INDIAN EDITION 15

Life Stories
You Need
To Know

WHAT A MAN’S GOT TO DO

JULY 2015 `150
POWER
LUNCH
INTRODUCING WITH
THE 50 Sunny
Leone
MOST
INFLUENTIAL
YOUNG
INDIANS
Common
Style
Mistakes
Men Make

FARHAN
Between BUSINESS
JETS FOR
The Lines MERE
MILLIONAIRES
FARHAN AKHTAR

Inside Murdoch’s PHOTOGRAPHED BY TIBI CLENCI

Wall Street War

 Contents

COVER STAR
FARHAN
AKHTAR

SUIT BY DIOR
HOMME. JUMPER BY
ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA.
POCKET SQUARE BY
HUGO BOSS. SHOES BY
HEEL & BUCKLE LONDON

86
The actor’s Akhtar
The one thing you
ON THE
COVER
never want to call
Farhan Akhtar: method.
By Dave Besseling

INDIAN EDITION 15
Life Stories
You Need
To Know

WHAT A MAN’S GOT TO DO

JULY 2015 `150
POWER
LUNCH
INTRODUCING WITH
THE 50 Sunny
Leone
MOST
INFLUENTIAL
YOUNG
INDIANS
Common
Style
Mistakes
Men Make

FARHAN
Between BUSINESS
JETS FOR
The Lines MERE
MILLIONAIRES
FARHAN AKHTAR

Inside Murdoch’s PHOTOGRAPHED BY T BI CLENCI

Wall Street War

PHOTO: TIBI CLENCI

SUIT BY DIOR HOMME. JUMPER

BY ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA.
POCKET SQUARE BY HUGO
BOSS. SHOES BY HEEL & BUCKLE
LONDON

JULY 2015 — 5
 Contents

127
Lisa Ray: The
pin-up’s guide
to the galaxy
She’s just, really, the
whole package.
By Dave Besseling
DRESS BY BORDELLE.
BOY SHORTS BY LA SENZA.
STILETTOS BY CHRISTIAN
LOUBOUTIN

PHOTO: FARROKH CHOTHIA

6
 Contents

154
Sport on
Workout gear gets
a stylish upgrade.
By Arjun Mark
T-SHIRT BY AMI. JACKET BY
BY PHILIPP PLEIN. PANTS BY
NEIL BARRETT. SUNGLASSES
BY GIORGIO ARMANI. HIGH-
TOPS BY GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI

8 — JULY 2015
 Contents

THE

5O MOST
INFLUENTIAL
YOUNG INDIANS
marketing, porn and cracking the Drive 113
Bollywood formula. By Megha Shah

116
We test-drove the Bentley
Mulsanne Speed on the quiet roads
GQ Style 67 of the English countryside
The (real) mile We love these slick water-repellent
high club suits from Raymond; how to look GQ Talk 146
ON THE Flying done right. good while getting wet; the Style 146 Weed: A case for legalizing pot.
COVER
By Varun Godinho Shrink dishes on T-shirts, rock star By Uday Benegal
cred and short suits; six must- 148 Relationships: How to avoid
haves this month; The List the seven-month (or -year) itch.
one of hip-hop’s most outspoken By Nick Smith
22 Editor’s Letter social critics. By Adam Matthews 68 11 common style mistakes
ON THE 150 Art: Indian women artists
COVER
26 Contributors And how to fix them. who’ve defined the modern art
32 GQ Digital 164 In the lair of King Jones By Arjun Mark scene. By Kishore Singh
34 GQ Access Meet the man who’s making Louis 152 Design: The future of our
192 GQ Central Vuitton cool again. cities is green. By Ayaz Basrai
193 Where to Buy By Shivangi Lolayekar Watch 93
196 Open Letter Timepieces for the testosterone-
170 Tropic thunder fuelled guy; Mark A Hayek on Grooming 183
What to wear, wherever you life before becoming the Swatch Groom yourself like a god
Features are – as long as it’s not raining. Group’s bossman with these hi-tech gadgets;
ON THE
47 The 50 most influential By JC De Marcos wearing a floral-based scent
COVER
young Indians is the new power move
These are the guys who’ve done ON THE
178 The 15 biographies Insider 99
COVER
more before they turned 40 than every man should read Asif Kapadia’s latest obsession
you could dream of doing in your What are you waiting for? has turned into another critically
lifetime. Be envious. (We are.) Get cracking. acclaimed documentary; on the
Edited by Megha Shah GQ Playlist: Nanok aka DJ Jai aka
the guy who lays down awesome
ON THE
122 Wall Street shuffle Good Life 37 beats; the month’s movie releases, CORRIGENDUM: In June 2015’s
COVER
When Rupert Murdoch tried Move over, Scotch, it’s Irish decoded according to your mood; “Madras café” (page 43), we printed that
Park Hyatt’s Executive Chef Grzegorz
to change the Wall Street Journal. whiskey’s time to shine; Buzz Culture Wulture; Aziz Ansari
Odolak is German, when he is in fact
By Michael Wolff wrote a book about relationships Polish. Also, the Flying Elephant’s
37 GQ Power Lunch with
ON THE
in the Digital Age; making small Abhishek Shukla does not have an Air
COVER Force engineering background. The errors
138 I ain’t no joke, man Sunny Leone talk sound intelligent; how not to
are regretted.
The life and times of Heems, The Canadian desi talks self- behave in meetings

10 — JULY 2015
 RADO HYPERCHROME
AUTOMATIC CHRONOGRAPH
MONOBLOC CASE
ENGINEERED IN HIGH-TECH CERAMIC
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 EDITOR Che Kurrien PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Arjun Mehra
PUBLISHER Almona Bhatia
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ART DIRECTOR Mihir Shah ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Priyank Vora
PHOTO DIRECTOR Gizelle Cordo ITALY SALES REPRESENTATIVE Angelo Carredu
US ADVERTISING MANAGER Alessandro Cremona
DEPUTY EDITORS Shikha Sethi, Dave Besseling ASIA SALES REPRESENTATIVE Kim Kenchington
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Anish Trivedi
DIRECTOR – VIDEO Anita Horam
Iain Ball CREATIVE PRODUCERS Amrita Mahindroo, Ishita Bahadur
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Karan Johar
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 Letter
from the
Editor

The New
Establishment
W hile a celebration of 50 young overachieving guys might seem
perfectly natural within the present Indian context, in many countries
youth unemployment is running at record levels. In Spain, it’s a
whopping 50 per cent. There is a sense in these countries that the best years are
behind them, that prospects for advancement are bleak and that the economic
tide has shifted elsewhere. This has affected the psyche and confidence of a
THE generation – the effects of which are still to be seen. India has myriad issues, but

5O
there is a definite spark of optimism among the young, a visceral sense that one
can upgrade, get ahead, do better than one’s parents.
I’m delighted to present GQ’s inaugural List of The 50 Most Influential Young
Indians. This new editorial initiative showcases men below the age of 40, who
are increasingly impacting how we live, work and play. They come from a variety
of spheres – business, politics, technology, lifestyle and culture – reflecting not

MOST only a dynamic Indian economy with unprecedented opportunities, but also the
aspirations of our vast, youthful majority. This special package has been presented

INFLUENTIAL within the context of GQ’s highly stylized editorial universe, with beautiful
portraits and cutting-edge design. It’s also an insightful, compelling read.
YOUNG INDIANS Too often, due to the traditional dynamics of our society, elder statesmen
cling on, crowding out the success of generations below. While some of the
personalities that appear in our issue are widely known, many are not. That’s
what makes our New Establishment List so fresh and exciting. It’s an introduction
to the leaders of tomorrow, today.
Enjoy the List, enjoy the issue.

CHE KURR N
Editor
PHOTO: ARJUN MARK (CHE)

22 — JULY 2015
Official Sponsor Developed with Powered by
 Contributors

ADAM MATTHEWS
WHO: Investigative reporter; amateur South Indian chef TIBI CLENCI
WHAT: Profiles New York-based rapper Himanshu “Heems”
Suri, page 138 WHO: Photographer
BLURRED LINES: “Heems surprised me. I expected him to WHAT: Shoots cover star Farhan Akhtar, page 86
be a glib hipster guy but instead he was really sincere and TWO STATES: “Farhan may be the star of the shoot but the dog
caring and seemed to genuinely love and understand hip-hop definitely stole some of the spotlight. He’s massive and incredibly
culture. Having spent two years in India, it was also pretty expressive – at one point it almost seemed like the two were having
cool to be able to catch esoteric hip-hop and Hindi references. an actual conversation.”
Shout out to Mrs Suri for the delicious chicken kheema.”

VIDISHA SRINIVASAN KISHORE SINGH

WHO: Editorial Assistant, WHO: Author of MF Husain,
GQ India The Journey Of A Legend; head
WHAT: Assisted in compiling our of exhibitions and publications,
list of the “50 Most Influential DAG Modern
Young Indians”, page 47 WHAT: Namechecks the great
CREAM OF THE CROP: Indian women painters, page 150
ARJUN MARK “Influence isn’t a word you A GREAT LOVE: “You can’t
simply throw around, so it was choose between women and
WHO: Photographer challenging but fun to create a you can’t choose between
PHOTO: JORDAN RATHUS (ADAM)

WHAT: Gives us ringside seats to the season’s latest list that featured the best from artists and their work – I love
trend in “Sport on”, page 154 all fields, not only your typical them all. I own many works by
ON THE LINE: “We had a lot of boxing and gymnastics suits. The men we’ve selected female artists but I’m looking
props for the actors – Namit Khanna, Prateik and Akshay aren’t just about money and to add an Arpita Singh to my
Oberoi – to play around with, which helped showcase fame. They aren’t trying to collection. That, and something
the comfort and easy style of the sports luxe trend. My outdo someone, either – each by Amrita Sher-Gil!”
favourite shot was of a very flexible Prateik swinging on has instead given the world
the parallel bars.” something to outdo.”

26 — JULY 2015
WHAT’S NEW ON

india.com

Lis Ray
PHOTO: FARROKH CHOTHIA

s back, and
er than ever

LINGERIE BY
LA PERLA

32 — JULY 2015
 YOUR EXCLUSIVE PASS TO THE MOST HAPPENING PARTIES AND EVENTS

Shruti & Swati Shende with Shreyas Bangad Nivedita Saboo

SUMMER NIGHTS
WHAT: GQ Bar Night
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34 — JULY 2015
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 EDITED B Y MEG H A SH A H

THE

WHY YOU SHOULD BE DRINKING

IRISH WHISKEY RIGHT NOW // BUZZ

Power
LUNCH
with

Sunny
Leone
Sunny Leone’s unusual career
best represents India’s complex
sexual psyche: a mix of prurient
prudishness and genuine
acceptance. Over fusion food, the
Canadian desi tells Megha Shah why
the porn industry and Bollywood
aren’t all that different
PHOTO: MANISH MANSINH. LOCATION: THE BOMBAY CANTEEN, MUMBAI

here’s much to learn about privacy

from an ex-porn star’s husband. Daniel
Weber pulls up in a white Audi in front
of The Bombay Canteen in Lower
Parel, Mumbai, but doesn’t get out
until he is greeted by a staff member
who assures him his path to the door
– all of 10 steps – is clear. He steps out, black
Aviators shading his eyes, a hand on his
wife’s back, and walks at a quick pace before
any diners, who think they might have just
spotted the country’s most famous former
adult actress, have time to do a double take.
Commendable as their efforts at being
undetected are, the couple strike a dissonant
note in most surroundings: Sunny Leone, in
a loud, skin-tight dress that stretches, with
some effort, over her curves, and Weber, who,

JULY 2015 — 37
 LUNCH WITH GQ

done whatever I could have done

wrong before coming here.”
What has she done wrong, I ask.
“Well, I mean, you know, people
might think getting into the adult
entertainment industry is wrong.”
And what does she think?
“I think it’s what got me to this
table,” she states, simply. “Do you
know what that kind of material does
for somebody? It evokes an emotion,
and they develop a relationship with
you. There are some very powerful
and diehard Sunny Leone fans out
there. The kind that no Bollywood or
Hollywood actress can have. So, I will
always be all right.”
The next plate of food piques her
interest, to some degree: Spicy chicken
tacos made using the Gujarati staple,
thepla, instead of the usual corn tortilla.
“It isn’t rocket science to make it
in either industry,” she says, poking a
fork into the meat. “For porn, all you
need is half a brain and a pretty face.
It’s the same for Bollywood, just add
‘Be on time and be charming’.” The
33-year-old shrugs.
“I figured out porn quickly. I started
She belongs to the new era of porn - a sex-happy generation my own website. I taught myself
HTML, Photoshop and editing videos.
that isn‘t a victim and doesn‘t have daddy issues Everything that goes into marketing
a website – social media, what search
doused in tattoos and rock star charms, films releasing in the next year alone), engine optimization is, how to get
looks as though his skin is not on Sunny had made a reasonable name traffic. People are wondering how
speaking terms with daylight. Together in the adult film world in the US. She there are so many pages on Sunny
they purport an impassive, almost had a spot among the top 12 porn stars Leone out there. That’s because I’ve
impassable air that seems to suggest named by Maxim, the title of Pet Of The been self-populating them since 2001.”
they belong to a different world. Year in soft-core magazine Penthouse She belongs to the new era of porn
As they separate – Sunny sits in – a big deal among American – a sex-happy generation that isn’t
front of me and Weber slings himself pubescents – and a case of ennui that a victim and doesn’t have daddy issues.
casually into a chair nearby, within felt terminal. A fortuitous call in 2010 Yet, she doesn’t pretend to have any
earshot of our conversation – the asking her to be a Wild Card entry in righteous pride in her ex-profession
illusion drops slightly. Bigg Boss Season 5 shook things up. or proclaim any emancipatory ideas,
“I come from a different She flew down to India and was soon like many feminist porn stars of her
background from the rest of the pole dancing for the contestants in one generation. For her, it was a business.

