Bihar. Poor Indians may have nothing else -- not even a roof over their heads -- but they always have one weapon to fight back with against the system: And that is humour.
Some people might say that filmmakers such as Mrinal Sen and K A Abbas in the 1960s and 1970s and a few novelists such as Kiran Desai have shown us the Invisible Man, the man who is always exploited.
These are great artists -- I think Kiran Desai is a tremendous writer. However, if I told you romantic love has been adequately covered in the works of Shakespeare -- Romeo and Juliet for instance -- and there is no need for anyone to write ever again about love, would that strike you as a clever suggestion?
To say that the divide between the rich and the poor, and the invisibility of the poor is an issue that has been `dealt with' is to trivialise its profound and perpetual importance. The problem is omnipresent, its manifestations keep changing, and literature and the arts have to keep responding.
Why is it important for a writer to focus on poverty and exploitation?
I would argue that today, in India, amidst the hoopla and hype of the economic boom, the poor are more invisible than ever before, and the dangers of ignoring them are greater than ever before: The proof of this is in the resurgent Naxalite, armed rebellion in the heart of India, where communist guerrillas, fighting in the name of the poor, are waging a brutal war against the state.
Who are some of the writers -- Indian and non Indian -- who have influenced you the most? What have you taken from them?
I've mentioned three great black American writers of World War II and the immediate post war era, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin, who have influenced this book immensely. I admire R K Narayan a lot, especially his novel The Guide. His writing is wonderfully comic and acerbic at the same time.
The writer Paul Theroux once told me that the biggest fear he had as a writer was not that he could run short of ideas but that he may end up writing a boring book. What is your biggest fear?
No one who is alive to the poetry, anger, and humour of India is ever going to be in danger of writing a boring book. So I'm not concerned about that. My concerns in India are more mundane and pressing. I'm worried that there are going to be massive water cuts in Mumbai this summer, and I won't have water in my apartment.
If you had a magic wand, who would you choose to direct the film version of your book, and who would play the lead characters?
This is not a book that can be filmed easily. I have a friend in New York, a filmmaker named Ramin Bahrani, and I'd seek his advice if anyone ever came up with a proposal for this to be turned into a film.
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