PHOTO: MANISH MANSINH. LOCATION: THE BOMBAY CANTEEN, MUMBAI

industry,” Sunny says, with a episode. In the next, Mahesh Bhatt Quick and dirty. And she figured how
Thepla tacos:
surprisingly pleasing American lilt. was entering the house to sign her on to get the most out of it, without
one of Indian-
“I don’t go to many Bollywood parties. for Jism 2. American chef needing to give too much.
I attended the Filmfare Awards this “What many people don’t know is Floyd Cardoz’s She started off only posing for
year and I know all the actresses were that I had quit porn before I did Bigg many cross- pictures, and gained popularity by
over creations
looking at me. I feel like the elephant Boss. I was at the top of my game and at The Bombay marketing her website smartly and
in most rooms.” She laughs. I wanted out,” she says flatly. Canteen by, well, being hot. She then
“I would like to be friends. To be The waiter arrives with a plate of
able to ask questions about the industry Arbi Tuk: fried chunks of taro peppered
or just say ‘Hi, I’m Sunny. I’m friendly. with chaat. Sunny smiles at the food
Why don’t you get to know me?’” politely, but makes no move towards
For someone who gets stared at a it. The last time she had anything fried
lot, Sunny stares back, hard. Her eyes, was probably when she was staying
two pools of hazel, seem to have the with her parents in Ontario, being fed
ability to not blink for long intervals, by her Punjabi mother.
and her gaze is steady. “Working in Bollywood can
Before she became Bollywood’s be very lonely,” she says. “It’s
favourite new racy import (she has six challenging, but I’m not afraid. I’ve

38 — JULY 2015
approached one of the biggest Yet, it’s clear, from the Sunlust pages of Bollywood with content
companies in the business, Vivid, with Pictures website, that the brand relies – good or bad. It seems not to concern
an unusual offer: to work exclusively heavily on her assets. Sunny is pouting her too much that her films so far
with women. She declared she was out from every page in a barely-there have been unremarkable potboilers
bisexual – which only made her bikini, proclaiming, “I will give each or that her latest mega project, Ek
more desirable – and earned most customer what they want. SEX!” Paheli Leela, has been awarded zero
of her fame through girl-on-girl I ask Weber what it’s like to be stars by some critics. It’s more about
content, eventually going on to work married to someone whose job, her brand. She’ll kiss another girl
with only two men: then-boyfriend largely, is to titillate other men. on-screen, bathe in a tub and even
Matt Erickson, and later her current “Sunny is the product, you know?” orgasm on call – all the while playing
husband, Daniel Weber. he explains. “My wife is Karanjit Kaur the lead. And the most interesting
“I see the world in numbers. Vohra, it’s totally separate in my mind. thing about it all is that she attracts a
I was the little girl who went Sunny Leone is just the brand.” mainstream audience and sparks all
door-to-door and sold items for He says it like the whole kerfuffle sorts of conversations, quips and even
a soccer team. I sold lemonade, isn’t as dramatic as people seem to a minor fight between politicians like
shovelled snow. Just to be ahead of think. Like choosing a stage name Abhishek Singhvi and Omar Abdullah
all the other kids on the block. When feels less like concealing your identity on Twitter.
I was 15, I got a job.” Sunny pauses, as and more like deciding a username for “V shd be careful that western
though suddenly hesitant to dredge an internet service or website. rejects like sunny leone are not
up the wreckages of her younger self. Leone is equally forthright about allowed to epitomise indian culture
“The porn industry is a her ambitions for Bollywood: that or acquire the status of a Bollywood
multibillion-dollar industry,” she they’re big. Just like everything icon”, Singhvi tweeted.

Power
says slowly. “And it will never face else about her. Together, she Leone is mostly unfazed, and sums
recession. It’s the same with and Weber want to build a it up with her special logic: “I earn
Bollywood. I want to make Sunny Leone megacomplex more than the President of America.
every dollar there is to make.”
As the whisky cocktail she’s
sipping slowly makes its way
to her mostly empty stomach,
Sunny oozes adrenaline and
LUNCH
with
and keep populating the I’m doing something right.”

chatters on with a self-lacerating

sense of humour. “There’s a Sunny
Leone roast happening every day,”
she laughs delicately. “But I don’t know
if I would do one on TV, there’s enough
jokes about me without people needing
another platform to voice them on.”
“You don’t get it,” Weber intervenes
from his table. “People like Charlie
Sheen and Justin Bieber have roasts.
It’s a huge compliment.”
Weber, an ex-porn maverick
himself, is to Leone what Kris Jenner
is to Kim Kardashian. He is her
manager and assistant, he reads all her
scripts, accompanies her to meetings
and shoots and even acts as her
bodyguard, intimidating directors and
producers when necessary. He’s helped
her go from someone being famous
for being infamous to a star in her
own right. She hasn’t just invaded
Bollywood, her films have metastasized
into adverts for her brand.
He joins us for dessert: an Eton
mess spiked with aam panna. We
begin talking about the production
company Weber and Leone began
together, which produces porno,
co-produces Leone’s Bollywood
ventures and sells everything from
sex toys to kinky boots. “My husband
owns that completely now. I’m out of
it,” Leone quickly clarifies.

JULY 2015 — 39
 DRINK

S o d O f f,
known merely as a drink for drowning sorrows or
having with coffee, it’s steadily becoming the toast of
the town. And global industry experts are predicting
a 60 per cent growth in the next few years.

scotch
It’s had an unusual trajectory. There was a time,
back in the 19th and early 20th century, when it was
the leading whisky category – similar to Scotch today.
Some even argue that whiskey was born in Ireland
and carried to Scotland by monks. The popularity of
Irish whiskey was spearheaded by consumption in
the US, driven by Irish immigrants, but was hit hard
during the World Wars and Prohibition. For decades
after, it was considered boring and inferior, until
brands like Jameson and Bushmills kicked off a new
chapter working painstakingly to change the palate of
hard-nosed customers who wouldn’t put down their
glasses of Scotch. Over time, their efforts paid off and
customers in the US, Europe and Australia began

ONCE KNOWN warming up to the drop of the pure. Encouraged by

the demand, new brands focusing on quality drams

Long eclipsed by its bolder, more

AS A DRINK began to emerge in Ireland, giving whiskey a cool,
boutique image.
brawling Scottish and American cousins, MEANT India’s romance with the stuff, though, has just

ONLY FOR
Irish whiskey is finding its feet and begun. While Jameson is the best-known brand,
Bushmills has a growing presence in the country.
packing a punch, says Sandeep Arora
DROWNING The Red Breast 12 YO and the 15 YO are finding a

T
place of pride in many home bars. Evolved folks are
SORROWS OR also buying the complex Middleton Pure Pot Still
whiskey. It is rumoured that Cooley Brands, Ireland’s
HAVING WITH youngest and only independent distillery, is bringing
en years ago, if you’d told me Irish whiskey
would be a trend, I would have knocked you on COFFEE, IRISH Connemara & Kilbeggan to the country soon. And,
come September, Tullamore Dew from William Grant
the head. If you had persisted that it had moved
on from its image of being a Bath Tub whiskey I might
WHISKEY IS & Sons will launch here.
Young high-rollers who enjoy a more complex
have given you a weary look. You’d only have gotten a STEADILY taste and have an adventurous spirit will be the first

BECOMING
reaction if you’d stated that it’s beginning to threaten to embrace Irish whiskey as their preferred pour –
its Gaelic neighbours, the Scots. but it won’t be long before your Scotch-swilling uncle
Today, Irish whiskey is having a moment. Once
THE TOAST OF will be sipping it in his study too.

THE TOWN
THE BOTTLES TO SCORE:

IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK (BACKGROUND)

BUSHMILLS KILBEGGAN 15 YO JAMESON 18 YO POWERS GOLD LABEL TULLAMORE DEW PADDY CONNEMARA
SINGLE MALT A full, well-balanced Wonderfully smooth, Full-flavoured, A fresh fruity start leads Mild, soft, with a distinctive PEATED WHISKEY
Melted chocolate that whiskey with notes of with a complex flavour predominantly pot still to a light spiciness, mellow maltiness, a touch Full and smooth, with
rests on the tongue morello cherry, dry spice of fudge, toffee, spice, whiskey with honeyed followed by some of sweet oil, spiciness – and notes of malt and peat,
before releasing a and charred oak. hints of wood and spicy notes. toasted wood, which background notes of honey, honeyed smoke and
hint of honey in your leather, vanilla and a evolves into a delicious vanilla and toasted wood. barley sweetness.
cheeks. gentle sherry nuttiness. vanilla sweetness.

40 — JULY 2015
OTHERWORLD SLEEP
Wildlife spotting is one of the coolest new ways to vacation in
the country. But whether you’re going solo, with your bros or
that potential bone partner, you’ll need a decent place to sleep –
and Jamtara Wilderness Camp has a kickass new option. The
year-old resort at the edge of the Pench National Park lets you
take a break from your luxury tent and spend a night in its star
bed: a four-poster double bed placed on a platform in the middle
of acres of farmland, with nothing but a mosquito net between
you and a big slice of sky. Thankfully, a hot shower and world-
class food are just a few minutes’ walk away. Bookings now open
for the season beginning in October; jamtarawilderness.com

Yin & bao

It’s the year of Chef
Manu Chandra. After
the heady success of
his gastropub Monkey ALL THAT’S HOT THIS MONTH
Bar in Bengaluru, Delhi
and recently Mumbai,
he’s set his sights on
Why the Four Seasons expanding his brand of fusion food and cheerful
quirk at The Fatty Bao. The latest iteration of the
Around The World Asian eatery opens this month in Delhi’s Sangam
Tour will spoil it for Courtyard, alongside Ritu Dalmia’s DIVA and
all future vacations: celeb chef Marut Sikka’s Delhi Club House. Expect
Chandra’s trademark inventiveness with dishes like
You travel around the world in
1 a Four Seasons reconfigured
Boeing 757 private jet that caters to
crispy duck pizza with hoisin sauce and cocktails like
the Mandalay Bay (jasmine tea, vodka, lime juice,
only 52 passengers. orange slices, topped up with ginger beer). Opens
mid-July in Sangam Courtyard, RK Puram, Delhi
There are 21 staff members
2 (including three pilots, two
engineers, a travel coordinator,
concierge, exec chef, photographer
and physician) to see to your every
need, from sourcing that exclusive
Trappist beer from Budapest to
photographing your entire trip
for you.
At your disposal: Bvlgari amenity
WATER COLOURS
3 kits, Mongolian cashmere
blankets, Bose headphones and an
If Alibaug is Mumbai’s answer to the Hamptons,
it follows that there would also be golf clubs and
an extensive art community – something the
iPad Air 2, which you receive in US seaside escape is known for. While building
advance (and can keep). Also, free those golf holes among the sleepy Indian town’s
in-flight Wi-Fi. unpaved, rocky roads might take some time,
WORDS: VRITTI RASHI GOEL

The multi-city “experiences” on The Guild has already moved in from the art-
4 offer in 2016 are lavish. Our
favourite: the International Intrigue,
saturated lanes of Colaba. Currently exhibiting
two films on artists Himmat Shah and Baiju
which includes a private dinner on Parthan, the 3,500sqft gallery is for the serious
the Great Wall and a game drive in art collector and promises quiet, peaceful
the Serengeti. viewing of its works – or at least a respite from
Bookings now open for 2016; the new neighbours who keep dropping hints
fourseasons.com/aroundtheworld about using your sauna. guildindia.com

44 — JULY 2015
 THE

5O
MOST
INFLUENTIAL
YOUNG INDIANS
IN ASSOCIATION WITH They say Age equals Wisdom. We don’t buy it.
At least, not fully. The 50 men on this list*
have shown that you don’t need to be grey
to wield power and profoundly influence
lives. These guys come from a diverse range
of backgrounds and professions, reflecting
not just the optimistic, youthful population
of India but also its dynamic economy.
Meet the leaders of tomorrow, today
* Presented in no particular order

ASSOCIATE PARTNER

Edited by MEGHA SHAH

JULY 2015 — 47
ADITYA
GHOSH
President, Indigo Airlines

WORDS: VARUN GODINHO, MERYL D'SOUZA, DAVE BESSELING. IMAGE: TARUN VISHWA (GHOSH), REUTERS (SRIKANTH), ABHISHEK BALI (SHARMA)
AGE: 39
BORN IN: KOLKATA
When the former corporate lawyer was
offered the job of heading IndiGo Airlines
before his 33rd birthday, he was an
outsider, looking warily inside. This proved
to be an advantage.
He wasn’t influenced by the flawed,
often self-destructive styles of some of
the other industry bossmen: unlike a
flamboyant liquor baron, Ghosh didn’t
suffer from managerial hubris; unlike an
NRI, Ghosh was able to adopt a hands-on
approach, even standing at the departure
gate checking tickets to get a sense of the
business on the ground. “I got yelled at by
a lady in Mumbai who told me, ‘You’re an
idiot, you have no idea what’s going on’,”
he recalls.
What Ghosh has managed to
demonstrate with IndiGo is that low cost
needn’t equal low quality – evident in the
innovative customer service, in-flight food
and self-deprecating management style
that’s reflected in the front-end operations.
Whether or not its rumoured $400 million
IPO takes flight (“We’ve appointed a bunch
of bankers to do the mechanicals on it”),
India’s only profitable airline is in rude
health. And Ghosh has proven to be the
ideal captain to run this tight ship.

48 — JULY 2015
 True to his millennial status, Kidambi was, in his own
words, a “lethargic, easy-going kid who refused to take
anything seriously”. He was content living in his older

SRIKANTH brother’s shadow when it came to the sport he now

plays for a living. Even at the China Open final against
his idol Lin Dan last year, his expression remained

KIDAMBI calm, as if he were swatting away a training partner at

his Hyderabad Academy – where he practised under
the watchful eye of Pullela Gopichand. To put his
accomplishment into perspective: Lin Dan is a five-time
world champion, a two-time Olympic gold medallist
and a five-time China Open champion. Beating Dan
in his own den was like defeating Rafael Nadal at the
Badminton Player French Open. Today, the Badminton World Federation
AGE: 22 ranks Kidambi as the world’s third best player. Not
too shabby for a boy from Andhra Pradesh who three
BORN IN: Guntur, AP years ago was ranked 240.

RAHUL SHARMA
Co-founder & executive director, Micromax
AGE: 37
BORN IN: Delhi
It wasn’t long ago that the boss of one of India’s biggest mobile
phone manufacturers was schlepping through the villages of
Bihar, peddling his handsets, hoping to prove to his colleagues
back in the NCR that rural India would, as Sharma puts it, “buy
a mobile phone that said Micromax on it.” It worked. And now
he’s sitting atop a 10,000-crore company that’s duking it out
with global powerhouse Samsung for the No 1 spot in a cut-
throat Indian market.
Sharma’s also started an exciting new brand, YU
Televentures, whose Android-based OS will “create a
connected ecosystem of devices and services.” If all goes
according to plan, YU just might do to mobile software what
Micromax did to mobile hardware – disrupt, disrupt, disrupt.

Satyan Gajwani
CEO, Times Internet
Age: 30 Born in: Miami, florida
Twenty-seven. It’s that mystical age at which stars like Janis Joplin,
Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse died before their
time. For Satyan Gajwani, 27 was when the rock star thing got
started. While studying at Stanford, he began dating a nice Indian
girl, whose dad and uncle happened to run the biggest media
company in India, the Times Group. The Jain brothers found that
Gajwani’s computer engineering background would do rather nicely
for the digital arm of the media empire.
In the three years since, the programmer and hacker has split
Times Internet Ltd into a cluster of silos that operate as independent
partnerships – with the likes of Business Insider and Huffington Post
India. “Our teams have the freedom and autonomy to aim high, and
sometimes make mistakes.” His latest punt? Buying a stake in Uber
India as part of a strategic marketing partnership.

JULY 2015 — 49
 ZORAWAR KALRA
FouNder & MD, Massive restaurants
AGE: 38
BORN IN: DELHI
From Dum Pukht to Great Kebab Factory, a pubescent Zorawar

WORDS: SHIKHA SETHI, MEGHA SHAH, DAVE BESSELING. IMAGE: PRABHAT SHETTY (BASRAI), MANISH MANSINH (TRIPATI), PRASAD NAIK (SINGH)
watched as others profited from his father chef Jiggs Kalra’s wealth
of culinary knowledge, vowing then to be in charge of his own ideas,
creatively and financially. He got himself a business degree and
immediately sensed an opportunity to nudge Indian cuisine into the
conversation about fine dining. He opened up, in quick succession,
trendy restaurants specializing in creative Indian cooking. Walk into
the packed Farzi Café in Delhi or Masala Library in Mumbai, and the

Ayaz Basrai demographic is new and unprecedented: young high-rollers eating

here not only because they enjoy it, but because it’s cool.
The golf enthusiast, who is as flamboyant as the smoked,
liquefied and spherified dishes he serves festooned with clever nods
Co-founder, the Busride Design Studio to the homeland, is now opening outlets in New York, Dubai and
Age: 36 Born in: Godavarikhani, telangana London, and is on the brink of hatching his fourth brand, which
promises to be this season’s most talked-about new opening. Pa
Pa Ya will attempt to do for Asian food what Masala Library did for
If you’ve ever admired the Art Deco-inspired décor of the Bombay Indian cuisine: Destroy misconceptions.
Canteen, or Cafe Zoe’s hipster exposed brick and brushed steel
environs, chuckled at the quirky hand-drawn illustrations in Smoke
House Delis across the country or noticed the elegant signage at
Mumbai’s new international airport, you’ve already experienced
Ayaz Basrai’s work.
Since he set up his design studio Busride in 2008 with his brother
Zameer, the NID graduate’s been redefining the way we eat, drink,
shop and play by designing hip new spaces with a distinctive, cool
vibe that wouldn’t look out of place in New York, Tokyo or Barcelona.
And those are just his commercial projects. Basrai is also part of
a buzzing local cultural scene, repurposing old buildings such as
St Jude’s Bakery in Bandra to function as a modern multi-purpose
space. He’s also the driving force behind The Bandra Project, which
aims to map the neighbourhood through its people and distinctive
soundscape rather than just its architecture – an enterprise that’s
typical of Basrai’s ability to seamlessly bring together academic
theory and practice. “Designers don’t have the luxury of pessimism.
The city is an immediate happening, and it’s important to get out and
contribute,” he says.

He’s never been to Brazil, but Goyal’s Gurgaon-based startup can suggest,

DEEPINDER to a local, the best items at a small boteco in Porto Alegre, list where to
find Cantonese food in Salvador, let him browse entire menus updated

GOYAL
every 90 days, and read comments by patrons that are monitored by a
team checking for anomalies and biases. When it launched in India seven
years ago, Zomato evened out the field for restaurants big and small by
providing an open avenue to engage directly with customers – a game-
changer in what’s forecasted to be a $78-billion industry in India by 2018.
Co-Founder & CEO, Zomato also stands out for its seemingly simple but effective
innovations – such as a newly launched online ordering service, where
Zomato the company takes a cut from the orders, but the percentage decreases as
the restaurant’s ratings increase, and its dedicated team of data collectors
AGE: 32 for every city who are trained in an extensive boot camp and who scour
BORN IN: muktsar, punjab each street for tiny gems. “We want to be the Lonely Planet of food,” Goyal
explains. And with Zomato set to capture markets like Norway, Sweden,
Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium, Singapore and Malaysia over the next 12
months, that’s underselling it.

50 — JULY 2015
 AMISH
TRIPATHI
Author
AGE: 40
BORN IN: Mumbai
On paper, the ex-banker’s mythological
thrillers shouldn’t work at all. Even the 20-
odd publishers who rejected his first book
thought so. The religious subject (his first
trilogy traces the transformation of Shiva
from man to god) shouldn’t appeal to the
urban youth, the radical take on it should
alienate the religious, and the easy language
shouldn’t impress the literati.
But Tripathi’s self-published best-seller
not only resonated with vast swathes
of readers, landing him a film deal with
Dharma Productions, it also gave him the
leverage to score a record deal – `5 crore
for a quintet on the life of Ram. And Tripathi
knows how to promote his product: for the
Shiva trilogy, he placed free chapters at the
till of book stores as well as created trailers
and music videos, played strategically before
blockbusters in theatres.
Authors devising canny marketing

Ranveer Singh strategies – or getting involved in marketing

at all – is a relatively new phenomenon in
India, with most writers unwilling or unable
to drive an unconventional promotion plan.
ACTOR It’s also why Tripathi’s scored the big bucks.
Age: 30 Born in: Mumbai
Onscreen, our favourite Bandra boy has managed to avoid typecasting,
holding an appeal for just about every young person in the country, male
or female. He can do Ram-Leela. He can do Lootera. He can be the most
memorable character in Finding Fanny with one scene and zero dialogue. He
can be the butt of vitriolic jokes and give back equally in a historic roast to a
stadium full of fans. Then he can appear at a GQ event in a top hat, Muppet
pyjamas and a silk bathrobe – and totally pull it off. Always looking to push
boundaries and experiment, Ranveer never takes himself too seriously – a
trait that makes him arguably the most relevant actor today.
His is a life pulled straight off one of those vision-boards all those people
who read The Secret are so into. “Oh, you have to have a vision board,” says
the actor. “They really do work. And that reminds me, I need to update mine.”
What else is there to put on it, Ranveer? A pet unicorn on a private island?

JULY 2015 — 51
 Pirojsha Godrej
MD & CEO, Godrej Properties
Age: 33 Born in: Mumbai
In the murky world of realty where a developer
is often considered reputable if he doesn’t
shortchange the consumer, the MD of the real estate
arm of the Godrej conglomerate is out to clean
things up. With a no-cash policy and watertight,
transparent processes that won’t be compromised,
Pirojsha has quickly made Godrej Properties a
player to reckon with. It helps that Indians have
trusted the Godrej brand for generations.
Ten years ago, Godrej Properties was a relatively
small enterprise. But with an ancestral bank of land

WORDS: SHIKHA SETHI, MEGHA SHAH, ROCHELLE PINTO, NIDHI GUPTA, SHIVANGI LOLAYEKAR, MERYL D'SOUZA. IMAGE: ABHISHEK BALI (CHAUHAN), DINESH MADHAVAN FOR IMAGE MEDIA (MISHRA)
and over a century’s worth of business insights
to dip into, it wasn’t long before the Wharton
and Columbia graduate was able to scale up

ASEEM
the firm’s presence to 12 cities with projects that
span approximately 100 million sqft. His point of
difference: partnerships with land owners for the

CHAUHAN
bulk of projects instead of whole ownership – a
strategy that mitigates risks. That doesn’t mean he’s
going to be conservative: his dad Adi has set him an
ambitious revenue target of `20,000 crore by 2020.

Chancellor, Amity University

AGE: 40 RAHUL MISHRA
BORN IN: Hanover, Germany
Fashion Designer
Aseem Chauhan may have pioneered Age: 35
private university education in India, but
he didn’t actually move to the country till Born in: Malhausi, UP
he was 26. Once he did, the ex-JP Morgan
The distance from Malhausi, Uttar Pradesh
banker and UPenn grad found his feet
quickly, approaching the education trust to Milan, Italy is 6,441 kilometres. Which
set up by his father Ashok Chauhan like a is why when Rahul Mishra finally made
business, swiftly figuring out how to launch that journey, he made it count. He’s the
the Amity brand and deciding which new first Indian to win the coveted Woolmark
projects to greenlight. Prize, an award that kickstarted the
Today Chauhan, who was instrumental careers of men like Karl Lagerfeld and
in setting up American-scale private Yves Saint Laurent. His collections –
universities in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and stocked in the world’s most prestigious
Haryana, holds the keys to an education stores from London’s Harvey Nichols to
empire that includes at least seven campuses Colette in Paris – are selling out and he
across the country and several international can barely hire people fast enough to keep
ones, from London to China. Amity serves production moving smoothly. But the
over 125,000 students pursuing over 250 glamour of international fashion weeks
programmes, including nanotechnology and hasn’t distracted the man – whose very
forensic sciences – courses Chauhan asserts first collection was based on the concept
are helping students “keep up with the of sustainable fashion, a line of reversible
market’s changing needs.”
garments handwoven in Kerala using
Right now, he’s excited about a new
organic cotton – from his original mission.
initiative that will extend Amity’s reach even
“I’ve started a reverse migration,”
further – a TV channel in Hindi, English
Mishra says. “I’m moving the embroiderers
and key regional languages that will beam
educational programmes to thousands of who work in slums in Dharavi back to their
homes across the country. “In the future,” villages and setting up production facilities
Chauhan adds, “people will learn on there. Now their income has increased by 40
their phones. We will see a hybrid kind of per cent, they live healthier lives and watch
education that mixes open learning as well their children grow up. That’s the real power
as traditional forms of teaching, and Amity of fashion.”
will be at the cutting edge of it.”

52 — JULY 2015
 ARUN CHANDRA
MOHAN
co-Founder & CEO,
Jabong
AGE: 35
ARUNABH BORN IN: chennai
KUMAR
A two billion-dollar investment
in Amazon India and the
alliance between two
heavyweight players in the
e-commerce space last year did
Founder & CEO, TVF Group nothing to worry Arun Chandra
AGE: 32 Mohan. The founder and CEO
of Jabong was sitting confident,
BORN IN: Muzaffarpur, having entered India’s e-tail
bihar fashion market way back in
2011, when online shopping
was still dominated by eBay. At
Arunabh Kumar has an air of
the time, Mohan had launched
vindication these days. The Viral
Jabong with a clear goal: to
Fever, home to humorous, youth-
provide an assortment of high-
oriented digital shorts (a far cry
end and mass labels to Indian
from the soaps and reality shows
millennials, especially those
you find on TV), is YouTube’s
in tier II cities that didn’t have
most popular Indian channel.
ready retail access to brands.
Their sketches rarely get less than
“Every other e-commerce
a million hits. His first original
portal was paying attention
drama Permanent Roommates
to electronics and books, not
is the second most-watched
realizing that fashion is essential
web series in the world. Today
to young India, and that they’ll
he counts Arvind Kejriwal and
spend money to look good,”
Shah Rukh Khan, who have both
says Mohan
appeared on TVF, among his fans.
Recently, Mohan has kicked
Yet three years ago, MTV had
shot down his pitch. “This isn’t
what Indian audiences want
his brand’s presence into
overdrive, creating a partnership Anurag Thakur
with Lakmé Fashion Week,
to watch,” they’d told him. So
roping in Rohit Bal and Gaurav Secretary, BCCI & President of BJP’s youth wing
Kumar took to YouTube. The
Gupta to design collections
Viral Fever was launched with
a 12-minute parody of MTV
and teaming up with Alia Bhatt Age: 40 Born in: Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh
for a fashion line. The effect:
Roadies, and got a million views
everyone from Delhi socialites As the Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India,
in five days.
to undergraduates in Jharkhand Anurag Thakur is the youthful face of an organization seen as
Between attending creative
are swiping away on Jabong. the preserve of powerful, crusty old men. The two-time BJP MP
conferences across the globe,
and hanging out with the likes from Himachal Pradesh is the man every faction in the BCCI
of Snoop Dogg and Shane wants to court, and he’s tipped to be Board President in 2017,
Smith, co-founder of VICE, when the North Zone gets its turn at the top. It helps that he
he’s cementing his place in the knows his way around the corridors of power – he’s the President
industry. Kumar’s plan to build of the BJP’s Youth Wing, and his father, Prem Kumar Dhumal,
a production empire like HBO is a former Chief Minister. Yet his personal achievements are
or Disney is in the works; but sigificant too, none more impressive than the spectacular new
for now, he’s launching a new stadium he helped build in Dharamsala, set against the backdrop
channel for Indian indie cinema of snow-clad peaks – arguably one of the most scenic cricket
and has rolled out an original grounds in the world. But his real focus will be keeping the BCCI
series called Pitchers. “A million out of controversy, as well as meeting his stated commitment to
subscribers can’t be wrong.” transparency and accountablility – something that’s been in short
he quips. supply in recent years.

JULY 2015 — 53
VIJAY & AJAY NAIR
Rohan Murty
Founder + CEO, CFO & Director,
Endower of the Murty Classical
only much louder (oml) Library of India
AGEs: 32, 34
Age: 31 Born in: BENGALURU
BORN IN: MUMBAI
After breezing through a Harvard PhD, Rohan Murty, computer
scientist and son of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy decided
to come home and go back in time. Teaming up with Columbia
University’s South Asia specialist Sheldon Pollock, Murty’s $5.2 million
gift has furnished an endowment that will see over 500 ancient Indian
classics translated into English from over 20 Indian languages.
“We plan on publishing three to five books every year for the next
100 years,” says Murty and that, “My only desire is for everybody to
appreciate the deep value of ancient Indian literature. Nothing more,
nothing less.” In an age where some wish to anchor India’s future to a
past of their own fashioning, exposing as many people as possible to our
dizzyingly diverse history can be nothing but a good thing.

WORDS: SHIVANGI LOLAYEKAR, DAVE BESSELING, SHIKHA SETHI. IMAGE: VIVEK MUTHURAMALINGAM (MURTY), MANISH MANSINH (MASAND), GETTY IMAGES (PILOT)
If you’re under 35, you know that the festival marketed
as India’s happiest, NH7 Weekender, is hitting Shillong
this year. The guys behind the festival, Vijay and Ajay
Nair, are unfazed that they’ll have to bank heavily on the
local population to pack the venue since only a handful
of flights enter Shillong at that time of year. The Nair
brothers are instead more concerned about putting out
a magical experience. Just like the first instalment half a
decade ago.
What Vijay conceptualized back then was an indigenous
music festival modelled on international standards – the
Indian Glastonbury. He’d championed alternative music
for eight years before consolidating it into one ambitious
property. And the first edition was special: a 3,000-strong
crowd yearning to be part of a new movement. Yet,
until Ajay came on board, a second edition seemed a
distant possibility. The finance whiz gave the company a
commercial framework, and the festival gained muscle
every year with a new city (Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata)
added to the schedule. Their company, Only Much
Louder, also produced the notorious AIB roast last year,
besides flying in David Guetta and Norah Jones, as well
as managing artists like Pentagram, Nucleya and Dualist
Inquiry. Thanks to the Nairs, strident teenagers, scenesters,
networking yuppies and 40-plus folks alike are now all part
of India’s music revolution.

54 — JULY 2015
 RAJEEV These days, writing a movie review is modus operandi No.1 for any
inexperienced hack looking to hold forth online, and film experts are now
competing with a bunch of kids fishing for hits with clickbait. But it’s not all a

MASAND lost art – there are a handful of film critics in India people still take seriously,
including the 640,000 folks on Twitter who follow stalwart film buff and
industry insider Rajeev Masand.
He started his reporting career at an age when most people are learning
to drive, and has since interviewed every Bollywood actor who matters,
Film Critic, TV host hosted three TV shows, and is Hollywood’s man in Mumbai. No Indian has
reported from as many Western red carpets or interviewed as many global
AGE: 36 film celebrities. In the age of digital disruption, this crafty man of the people
has adapted himself into the role of a whole new kind of gatekeeper.
BORN IN: MUMBAI

SACHIN PILOT
President of the Rajasthan Pradesh
Congress committee, former Union
Minister for IT and Corporate Affairs
AGE: 37
BORN IN: Saharanpur, up
Sachin Pilot is the Rahul Dravid of Indian politics:
unflappable, cool, reliable, and his team’s go-to guy in
tough situations. After his party’s crushing defeat in the
2014 general elections, and in Rajasthan the year before,
Pilot was mandated to “revive and rebuild” the Congress
in India’s largest state and reposition it as a modern, viable
alternative to the ruling party. An uphill task, but one that
the St Stephen’s and Wharton graduate has embraced
with unflagging energy.
On a day-to-day basis, he’s holding meetings with
farmers and leaders of business and industry alike, while
taking the state government to task in Parliament. “My
main focus is on building the party’s membership base,
by talking to people who are not traditionally political
in nature – the chamber of commerce, college students,
young professionals, NGOs – to directly find out what they
need, and carry as many people as we can with us.” He
may not be on the winning team for now, but like Dravid
he knows the value of patience, resilience and spending
time in the middle.

Not many illustrators can brag about having collaborated with iconic fashion
Sameer designers on their first major artistic project. Sameer Kulavoor can: In 2013, he
worked with Sir Paul Smith to produce a limited-edition range of T-shirts based on

Kulavoor his Ghoda Cycle Project.

As one of the country’s most sought-after visual artists, and named one of
the world’s “top 200 illustrators” by Lürzer’s Archive, Kulavoor has successfully
put illustration on par with the other fine arts in India. His portfolio includes
Visual Artist & designing and illustrating for brands such as GQ, Pepsi and music festival
NH7 Weekender, as well as kickstarting internationally recognized initiatives
Founder, Bombay such as 100%ZINE, to showcase the coolest new talent in the country, which
he co-founded with buddy and fellow illustrator Lokesh Karekar. He’s being
Duck Designs recognized for it, too – earlier this year, the moustachioed Kulavoor was one of a
handful of cultural influencers featured prominently in Nike India’s #BleedBlue
Age: 31 campaign for the 2015 World Cup. And now, with a partnership with Nike
Global on a range of cricket jerseys for the 2016 IPL season, Kulavoor is all set to
Born in: MUMBAI go mainstream.

JULY 2015 — 55
 PRABHAT
ABHISHEK
CHOUDHARY
LODHA Founder, Spice PR
MD, Lodha Group AGE: 36
AGE: 35 BORN IN: Delhi
BORN IN: Mumbai
While promoting 3 Idiots with Aamir
Is owning a home designed by Khan – one of the many Bollywood
Giorgio Armani on your wish bigwigs managed by Spice PR – in
list? Abhishek Lodha can help. Mughalsarai in UP, Choudhary
Since taking charge of the noticed that many on-lookers didn’t
construction empire in 2003, recognize the superstar in front of
he’s been striving to redefine them. That got him thinking about the
luxury for Mumbai, Pune and lack of effective movie promotions
Hyderabad’s hyper-affluent outside big cities, and he launched
clientele. And he’s made all Spice Bhasha: an initiative specifically
the right moves. He closed targeted to attract movie-going
Maximum City’s largest audiences in India’s rural centres.
land deal at a whopping Soon he had Aamir participate in
`4,050 crore in 2010, has a wedding in Punjab (for 3 Idiots),
unveiled lavish plans for the Salman visit a school in Indore (for
world’s tallest residential Ek Tha Tiger), and had Vidya Balan’s
tower, World One, and is promotion costumes for The Dirty
aggressively acquiring land in Picture sourced and tailored from
London’s booming property local markets of the places she was
market, where he plans to be scheduled to visit.
among the top two developers For Choudhary, it’s all about
over the next five years.
But what’s generating the
Pradyot Bikram reinventing the film marketing
process. Expect nothing less from
most buzz recently is Lodha’s
partnership with real estate Manikya Deb the man who got Yash Raj Films
on board as his first client when he
magnate Donald Trump to
build Mumbai’s first Trump
Tower, which will offer
Barman had little experience. Since then,
he’s had a large hand to play in the
success of recent blockbusters like PK
residents amenities like a and Dhoom 3, that have topped the
Head of the royal

WORDS: VIDISHA SRINIVASAN, DAVE BESSELING, MERYL D'SOUZA, NIDHI GUPTA, MEGHA SHAH, SHIKHA SETHI.
private jet service. Bollywood revenue charts. For those
family of Tripura of you who made it through Dhoom
3, you know what an achievement
Age: 36 that is.

Born in: DELHI

He may not, officially, be a title-holding king, but the
son of the last Maharaja of Tripura wears many hats

IMAGE: NISHANT SHUKLA (BARMAN), MANISH MANSINH (CHOUDHARY)

besides the finery of a pre-Independence monarch.
Pradyot has lectured at Harvard, edits The Northeast
Today magazine, opened an English-medium school
in Meghalaya, fancies himself a photographer, and
can boast of a drinking binge in Los Angeles with
Axl Rose.
When home, rather than holding court in his
Tripura palace, he’s on the ground, in towns and
villages, meeting as many of “his people” as he can,
hearing their problems, and leading by example
through his positions at the regional development
association and advising the North East Students
Committee. Perhaps he’s stretching himself in so
many directions because he is 186th in the Manikya
line that goes back over eight centuries.

56 — JULY 2015
 MANU
On the opening night of Monkey Bar in Mumbai two months ago,
Chandra charged out of the kitchen to explain to a couple what
was wrong with their order and why he would not serve it to them.

CHANDRA
The offending, off-menu request – warm brownies with vanilla ice
cream – is just the sort of food the Culinary Institute of America
graduate despises. “Uninspired and mediocre, engineered to satisfy
the stubborn Indian palate.”
Chandra is out to change restaurant dynamics – on both
sides of the table. Which is why he’s been crusading for the
Chef & restaurateur increased use of local ingredients – a movement well hidden
AGE: 35 behind cheerful brands like Fatty Bao and Olive, vastly popular
among Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi’s scenester dining crowd.
BORN IN: DELHI His is not a passion born out of social consciousness, though,
but from an understanding of how soil can affect taste. So when
three-Michelin-starred French chef and gastronomical legend
Alain Passard dined at one of his kitchens a few years ago while
contemplating opening a vegetarian restaurant in Mumbai, he
was served local beetroot cooked on cowdung cakes, a carpaccio
of tindli in three degrees of ripeness and raw jackfruit biryani.
Passard, apparently blown away, never opened that restaurant.

VEER SINGH
Founder, Vana Retreats
Age: 32
Born in: Delhi
It took till 2001 and the launch of Ananda in the Himalayas for
Indian entrepreneurs to realize that they could market spirituality
and luxury together, without compromising either. And so, long
after The Beatles meditated in Rishikesh and then told the world
about it, India was back on the radar for wellness tourism. It’s
taken another 13 years for a new high-end Indian property to
launch and make waves internationally.
When the MAX Healthcare scion launched Vana Retreats in
2014, a 21-acre property near Dehradun, with the aim of making
Amit Trivedi it “the most iconic wellness retreat in the world” we knew we had
something to be genuinely excited about. When it won Condé Nast
Traveller UK’s Best New Destination Spa award the same year, and
Music Producer celeb clients from across the world started trickling in, we knew
we were right. The treatments administered here (undergone while
Age: 35 Born in: MUMBAI wearing Abraham & Thakore robes) bring together seven traditional
approaches to health, including Ayurveda and Tibetan medicine.
Each has a dedicated centre headed by a qualified specialist, with
Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet may have bombed, the Sowa Rigpa therapists certified by the Tibetan Medical and
but the music score won wide appreciation. Even the Astrology Institute in Dharamsala set up by the Dalai Lama.
film’s biggest critics were calling Amit Trivedi the best With Vana, Singh has raised the bar high – and set his peers a
music producer in the industry. He’s probably used to it, challenge. “Wellness has been turned into a cliché,” he says, “and
considering he’s been called out pretty much every year that’s exactly what I want to get away from.”
since 2009, when his score for Dev D won him a National
Award. And with every new film – Udaan, Lootera, Kai Po
Che and Queen – his legion of fans keeps growing.
By creating alternative music within the larger universe
of commercial cinema, Trivedi has created a genre for
himself – something not many have succeeded at. And
his credits are only growing. This year alone, he’s scored
two big-ticket films: Vikas Bahl’s Shaandaar and Abhishek
Kapoor’s Fitoor, with a strong set of projects in the pipeline
for 2016.
For Trivedi, there’s only one rule: never succumb to
formulas. Particularly that tired old combination of “one
romantic song, one party song, one item number and
one sad melancholic song”. Also, being experimental and
new-agey is how a Bollywood music producer lands a
headlining gig at hipster central: NH7 Weekender.

JULY 2015 — 57
 The Jaipur Gems scion has built a business using other people’s mistakes to

MITHUN his advantage. The co-founder and CEO of CaratLane, the online jewellery
boutique that first helped Indians trust the internet to buy diamonds, admits

SACHETI
that the reason his company attracts big-ticket investments (a potential Tata
Group stock purchase looks set to push the company’s valuation to `1,200 crore)
is because he wasn’t the first out of the blocks.
“Heard of Surat Diamonds, the first guys who attempted to (legally) sell
diamonds online? No? Exactly. I’m the guy in second place, driving in the first
mover’s slipstream. That puts me in the best position.” By offering free trials
CEO, CaratLane.com at home in 20 cities and concentrating on everyday wear – smaller items that
women are more likely to buy online – he’s made sure the flaws in the business
AGE: 37 models of his predecessors have been addressed.
His next project, however, is a first. A jewellery retail app that he says will
BORN IN: MUMBAI prove mobile commerce isn’t just for buying clothes.

MANU JAIN
India head, Xiaomi
Age: 34
Born in: Meerut, UP
Priyank On July 22 last year, in what was a dazzling

Sukhija debut for a smartphone company, Xiaomi

India crashed e-commerce biggie Flipkart’s
website. It kicked off business by offering
10,000 pieces of the spec’d out Mi 3, which
Restaurateur were cleaned out in minutes. And, over
the next four months, close to a million
Age: 35 devices flew out, putting the Chinese
company, smugly, in India’s top five-selling
Born in: Delhi smartphone brands, in record time.
India head Manu Jain, who co-

WORDS: ROCHELLE PINTO, MEGHA SHAH, VARUN GODINHO, SHIKHA SETHI, DAVE BESSELING. IMAGE: ADIL HASAN (SUKHIJA),
Most of us know of the transformation of founded Jabong, was the brainchild of the
Delhi’s Hauz Khas Village from a scruffy, operation, focusing on selling low-cost
historic neighbourhood to a trendy, urban models exclusively on the internet, with
hangout. But not many know about the no advertising costs. He helped shift the

SHAMANTH PATIL (JAIN), ABHISHEK BALI (CHADHA), KUNAL DASWANI (SACHETI), NISHANT SHUKLA (CHAWLA)
man responsible for much of it. When selling of phones away from physical
Sukhija chose the crumbling bylanes back stores – eliminating interaction with ill-
in 2003 for his serial restaurant launches, informed sales staff – and moved it online,
it was a sleepy enclave with a smattering where the playing field was level and
of art galleries and fashion boutiques. prices competitive.
Convinced of its potential, he launched Yet Xiaomi’s real profit-spinning
restaurants like Out Of The Box, Fat machine is the software it develops for
Ninja, Fork You, Raas and Chamanlal & its devices – that’s laden with commercial
Sons, nudging it into its buzzy avatar that hooks. And in India, the multibillion-dollar
everyone wants a piece of today. brand is looking to invest in startups. As
a result, Jain has a kitty of roughly $100
Since then, he’s taken his brand
million – plus a little extra something by
of young, astute eateries to other
way of Ratan Tata’s investment in Xiaomi
neighbourhoods like Connaught Place
global – at his disposal, making entrenched
and Khan Market. As a result the 35-year-
players very nervous.
old has 23 restaurants in Delhi and one
in Pune which clocked in `100 crore over
the last fiscal year. And he’s poised to
launch 12 more soon, using his unique,
arguably brash way of doing business.
His restaurants are usually partnerships
where he puts in about 10 per cent of the
investment but takes at least 50 per cent
of the equity. But with ideas like a dining
space with theatrical shows like The Box in
London, his network of fat cat partners are
willing to come to the table on his terms.

58 — JULY 2015
 ESSAJI
VAHANVATI

Equity Partner at
AZB Partners
AGE: 35
BORN IN: MUMBAI
He fancies himself a veritable
genius à la Harvey Specter,

MUNBIR
and he may not be too far off
the mark. Equity partner at
one of the country’s top three

CHAWLA
legal firms, Vahanvati’s the
guy that bigwigs at blue-chip
companies such as Vedanta
and private equity firms such
as KKR and Warburg Pincus
have on speed dial to put Founder, Wild City
together the legal framework
for multimillion-dollar buyouts,
& festival director,
investments and takeovers. Magnetic Fields
He’s been groomed by some
of India’s finest legal minds,
AGE: 30
including his late father, former BORN IN: London
Attorney General Goolam
Vahanvati, and boss Zia Mody
If you count yourself among
at AZB, so don’t expect him
India’s music cognoscenti,
to just push papers based on
chances are you’ve leaned on
recommendations by financial
Wild City, a dedicated indie music
experts, as many corporate
website, over the years, either for
finance lawyers are wont to do.
gig listings, artist info or some
He prefers to be in the thick of
good feature writing you’ve
Raghav Chadha the action in a bid to get results.
“Negotiating is a delicate art,”
appropriated to sound informed in
front of pretty girls. If you’ve got
Vahanvati says. “You have to
that nailed, you’ll have noted your
Spokesperson, Aam Aadmi Party be patient and know when to
credibility depended on attending
concede and when to stand
the Magnetic Fields music festival,
Age: 26 Born in: DELHI your ground. But when you get
the only one in the country with
it right, it’s a real high.” Specter
an exclusively underground
would agree.
“I used to think politics was a job for the unemployed or the line-up held in a 17th-century
unemployable,” says Raghav Chadha. “It wasn’t considered a Rajasthan palace. And you can
noble profession.” Clearly, the 26-year-old national spokesperson pretty much thank one guy for all
for the Aam Aadmi Party and treasurer of the political outfit’s of that: Munbir Chawla.
Delhi state unit changed his mind. The multi-genre DJ, who
A practising chartered accountant at the age of 22, Chadha’s grew up immersed in the London
chance meeting with Arvind Kejriwal ensured that his practice
underground scene, has built the
took a backseat. Today, he’s too busy darting between the Delhi
sort of clout that allows him to
Secretariat, where he’s helping Deputy Chief Minister Manish
bring down names like Hudson
Sisodia turn the nation’s capital into “the simplest place to
Mohawke (one of the world’s
do business”, and TV studios, where he’s Kejriwal’s key man
on defence. biggest D&B artists and Kanye
Routinely pitted against veterans well-practised in the dark West’s producer) and Benga
arts of politicking, Chadha’s youthful enthusiasm shines through. & Skream as well as get local,
Calm and polite, he smiles patiently while talking heads around lesser-known talent a spot at
him switch between condescension and yelling. It’s a gentlemanly international festivals like The
stoicism that’s all but disappeared in today’s political circus. Which Great Escape. Find him on the day
may explain why he’s such a big hit with the ladies. Chadha of any Wild City event though and
laughs nervously. “There’s no equipment to measure whether this he’ll ask you to “come party with
attention translates into votes.” us. We’re going to go late.”

JULY 2015 — 59
 ROHIT
SHARMA

WORDS: MERYL D'SOUZA, SHIVANGI LOLAYEKAR, DAVE BESSELING. IMAGE: MANISH MANSINH (SHARMA), VIVEK MUTHURAMALINGAM (LALBHAI)
Cricketer + Captain,
Mumbai Indians
AGE: 28
BORN IN: NAGPUR
For what seeemed like an eternity,
Rohit Sharma was Indian cricket’s
most frustrating enigma. He had
natural talent, the kind only the
best possess, but was infuriatingly
inconsistent in his display of it. Since
the turn of the year, however, Sharma
has made himself indispensable to
the Indian team and his standout
performance in the 2015 IPL has
made a strong case for why he should
take over when Dhoni decides to
hang up his gloves.
The Mumbai Indians skipper
claims that added responsibility
has helped him perform better – a
wonderfully rare trait in cricket.
There’ve been many greats who
buckled under the burden of
captaincy. But he’s learned from
the best. Ricky Ponting, Sachin
Tendulkar, Jonty Rhodes, Anil
Kumble and MS Dhoni have all
played Mr Miyagi to Sharma’s Karate
Kid. For those in the know, Rohit’s
the future of Indian cricket.

60 — JULY 2015
 RISHAD PREMJI
Chief Strategy Officer &
Board member, Wipro
AGE: 38
BORN IN: MUMBAI
They don’t let many dullards into Wesleyan University. Pretty
much a no-dullard policy at Harvard Business School. Walk
out with papers from these places and “being groomed” will
never be just about your moustache again. With his chairman
father Azim now 70, Rishad sits on the board of Wipro, ready
to keep watch over his family’s 70 per cent stake in one of
India’s largest IT firms.
Not a bad turn considering Rishad’s grandfather set the
business up, many decades ago in Bombay, to sell refined
vegetable oil. What makes Rishad a scion to watch is that

Kulin Lalbhai despite the whole “family empire” scenario, he worked his way
up through the company like any other employee, not walking
through the back door of his father’s office.
Executive Director, Arvind Ltd
Age: 29 Born in: Ahmedabad
The selection of international menswear on the Indian high
street is middling compared to fashion hubs across the world.
Kulin Lalbhai’s changing that. This year, the Harvard and
Stanford grad was instrumental in bringing American giant
Gap to India. “It will sell,” Lalbhai says emphatically.
He would know. Since 2009, he’s made labels like Calvin Klein
and Tommy Hilfiger local staples.
Yet, this is only a sliver of what he has planned for India.
Last year, he spearheaded Creyate, a nifty e-commerce venture
that allows you to digitally customize a suit. He’s also investing
serious money into an omni-channel business model – the
future of retail – where the offline and online worlds combine to
create a seamless shopping experience.

MIHIR Who’s your favourite columnist on the pink pages? Oh, you find
that stuff boring? Then it’s unlikely you’ve heard of Business
Standard’s widely respected Op-Ed page editor, Mihir Sharma.

SHARMA He’s that rarest of rare birds: a journalist burrowed in among

the Delhi power sucklings who, besides writing the most
acerbic yet sharp columns about our country’s politics and
economy, doesn’t nuzzle up or purr over power and influence.
Quite the opposite actually.
Author & Senior Editor, And when given space to run in book-form, he got all the
right people’s attention. Through this year’s Restart: The Last
Business Standard Chance For The Indian Economy, where he shreds apart elitist
AGE: 37 policies of the past, Sharma proves that not only can he take
economic expertise and communicate it to the layman, but he
BORN IN: DELHI can also be hilarious while doing it.

JULY 2015 — 61
 LARSING MING SAWYAN

MD, Centre Point Group Enterprise (CPGE)

Age: 37
Born in: Shillong, MEGHALAYA

WORDS: SHIKHA SETHI, PAULINE ZONUNPUII, MEGHA SHAH, NIDHI GUPTA, DAVE BESSELING. IMAGE: FORTUNE INDIA (SRIVASTAVA & GOEL), JOY DATTA (BHAGAT)
Nicknamed “The Entrepreneur”, Sawyan’s professional journey
started in 2002 when he gave the North East – a region ravaged
by insurgency and used to sleeping at 6pm – its first night
club, Cloud 9. He was 21 years old. Almost a decade-and-a-
half later, his CPGE umbrella has several hotels, including The
Royal Heritage-Tripura Castle (a heritage property the company
restored and manages for his good friend Prince Pradyot),
and Centre Point Entertainment Network (which has brought
Rajiv Srivatsa & legendary rock bands Scorpions and Smokey to the region).
Sawyan also seems to have taken it upon himself to increase the
Ashish Goel region’s coolness quotient by promoting his first love, football. He
owns and manages the region’s only Indian league club – Shillong
COO & CEO of Urban Ladder Lajong Football Club – and also serves as Vice President of the
All India Football Federation. Using Lajong as a tool to improve
Ages: 36 Born in: CHENNAI, Ghaziabad standards of the sport in the North East, Sawyan in 2012 launched
the club’s mobile app, and teamed up with Kyazoonga.com to
offer game tickets online – firsts for any Indian football club. With
There’s a new breed of young Indian homeowner who knows commercial success bolstering its on-field performance, Lajong is
exactly what he wants his home to look like, who can tell his Le one of the best managed football clubs in the country.
Corbusier chaise longue from his Eames chair and scours Pinterest
boards and Wallpaper* before deciding which sofa or home bar
to buy. And chances are, if he can’t afford to have his furniture
shipped over from Milan, he’s ordering it from Urban Ladder.
In three short years, the furniture e-tailer, founded in July 2012
by IIM batchmates Goel and Srivatsa, has become the biggest
player in a fast-growing $140 million market. And it’s all because
of the affordable prices – made possible by an increased focus on
self-manufacturing – and a selection of some of the most tasteful
designs you can buy on the internet, delivered seamlessly to over
30 cities across the country.
What’s also helped the start-up e-tailer is a series of
breakthrough tech innovations, including an app that lets you
simulate how a particular piece of furniture will look in your
home. “The future is even more exciting,” says COO Rajiv
Srivatsa. “Over the next 18-24 months, we will be using new
technology like Oculus Rift and Google Glass to allow potential
customers to virtually sit on a piece of furniture, touch it and see it
in their living room.”

CHETAN He may have made his name writing books, but he doesn’t particularly believe
in them. The biggest-selling English language author in India’s history calls
himself “medium-agnostic”. And therein lies his edge. He’s produced six best-

BHAGAT sellers – priced like movie tickets and written, self-confessedly, like Bollywood
on paper – converting lakhs of non-readers. But he’s also been selling his brand
beyond bookstores.
As the screenplay writer for one of India’s highest-grossing films, Kick, or
Author & New-age as the vaguely incredulous judge on reality TV show Nach Baliye or even as an
earnest, slightly schmaltzy voice on Twitter, he sets about a dialogue in a way
celebrity no other literary figure has managed – echoing and shaping the voice of middle
Age: 40 India. To call his work unrefined is to miss the angle of his pitch – a careful,
studied rejection of Anglophile intellectualism. Rushdie may not be a Bhagat
Born in: Delhi fan, but it simply doesn’t matter.

62 — JULY 2015
 SACHIN
When the two – unrelated – small-town Bansals quit global
online juggernaut Amazon to launch their own e-commerce
venture in 2007, they probably didn’t foresee becoming

& BINNY billionaires. Or at least not so fast. But the Flipkart founders
are on track to be the first to hit the seven zeroes club in

BANSAL India’s white-hot e-comm game.

Their cash-rich partners include Russian billionaire Yuri
Milner’s DST Global, Silicon Valley’s Accel Partners and the
Qatar Investment Authority. They’re even contemplating
founders, Flipkart a Wall Street IPO next year. Global investors are fighting
to invest in Flipkart, which they see as the next Alibaba –
AGEs: 33 China’s e-commerce leader – allowing the Bansals to pretty
BORN IN: Chandigarh much dictate terms to potential investors.

Udyan Sagar
aka Nucleya
DJ & producer
Age: 36 Born in: Agra, UP
Udyan Sagar, founder of the radical Bandish Projekt, “arrived” as India’s most
sought-after DJ with Koocha Monster, the EP that became an instant hit in
2013, giving Indian electronica a much-needed facelift. He unleashed a fresh
sound that’s towered over the scene, both independent and mainstream – a
simple, albeit clever fusion of dubstep, heavy bass and fervent Dravidian temple
trumpets. Today his songs “Akkad Bakkad” and “Tamil Fever” are firmly installed
RIYAAZ AMLANI
on every local DJ’s setlist, alongside Honey Singh and David Guetta’s anthems.
Still, the most telling sign of his impact is the way his tribe of followers CEO, Impresario entertainment
react to his music. That is, he’s put the D back in EDM. Sagar’s gigs are no
pedestrian, boozy affairs. They’re red-blooded dance riots. Just don’t ask him
and hospitality pvt ltd
to play at your wedding. AGE: 40
BORN IN: MUMBAI

Amlani’s first Mocha, near Churchgate station in

Mumbai, has disappeared. A chic new Salt Water
Café stands in its place and it’s making more than
double the sales. By creating multiple brands that
can replace each other, evolving every brand with
the changing needs of the consumer and forming a
sort of collusive oligopoly with fellow restaurateur,
Gaurav Goenka of Mirah Hospitality (to get big
spaces at discounts by setting up their restaurants
in the same complex), he’s been able to crack the
economies of the changing Indian palate. Today,
his is a `125 crore business with 20 per cent profit
margins and 40 outlets across 13 cities.
And as his waist-size and net worth both
increase, his plans for expansion have gotten more
ambitious. Having found a sweet spot, for now,
with both of his hip, new brands, Social and Smoke
House Deli, he’s powering through with 11 more
outlets by 2016 across India’s metros. With constant
innovation in food and a unique vibe fashioned
for every outlet, he’s also proven that scale is not
necessarily the enemy of soul.

JULY 2015 — 63
 KAVIN BHARTI
MITTAL
Founder + CEO, HIKE
AGE: 27
BORN IN: GLASGOW, UK
At 16, Jan Koum, co-founder of
WhatsApp, migrated from Ukraine
to the US with his family on a
social support scheme. Another
WhatsApp co-founder, Brian Acton,
was rejected by Facebook when he
applied for a job. Kavin Mittal, CEO
and developer of Hike Messenger,
doesn’t have that feel-good, rags-
to-riches story going for him – his
father founded India’s largest telco,
Bharti Airtel, and is one of the
richest men in the country. Yet the
27-year-old does head up India’s
fastest-growing messaging app with
a special focus on privacy that lets
you password protect chats and
choose whether or not people can
see if you’ve read a message – his
edge over intrusive WhatsApp.
When Freshdesk, a San Francisco-
based customer software provider,
raised `312 crore from Tiger Global,
Google Capital and Accel Partners,
the deal was closed on Hike.

ALL
If you weren’t familiar with the All India
Bakchod routine before last Christmas, you
probably were by the New Year, either from

INDIA having heard about the groundbreaking

nature of their Roast of Arjun Kapoor

WORDS: DAVE BESSELING, MERYL D'SOUZA. IMAGE: PRABHAT SHETTY (AIB)

and Ranveer Singh, or because of several

BAKCHOD parties getting litigious about it. The

roasters, the roastees, even members of the
audience had FIRs filed against them.
Whether you thought the roast was
culture-shift brilliant or irredeemably
Comedy troupe, Mumbai prurient, it was definitely the first of
something exciting for India, an event
>Tanmay Bhat, 28, Founder with an influence that will only grow as
> Gursimran Khamba, 29, time passes. When asked how he felt
the day after, AIB’s Rohan Joshi replied,
Founder “hungover.” And the week after, once the
> Rohan Joshi, 32, Member offended parties started to appear? “It was
the day after Christmas, so yeah. Hungover.
> Ashish Shakya, 30, But also exhilarated, terrified, and a little
Member amazed that we’d pulled it off at all.”

64 — JULY 2015
WORDS: SHIVANGI LOLAYEKAR. PHOTO: ARJUN MARK. STYLIST: TANYA VOHRA. ASSISTANT STYLIST: DESIREE FERNANDES. HAIR: SHEFALI SHETTY/BBLUNT. MAKE-UP: XAVIER D’SOUZA/FATMU. MODEL: NAMIT KHANNA. PRODUCTION: VASUNDHARA SHARMA

EDITED BY VIJENDRA BHARDWAJ

& SHIVANGI LOLAYEKAR

“Charlie: Rain Man.

Raymond: Yeah?”
—RAIN MAN (1988)

Dry
spell
A suit that repels water?
Raymond’s navy two-button is just
what we ordered for the monsoon

SUIT BY RAYMOND READY-TO-

WEAR, `1,00,000. SHIRT BY
DIOR HOMME, `40,000. SHOES
BY HUGO BOSS, `37,500

JULY 2015 — 67
 THE GUIDE

11
COMMON
STYLE
MISTAKES
And how to correct them

HAIR & MAKE-UP: MONA ANAND/BBLUNT. MODELS: ANUJ DUHAN, JACK DENT/ANIMA CREATIVE MANAGEMENT. ILLUSTRATION: ARUN JAITAPKAR
ARJUN MARK TANYA VOHRA
VIJENDRA BHARDWAJ

BLOOPER: IGNORING THE FIT

CORRECTION: GET MEASURED
You’re not fooling anyone by adding
BLOOPER: ALL BUTTONED UP extra fabric to cover that beer belly.
And you’re not going to look slimmer
CORRECTION: KNOW THE RULES by wearing a size smaller either. Wear
the suit you fit into, not the one you
There are three ways to fasten your suit wish you fit into. If your trousers
jacket. Take note. And always unbutton drag, jacket droops or sleeves are too
when you sit. long, find a tailor and get it fixed.
їSUIT, `ϮϮ͕ϬϬϬ͕dͳ^,/Zd͕ `ϭ͕ϰϬϬ͖Kd,z
BLACKBERRYS͘WK<d^YhZzBROOKS
BROTHERS, `ϰ͕ϬϬϬ͘td,zOMEGA, `6,65,000.
^,K^zCLARKS, `12,000

ї OPTIONAL

ї ALWAYS

ї NEVER ї NEVER

SINGLE-BUTTON TWO-BUTTON THREE-BUTTON

68 — JULY 2015
 03
TIP

Does your shirt make

you look like Johnny
Bravo? Or resemble
a blouson? A good
fit isn’t limited to just
your suits.

їTOP:dͳ^,/ZdzBEING
HUMAN͕`ϭ͕ϯϬϬ
ABOVE: ^,/ZdzTHOMAS PINK͕
`ϭϮ͕ϰϲϬ͘dZKh^Z^zROHIT
GANDHI + RAHUL KHANNA͕`1Ϯ͕ϱϬϬ͘
d/zGIORGIO ARMANI͕`11,150

KNOW THE RIGHT LENGTH

CUFF: Your suit sleeve should end just above

the hinges of your wrists, with a quarter to
half inch of shirt cuff visible.

COAT: The rule is simple: Let your hands

T hang straight down at your sides. Try to curl
them up under your jacket. If you can, good.
Can’t? It’s the wrong length.
WN
er
t be
our
the
lls you
TROUSERS: Cropped trousers are acceptable
(but they only work with slim-fit pants). The
h^Z^ ideal pair grazes the top of your shoelaces, with
EGA͕
`ϲ͕ϲϱ͕ϬϬϬ͘^,K^zCLARKS͕`12,000 no more than a single, slight dent.

JULY 2015 — 69
 THE GUIDE

06

BLOOPER: CLEAVAGE
CORRECTION: IS FOR WOMEN
Because a) you’re not a member of 1D, and
b) no one wants to see the shiny expanse that is
your newly waxed chest. Do us all a favour and
simply cover up.
ї dͳ^,/Zd z BLACKBERRYS, `ϭ͕ϰϬϬ͘ :E^ z LEVI’S, `2,800.
td, z OMEGA, `6,65,000

HAIR & MAKE-UP: MONA ANAND/BBLUNT. MODELS: ANUJ DUHAN, JACK DENT/ANIMA CREATIVE MANAGEMENT. IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
ONG BRIEF
CHOOSE CAREFULLY
ping out of your Fubu jeans
ten years ago. You gotta keep
pecially if you’re wearing
hey tend to be transparent in
ch the colour of your briefs or
boxers to your pants.
ї dͳ^,/Zd z BLACKBERRYS, `ϭ͕ϰϬϬ͘ dZKh^Z^ z VAN HEUSEN,
`Ϯ͕ϬϬϬ͘ td, z OMEGA, `6,65,000
BLOOPER: ALL FLASH
CORRECTION: STRIKE A
BALANCE
Shiny suits might seem passé -
cheesy vintage Bollywood over
2015 cool – but really, everyone
from GQ Best-Dressed dude
Ranveer Singh to Will Smith is
sporting them right now. Just
control the sheen: a baller suit
with a matte black shirt and
subtle accessories.
ї^h/d͕`9,000, ^,/Zd͕`Ϯ͕ϰϬϬ͖Kd,z
BLACKBERRYS͘^,K^zCLARKS, `12,000

70 — JULY 2015
 BLOOPER: THE SANDWICH

08
WALLET
CORRECTION: KILL THE BULGE
Don’t carry all your cash in your wallet.
Keep it slim, and invest in a slick leather
card holder instead.
їCARD HOLDER, `22,000, WALLET, `30,000; BOTH BY
DIOR HOMME

OCKS +

: GET A

Pairing socks with sandals is

an absolute no-no – there’s never
an appropriate occasion to wear
them together. If you are going to
TIP
1
wear them, make sure your nails
are cut and your feet are clean. Even when casual, keep it smar ck in your
їABOVE: POLO BY CELIO, `1,700. JEANS BY shirt and buy the right T-shirt le Throw on
LEVI’S, `3,100. SANDALS BY ADIDAS, `2,300.
WATCH BY OMEGA, `6,65,000 a belt and slip into loafers for added style points.
RIGHT: SHIRT BY LOUIS PHILIPPE, `2,700.
SHORTS BY PAUL SMITH, `6,620. LOAFERS BY
TOD’S, `30,000. BELT BY PARK AVENUE, `1,500

JULY 2015 — 71
 THE GUIDE

NO
THANK YOU
BANISH THESE STYLE HABITS
RIGHT NOW

• GUYLIGHTS
Highlighting,
frosting or
bleaching your
hair – blond does
not work on men,
especially not on
Indian skin tones.

• COLOURED
CONTACTS

HAIR & MAKE-UP: MONA ANAND/BBLUNT. MODELS: ANUJ DUHAN, JACK DENT/ANIMA CREATIVE MANAGEMENT. IMAGE: REX FEATURES, SHUTTERSTOCK, GETTY IMAGES
Trust us, women
would rather
have you wear
specs than have
ET eyes.

• PINKY RINGS
If you’re wearing
a pinky ring, you
probably feel
a kinship to fur
coats, pimps, satin
shirts and Liberace.
If that’s the
impression you want
to give, go ahead.

LING BLING • COMPLETE

: DISCRETION MESH
No one can pull
this off, not even
David Beckham.
line between What makes you
nd looking like think you can?
s, this is a bad
gest keeping your
o a quality watch.
PHILIPPE, `8,000. SHIRT
2,400. TROUSERS BY
AHUL KHANNA, `12,500.
THOMAS PINK, `2,850.
,150. WATCH BY OMEGA,
CLARKS, `12,000 • LEATHER
PANTS
Trust us, this
never really
works unless
you’re Lenny
Kravitz.

72 — JULY 2015
$KPHGDEDGų%HQJDOXUXų&KHQQDLų1HZ'HOKLų+\GHUDEDGų
.RFKLų.RONDWDų0XPEDLų3XQHų9DGRGUD
 THE LINE-UP

AQUA
DEFENSE
NANO
TECHNOLOGY
TRENCH BY
SS HOMME,
`48,000

MARINE
BACKPACK BY
SALVATORE
FERRAGAMO,
`55,000

JACKET BY Z ZEGNA,
PRICE ON REQUEST

BERBY

BRAVE
JACKET BY
GAS, `9,000

THE RAIN
Go under cover in the season’s best gear
PHOTO: ARJUN MARK. MODEL: NAMIT KHANNA

AMPHIBIOX GREY
TRAINERS BY JACQUARD
GEOX, `8,400 RABBIT SUIT
CARRIER BY
PAUL SMITH,
`27,870

76 — JULY 2015
 RUSTED BI-FOLD
WALLET BY
WINDCHEATER
DYNOMIGHTY, `1,500
BY HUNTER
ORIGINAL,
`22,400

PLEU DE H
UMBRELLA
BY HERMÈS,
`44,500

NIGHTFALL
HI-TOPS BY
HUNTER
ORIGINAL,
`11,900

“SOME RAIN HAT IN

SHOWERPROOF
PEOPLE WALK CANVAS BY
HERMÈS,
IN THE RAIN, `37,000

OTHERS JUST
GET WET.”
—ROGER MILLER

NAVY CITY
BLAZER BY
HACKETT
LONDON,
`38,400

SHOES BY
ERMENEGILDO
ZEGNA, `41,400

BORNE
BACKPACK BY BOARD SHORTS BY
DC, `3,000 QUIKSILVER, `15,000
 THE ADVICE

Q1
HAIR-RAISING
I’m part of a kickass
college band, but don’t
look the part. What are
the coolest hairstyles I can
get for rock star cred?
—X-poser, Bengaluru
You know, when asked about his curls, Queen
guitarist Brian May once said, “I wish I had
a paper bag over my head and people just
listened to the music.” But in entertainment,
hair and music are like steak and fries. Just
think about it: The Beatles without the Mod
mop? Elvis minus the signature Teddy Boy
quiff? It would’ve been a different world.
Think about the kind of music you
make, or intend to make, and the image you
want to project, and then meet an expert
who’ll take into account your face shape and
60s THE MOPTOP complexion and give you an appropriate
The Beatles cut. GQ ’s grooming bosswoman Shikha Sethi
recommends B:Blunt, whose Stylists create
some rocking hairstyles for our fashion shoots.
ICONIC ROCK STAR HAIRCUTS

Alternatively, seek an appointment with Delhi-

based Alex Rachid Redjem (who also crafted
some cool cuts for our special grooming story
back in March) – he’ll sort you out.

“I have fun with my clothes on

stage; it’s not a concert you’re
50s THE TEDDY BOY QUIFF 70s THE PUNK 80s THE SKINHEAD 90s THE GRUNGE 2000s THE TIGHT TAPER
Elvis Presley Sid Vicious Jerry Dammers Kurt Cobain Kanye West
seeing. It’s a fashion show.”
—FREDDY MERCURY

Style Shrink
GQ’s style guru Vijendra Bhardwaj addresses your sartorial dilemmas.
Q3 SUIT SUPPLY
I am 5’3”, fit and in
search of some good suits,
but the in-store options don’t
size up. Any suggestions?
—Sarthak, Delhi
Harry Potter, aka Daniel Radcliffe, is
This month: How not to bomb in a bomber
pretty good at not letting his height
clamp down on his suit style. You
can either: a) find an off-the-shelf
suit with the closest fit (especially

Q2 TO THE TEE
Recently my
girlfriend pointed out that
in terms of the jacket length and
shoulders) and customize it to
perfection, or b) get a made-to-
short tees are the norm. Is measure suit, with the following
showing your midriff really a instructions:
thing now? Keep it snug: Go for a slimmer fit
—Mayank, Mumbai to look taller.
Your girl’s got a point, Mayank. Keep it short: Your suit jacket
IMAGE: FOTOCORP, REX FEATURES, GETTY IMAGES

Men tend to neglect their T-shirt should end at your thumb’s knuckle.
length, letting hems dangle below Otherwise, try a shorter sleeve
bombers or brief bands show, length that shows a bit more cuff
neither of which is attractive. The (about three-fourth inches rather
rules are simple: never tuck your than the customary half inch) — it’ll
tee into your trousers or jeans, make your arms look longer.
and never let it hang lower than
Do the crop: Omit the trouser
your posterior. The ideal length is
break. Keep it straight, ending right
an inch shorter than your bomber,
above your shoe to give the illusion
ending slightly below the trouser
of a longer leg.
zip when it's pulled up. And no
midriffs, please, unless you’re
trying to pull a Miley. Send your sartorial queries to
[email protected]

78 — JULY 2015
sabyasachi.com
S A B YA S A C H I
L o c a t i o n c o u r t e s y : TA J FA L A K N U M A
 TOP PICKS

ERMENEGILDO
VES
If there’s one (or six) things you buy this month, start here

ZEGNA
COTTON & LEATHER BELT,
PRICE ON REQUEST

GUCCI
FLORAL COTTON
PANTS, `49,700

HERMÈS
LOUIS VUITTON STAINLESS STEEL “CAPE COD”
WATCH, `5,40,500
CANVAS “MON DAMIER
GRAPHITE KEEPALL 55”
BAG, `1,61,100

BURBERRY
CALF LEATHER NOTEBOOK,
`1,62,300

PHOTO: EDWARD URRUTIA. STYLIST: BARNABY ASH, EMMA FAGG

DIOR HOMME
CALFSKIN “GOODYEAR” DERBY
SHOES, `1,27,300

80 — JULY 2015
 PROMOTION

DISTILLED ONCE. BECAUSE

WHEN YOU START WITH THE BEST,
ONCE IS ENOUGH.
Our continuous column distillation process
is specifically designed to capture the
unique quality of France’s finest wheat.

JAZZ JOURNEYS
 THE LIST

SNIP AND TUCK

There are sleek silver tie bars for work,
and then there are novelty bars like SS
Homme’s scissors for play. Make the cut.
sshomme.in

CASE STUDY
Have you faced the man-bag dilemma? The need for a spacious
carryall that says you mean business, but not that you’re a
businessman? This sumptuous Salvatore Ferragamo leather
messenger is the answer. Disclaimer: Prepare for workplace envy.
ferragamo.com TIP
Striking socks
complete

WORDS: SHIVANGI LOLAYEKAR, VARUN GODINHO. ROHIT GANDHI + RAHUL KHANNA: PHOTO: ARJUN MARK. MODEL: JACK DENT/ANIMA CREATIVE MAMAGEMENT
your look

WITH FLAIR

The List
TOP PICKS FROM GQ’S STYLE DESK
Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna have always
known how to push the envelope when it comes to
menswear, playing up silhouettes while retaining
their signature slickness. Take for instance these
cropped wrap trousers, which you can pair with a
blazer to instantly outclass the competition.
rohit-rahul.com

WHAT? Adidas’ sexy Summer

Metallic Pack.
WHY? It seems Stan Smith’s
moved from the tennis court to a
Jay-Z gig. The iconic shoes have
ALL PURPOSE
Victorinox’s INOX watch was subjected
gotten a sexy makeover, and are
to 130 extreme tests (including being
guaranteed to be the new “it”
frozen, boiled and doused in acid), and
pieces of the season. adidas.co.in
over 400 pieces were destroyed in the
process. The one that makes it onto your
wrist is arguably among the toughest in
the world. What’s a spot of rain when
you consider what it’s been put through
already? victorinox.com

TURN IT OVER
Sir Paul Smith’s got us putting our
money on hot pin-up girls – read: sleek
black wallets with peek-a-boo(b) images.
Flash cash at your own risk.
paulsmith.co.uk

84 — JULY 2015
86 — JULY 2015
 He’s directed Shah Rukh Khan, written dialogue for Aamir Khan,
and when on camera, he’s played everything from rock star to sprinter
to vacationing magazine writer. But don’t call him ‘method’.
Even FARHAN AKHTAR maintains that moniker belongs to the only
person whose feet he’s ever touched

I t’s a Friday, it’s just after lunch, and his new fi lm premieres
today. He’s produced it, he stars in it, and his sister’s
directed it. He stands to make or lose a very great deal of
money on it. But he’s more interested in what happens at
3pm, when the nearby pool opens and he can take his two
daughters for a swim.
“I’m anxious during the two or three days leading up to a
premiere,” explains Farhan Akhtar, who’s been around this circuit
enough for the calm before Dil Dhadakne Do to ring true. “You’re
just really tired by the time it comes around. On some level, you’re
just grateful it’s over.”
Opening Day wasn’t always so chill for the 41-year-old
Bollywood polymath. When his debut as writer/director, Dil
Chahta Hai, released in 2001, “all my friends were like, ‘Let’s go to
the theatre and watch it with the crowd!’ and I was like, ‘There’s
no way. If somebody starts talking in the middle of a scene I’m just
going to lose it.’ For three days I pretty much stayed home alone.”

JULY 2015 — 87
POLO T-SHIRT
BY PAUL SMITH.
CHINOS BY
CORNELIANI.
SHOES BY
OLIVER
SWEENEY

88 — JULY 2015
 Cut, fade in, title card to Farhan’s “14-years-later” house, those twice-daily training sessions for months on end, waking
where in a living room shielded from street level he sits cross- up at 5 o’clock every morning, eschewing booze and eating
legged in workout clothes on a well-worn, oversized leather only trainer-approved food – even running up the sides of
sofa. His maid has set coffee and cookies nearby, on the mountains in oxygen-starved Ladakh – to outrun these guys.
glassed-over skin of The Beatles’ most famous bass drum with But he wasn’t about to buy that “unfair advantage” bullshit.
its faded emblazon: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Even if meant emasculating a bunch of desk-bound dads
It’s not the the original, of course – that one sold at Christie’s running their first dashes for 20 years in front of their wives
in London for over $1 million in 2008 – but if Dil Dhadakne and children.
Do does what it should with its glossy stock and hi-watt cast, It’s like the fixed victory of being the only biped in an arse-
Farhan and his production company, Excel Entertainment, kicking contest. (In the land of the one-legged arse-kickers the
could probably justify a bid to anchor their office reception bipedal man is king.)
with the real Sgt Pepper drum. Surely there must be a word besides “embarrassment” for
Today though, he maintains there’s nothing left he can fix, displaying such inappropriate and tasteless aggression at the
nothing he can say to get more people to come see the movie. exhibition segment of your child’s school track event?
The veracity of relief is visible, scrunched up into nests of “I don’t know,” says Farhan, scanning the wall of his living
baby crow’s feet around his eyes when he smiles. He’s also room in recall. “I didn’t turn back to check.”
just eaten, which is a good sign – “There’s a switch that goes He jokes (mostly). But that moment of invincibility, “that’s
off in my brain when I’m really hungry,” he says. “I lose all what you should feel all the time, you know? That [your
perspective of logic; of reasonable, rational thinking. I’m not a opponents] don’t stand a chance.”
nice person to be around.”
You wouldn’t like him when he’s hungry. But when he’s in
a good mood, in this glassed-in room, looking out over the roil
of the Arabian Sea, he’s interested in what’s by the window: a
Gibson Hummingbird guitar, tuned down a full step to D. It’s
Keith Richards’ preferred model of acoustic – though acoustic
Keith is usually more of an open G man.
“I like the thin neck on the Hummingbird because I don’t hat feeling is what he calls “a peg”,
really have big hands,” says Farhan. something to draw upon when getting
There’s a Beatles/Stones joke in there somewhere, but the into character – even if it’s Adam Sandler
more curious aspect of entering this posh residential cube violently trouncing a Grade 1 class at
is the house’s nameplate outside the security gate. Upon dodgeball, set to the tune of the Ramones’
buying the property in 2009, Farhan christened it Vipassana: “Beat On The Brat” in Billy Madison – and Farhan took
a popular/populist style of meditation with dozens of spartan that feeling to the Milkha set. He’d be running scenes with
retreat centres around the world. (Very un-Keith, a little John professional athletes, and thinking, knowing, “I was going
Lennon, all spirit-quester.) to run faster than them. I was going to make them struggle.
“I just like the meaning of it,” explains Farhan, “of finding, These guys had no idea.”
on some level, that inner silence.” But, “my actual meditation Oddly enough, despite becoming the most ripped
is just strumming my guitar here.” motherfucker on the continent to be able to do that, Farhan
Time’s too tight to surrender his mobile phone and “sit”, doesn’t much think of himself as a method actor. Which
building up to 16 hours a day with no speaking, eye contact is strange, considering how much he admires the Magi of
or evening meal during the 10 days a typical Vipassana Method, Robert DeNiro.
retreat demands. If he had experienced the maddening, lone Successful movie people are always banging on about how
fury that is a Vipassana Day 4, the chances he’d name his much they admire even more successful movie people, but
little bit of Bandra after the gruelling, bruising catharsis Farhan’s DeNiro fawning is up a whole other gradient: “He’s
would probably decrease significantly. the only person whose feet I’ve ever touched in my life.”
Which is not to say Farhan couldn’t handle Vipassana. To Farhan’s met the man twice, but “it was a weird thing and
play sprinter Milkha Singh in 2013’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, I didn’t know what to say after ‘How are you, sir?’. I’d get
Farhan put in enough physical self-torture and abstemious uncomfortable. Even telling you now, how specifically he’d
living that his trainers were convinced he was ready to wanted his martini made” – the old fella’s a martini man. Who
compete professionally. knew? – “I feel like I’m invading his privacy, you know what
“I was running faster at 38 than I was when I was in I mean? Like if he were ever to read this, it would be a weird
school,” says Farhan. “It was pretty crazy.” And as fate would feeling, like eavesdropping on someone at a party. He evokes
have it, he would put his sprinter training to use on an off- that kind of feeling.”
screen, real-life track. In the Eighties, young Farhan saw DeNiro play
“Everyone knew I’d been training a lot,” says Farhan, “and Al Capone in The Untouchables at Sterling Cinema, and
never before in my life, and not since, have I felt invincible… was amazed the actor would “put on all that weight, shave
like, there was no way I could lose.” his head, just for those seven or eight scenes. That kind of
And he didn’t. He “just took off” from the starting line, and dedication is just amazing.”
it was an entrail-strewing slaughter; because the race he’s But more than the film that “had everyone talking like a
talking about happened at his daughter’s high school and his gangster walking out of the theatre”, Farhan may be reluctant
opponents were her classmates’ fathers. He didn’t need all to consider his Milkha Singh preparation as “method”,

JULY 2015 — 89
 because there’d then be the question of whether Bhaag Milkha
Bhaag was Farhan’s Raging Bull, the 1980 Scorsese classic
where DeNiro wrote the want-ad for anyone who’d come after
and presume to be transforming their bodies for a role: “Must
be willing to go from trained, functioning middleweight
boxer to Jabba-the-Hutt, Lounge Emcee by ‘eating your way
across Europe’.” (Before his gavage, DeNiro’s trainers had told
him he could probably hold his own as a pugilist.)
As Farhan wistfully intones, “You’re lucky to do that
kind of role once in your career, where you give that kind
of commitment to something, where you really completely
change who you are… But you can’t expect it. It’s very,
very rare.”

I
So that’s the thing. He doesn’t want to close the book on
that comparison because he thinks he might still get lucky
and get to do it again.

n acute contrast to this process are several of

Farhan’s other films, like Zindagi Na Milegi
Dobara, Shaadi Ke Side Effects or Rock On!! and BLAZER BY
its upcoming sequel – “films that are very close to RICHARD JAMES. T-SHIRT
home,” he says, where the characters are sort of like BY ERMENEGILDO
ZEGNA. JEANS BY
him anyway, “so those don’t really need a lot of time spent FRENCH CONNECTION.
investing in research.” POCKET SQUARE BY
He extends a not-quite-Milkha but still pretty-toned-for-41 BROOKS BROTHERS.
SHOES BY TOD’S
arm and gives one of those little hand tilts for sympathetic
emphasis, “In Dil Dhadakne Do, for example, I do something PHOTOGRAPHER
like you. I play a magazine journalist…” AGENCY: ANIMA
A-ha! But before any magazine journalist can start on CREATIVE MANAGEMENT
ASSISTANT STYLIST:
getting him to divulge that process, maybe even offer some TANYA VOHRA
tips, he retracts his hand and quips, “but it’s not really about HAIR: SAURABH
what I do as a profession in the film, because my character is a BHATKAR/BBLUNT
MAKE-UP: SWAPNIL
magazine journalist on holiday.” PATHARE
Just before that can be registered as either some SET & PROPS: HYBRID
exemplarily lazy acting or an insulting dismissal to a most PRODUCTIONS
PRODUCTION:
noble, underrespected and underpaid profession, there’s a VASUNDHARA SHARMA
little forehead and button-nose of an eight-year-old thudding FASHION ASSISTANT:
against the glass wall of the living room. She doesn’t know DESIREE FERNANDES
that daddy’s a movie star doing an interview, he’s just the guy
on the clock for pool time, and this Bombay summer’s not
exactly cooling off as 3 o’clock approaches.
“Today is just a normal day,” repeats Farhan, mostly
to himself, as he touches his hand to meet his daughter’s.
But the normalcy won’t last too long, this month he’s in
London, “fulfilling another dream, watching the Wimbledon
tennis finals.”
If this has anything to do with his next “method” part as a
tennis player, all you desperate housewives box-arsing around
Bandra’s tennis courts best beware: he’s coming, and he
doesn’t care – he’s not going to take it easy on any of you.

90 — JULY 2015
 V
V H
EDITED BY VARUN GODINHO

What alpha men wear on their wrist

Meet Marc A Hayek, the major domo of Swiss
luxury watchmaking

Channel your inner

Hugh Jackman with
these bold, badass
timepieces
WORDS: VARUN GODINHO. IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK (TYPE)

PRICE: `13 LAKH

The square is to Bell & Ross what

the octagon is to Audemars Piguet –
iconic. The case resembles the clocks
in a cockpit, and uses a patented
grade of carbon, Carbon Forgé, that’s
also used in fighter jets. If that weren’t
tough enough, the case is padded with
a composite of rubber and ceramic,
similar to the material used in the
nose of a space rocket. It’s basically
unbreakable.

JULY 2015 — 93
V
V H

PRICE: `27 LAKH

Indian cricketers love their

ubermasculine AP watches.
But you won’t find a bigger fan
than Sachin Tendulkar, who
owns a dozen, maybe more,
of them. Recently, though, it
was cap’n Mahendra Singh
Dhoni photographed sporting
this beast. What’s that about
him being cool, confident and
clinical? #AMOG

PRICE: `2.2 CRORE

The La Ferrari has the world’s

longest power reserve on a PRICE: `3.9 LAKH
mechanical watch. Wind it up with
a special drill and it’ll keep going You’ll likely find an Omega on the
for the next 50 days. But our wrist of the world’s most famous spy,
favourite part? Those black barrels, James Bond. This Seamaster Diver
which hold all those horses, and can plunge up to a depth of 1,000
are arranged vertically to resemble feet, and with that icy blue dial and
the exact layout of the supercar’s stainless steel strap, it’ll look as good
engine. Who ever said you can’t take on you – wetsuit, naked or all dressed
your Ferrari inside? up – as it does on 007.

PRICE: `1 CRORE

Richard Mille is the real deal when it comes to extreme watches.

Rafa Nadal wears one on the court when he’s breaking his
opponents with his powerful forehand strokes, and Felipe Massa
sported one when he crashed hard at the 2009 Hungarian
GP. You’ll find Lotus’ Romain Grosjean sporting an RM this
F1 season, too. He’s usually got it on his wrist, over his
WORDS: VARUN GODINHO

race overalls, while he’s battling forces up to 5g on the

track. All of which means: there’s very little you can
throw at it that this watch won’t survive.

94 — JULY 2015
 PRICE: `10 LAKH

If the event tonight is important

and you’re unsure about what to
wear on your wrist, this one’s a
fail-safe choice. The blacked-out
Breitling with accents of red is both
discreet and sexy. A bold, strong,
self-assured timepiece – wear it
with swag. PRICE: `31 LAKH

From rappers to hip hop artists and

A-listers to mega producers, Rolex has
become the entertainment industry’s
go-to watch. With an annual calendar
and dual time zone all worked into its
in-house calibre, this Sky-Dweller is
the Swiss brand’s most complicated
timepiece. But really, you’re just
getting one for bragging rights.

PRICE: `6.7 LAKH

English watchmaker George Graham is

believed to have created the world’s first
stopwatch over 200 years ago, but he never PRICE: `11.8 LAKH
patented the technology. Today, the brand’s
best known for its trigger mechanism over Titanium and ceramic were all the
the crown, which can be pulled to start and rage in the watch industry – until
stop this chronograph. now. Meet the biggest trend of
2015: carbon. It’s lighter, less
corrosive and tougher than both.
With this Luminor, Panerai has
taken several thin layers of carbon
fibre and pressed them together to
construct that massive 47mm case.
Big is beautiful.

PRICE ON REQUEST

This looks like a watch a superhero

might wear. And while it’d work
for Iron Man and Thor, it’s really
for Spider-Man. That’s because the
skeletonized movement with the four-
pointed star is arranged to resemble
a spider’s web. There are also two
flying tourbillons worked into that
Hallmark of Geneva-certified in-house
movement. Let them speculate about
your late-night alter ego.

JULY 2015 — 95
 At the the freedom to realize your goals and dreams. But
your real capital is your team and staff. He also
encouraged me to pursue whatever I wanted, even if

TOP of his game

it meant not joining his watchmaking business.

So initially you chose to set up a restaurant

called Colors in Zurich?
I learned how to build something from scratch with
that venture. I had to find the location, draw up
a concept, buy the products, curate the wine list,
hire the staff. In a restaurant, the number of clients
The Swatch Group’s Marc A Hayek is
can exceed that in even the best watch boutique and
rewriting the rulebook at the multibillion- so it was there that I learned how to interact with
dollar watchmaking house customers. The wine bar, for example, was about
giving someone an experience that, like the luxury

W
watch business, was about more than just selling
hen the Swiss watch industry was a commodity.
tottering on the brink of obscurity,
bankruptcy and ruin in the early What drew you into the watch world?
Eighties, Nicolas G Hayek and a few I was considering opening a second restaurant
other investors bought a number of the financially in another city, two years after Colors. Blancpain
distressed watchmakers and turned them into approached me about helping to grow its business.
powerhouses under the banner of the Swatch Group. It was a high-end mechanical watchmaker that
His grandson Marc A Hayek now helms three of had this younger, sporty appeal. I’d always loved
the multibillion-dollar group’s most prestigious watches, and I couldn’t resist the offer.
brands: Breguet, Blancpain and Jaquet Droz. We
caught up with the major domo at Baselworld 2015 to What are the current production numbers
understand what makes him (and those brands) tick. for the brands you oversee?
We’re roughly at 5,000 watches a year for Jaquet
What were some of the earliest lessons on Droz. Blancpain produces above 25,000 and Breguet
being a businessman you learned from is at around 30,000.
your grandfather?
That your capital is not how many zeroes you have Why does Jaquet Droz manufacture such
in your bank account – that’s good, and gives you limited quantities?
Historically, automata have been the main focus for
Jaquet Droz. And that itself is a very small subset of
mechanical watchmaking. For me, Jaquet Droz also
has to be manufactured in lower quantities because
this is a brand with a very strong collector base.

How do you take a brand like Breguet,

Hayek could which is so steeped in tradition, and make
have been many it accessible?
things – a vintner, a Breguet has a rich history with its connection to
restaurateur, a racer Napoleon, and a Baroque-inspired French style. But
(and he’s tried his
hand at them all) – that can also act as a barrier and deter people from
before he settled into buying into the brand. We’re working on drawing
his hugely successful that line between making people aware of this
role in the watch biz history and yet keeping the brand accessible.

What are the standouts from the three

brands this year?
For Breguet it’s the [Tradition] Chronograph that
I’ll also be adding to my personal collection.
For Jaquet Droz it’s the Grande Seconde Morte,
where the jumping seconds mechanism
is very complex and difficult to do on a
mechanical wristwatch. And for Blancpain
INTERVIEW: VARUN GODINHO

it is the Bathyscaphe, which represents the

watchmaker’s philosophy and history.

What are your future plans for India?

Breguet is very well rooted in India, but it’s
Breguet Tradition Chronograph been very difficult to repeat its brand’s strategy
Independent 7077 for Blancpain, for example. We want to get a
flagship store in the midterm in India.

96
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 OK URE
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insider
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS MONTH

AN
(EXTRA)
ORDINARY
AUTEUR
British film-maker Asif Kapadia
insists he’s just a regular
bloke, but you’ve got to admit:
Resurrecting Amy Winehouse
is no mean task

B efore Adele, Katy Perry

and Taylor Swift became
music phenoms, a
sassy north Londoner called
WORDS: NIDHI GUPTA

Amy Winehouse used to rule

the world. It was impossible to
escape her in the last decade. If it
wasn’t her bluesy songs, on loop
everywhere from the moment

JULY 2015 — 99
 FILM

“AMY WAS
destruction, including a bad relationship and a
A still
from Amy
PROBABLY battle with bulimia, had begun the moment she
THE CLOSEST recorded her first song. Kapadia places the blame
I’D COME with a “tabloid-led society”. You know, the kind
where cameras follow celebrities everywhere
TO DOING A and everyone feels entitled to every single detail
BOLLYWOOD about their private lives. No wonder Kapadia is
FILM – IT’S suspicious of the culture of fandom.
Although, judging by the manner in which film
LIKE A festival frats swoon over anything he touches, he’s
MUSICAL, got enough admirers of his own. Back in 1997,
STRUCTURED the Cannes International Film Festival awarded
him a prize for his short film The Sheep Thief;
AROUND HER since then, he’s courted and cultivated a steady
SONGS” following at all of the big soirees – from Sundance
to Venice – with his documentaries, features and
they arrived in all their subversive, defiant glory, it short films. Safe to say that in the universe of
was the relentless coverage of her troubled life and world cinema, he’s a star.
career – splashed all over TV and the internet like Perhaps to no one’s surprise, Amy’s Cannes
some kind of sick, twisted reality show. You were screening in May was greeted with a flood of
“subscribed”, whether you liked it or not. tears and a tumult of critical acclaim. What
Which is why it’s a little odd that the man who might’ve been a little unexpected was Amy’s
has made the documentary on her life initially had father Mitch whining, publicly, about how
no idea what she or her music were about. this film was out to destroy him. Of course, no
“I knew of the tragedy, of course,” says Asif one’s taking him seriously – it’s a little difficult
Kapadia, a Londoner of Gujarati origins, in a to side with the man who vanished early from
clipped British accent. “But I’m generally more his daughter’s life and re-appeared at just the
ASIF KAPADIA’S
into sports – I love football, respect Muhammad FILMOGRAPHY “right” moment. “Amy was very honest, very
Ali and, of course, you know, Ayrton Senna. I’m straightforward. She just said, wrote and sang
just not a stalker and I don’t believe in that kind of what she thought. I had to tell the story from her
fan culture. We’re all ordinary people, after all.” point of view,” maintains Kapadia.
So much for hero worship. Why choose Amy Jetting between Turkey, Azerbaijan and
Winehouse as a subject, then? “Weirdly enough, London for his next project, Kapadia probably
the project came to me,” Kapadia explains. doesn’t have the time anyway to pay attention to
Senna, his 2010 documentary, brought many lawsuit threats or even gushing, hyperbolic titles
good things, a BAFTA award, universal critical like the “King of Cannes” – given to him by the
acclaim, a shitload of money (it raked in over £3 Guardian’s critic.
million, making it the highest-grossing British “Ali & Nino is my first feature in eight years,”
documentary of all time). And a proposition from he enthuses. “It’s based on a book by Kurban
FAR NORTH (2007)
Universal Music UK to create a similar tribute Michelle Yeoh fights for Said; a sort of old-fashioned romantic story,
to Amy Winehouse. “When James [Joyce Reese, survival in the Arctic but also a war tale, about this Muslim boy and
the producer of Senna and Amy] came to me Christian girl caught in a world where Asia
with it, I thought, why not? In all these years, I’d meets Europe, Russia meets Iran, at the start
never managed to make a film set in London. This of the first World War. It has a great script by
seemed like an opportunity.” Christopher Hampton, and a great cast [Maria
Turns out, Winehouse and Kapadia grew up in Valverde and Adam Bakri].” He hopes to have it
the same part of the metropolis – literally down the completed by 2016.
street from each other in Hackney. They even went Clearly, Kapadia likes to experiment with the
to the same school. “A guy I know actually went on stories he wants to tell and the way he wants
a date with her when we were all much younger – to tell them. But don’t expect a racy action
and I had no idea till I started researching for this flick or superhero franchise out of him. “Amy
project,” he laughs. was probably the closest I’d come to doing a
WORDS: NIDHI GUPTA. IMAGE: REX FEATURES, AFP

SENNA (2010)
That research involved sifting through over The thrilling life of the Bollywood film – it’s like a musical, structured
100 hours of old footage of Amy, including home legendary F1 racer around her songs,” he says. “But mainstream
videos and concert recordings. Condensing all that Hollywood films? Not me.”
into 180 minutes wasn’t the tough part, though. He may be all about the cinema, not the
Getting people – 80 of her closest friends, family celebrity, but now that Kapadia’s told his tale
and colleagues – to talk about her was: “Everyone of London, with Amy Winehouse as his medium,
close to her was heartbroken over what had it looks like he might come around to the idea of
happened, understandably. It took me a year, being someone’s fan after all. “Amy was a very
maybe more, to get her friends, family and the witty, bright, funny girl. She’s bewitching. It’s
producers she worked with to open up to me.” impossible not to fall in love with her.”
THE WARRIOR (2001)
Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning and Irrfan Khan tries to escape
We could’ve told you that in 2007, bruh.
drug overdose in 2011. But her march to self- his warrior past Amy hits PVR Theatres on July 3

100 — JULY 2015

 PLAYLIST

Hey Mr DJ
Meet Jai Vaswani, the chip slinger-
turned-turntablist who’s got everyone
hot for his dishy, groovy beats

M oniker: Nanok, or DJ Jai

Known for: His 2014
EP Fever and album
Death By Shoelaces. More recently,
a collaboration with Anish Sood and
Anushka Manchanda, the chart-topping
dance track “Superfly”.
Genre: Deep house and nu-disco
Education: Point Blank School, London
Describes his music as: “Sex music,
but danceable.”
Describes himself as: “A workaholic
and a perfectionist.”
Is big on: Collaborations. He’s already
worked with the likes of Dualist Inquiry,

WORDS: NIDHI GUPTA. PHOTO: PRABHAT SHETTY. STYLIST: TANYA VOHRA. HAIR & MAKE-UP: MONA ANAND/BBLUNT. LOCATION: WAH WAH STUDIOS, KHAR, MUMBAI
Sandunes and Nicholson.
On his set: “As Nanok, I play my own
stuff. But when I play commercially [as
DJ Jai], it’s a no-holds-barred retro-
pop set. Nothing like the Backstreet
Boys and the Spice Girls to get a crowd
going. I always play Shaggy.”
Favourite performance space:
Olive Bar Kitchen and blueFrog, Mumbai.
Hangs out at: Home and the gym.
“I spend 12 hours a day in my studio,
and a good 4-5 hours working out.”
Biggest compliment: “The audiences
for my sets are worlds apart. I was very
flattered when this girl came up to me at
one of my pop gigs and asked for ‘Can
Someone’, an original I did with vocalist
Ashna Roy. She knew my stuff!”
Biggest beef: People who turn up
their nose at commercial music. “All
these people at techno gigs awkwardly
nodding along – you can never
make out if they’re actually enjoying
themselves or there just because it’s
cool. Then they come for my pop sets
and they’re going ballistic on the dance
floor. Why diss it, then?”
Coming soon: A brand new live project.
“It’ll be sexy, bluesy, jazzy; maybe I’ll get a
three-piece live act to go with it.” The first
album will release on a Brussels-based
label this September.
Fun fact: Owns student-favourite chip
shop The J at Churchgate, Mumbai. T-SHIRT BY LEVI’S.
Mojo: “To turn my passion(s) into my JACKET BY ZARA.
JEANS BY GAS.
livelihood. I used to be a videogame freak. WATCH BY FOSSIL
So I started a LAN-based cyber café in
Nano
2008 for my buddies to play Counter-Strike
and Call Of Duty. Now I’m crazy about
fitness. I think I’ll open a gym next.”
k
102 — JULY 2015
 POP CULTURE

TERMINATOR: MAGIC MIKE

FILM GENISYS XXL
By Alan Taylor By Gregory Jacobs
Hollywood’s
Unless there’s a plot twist Watch sexpot Tatum &
summer involving Emilia Clarke doing gang strip the ladies of
always a Khaleesi and bumping off their sanity. And you, of
ends with Ah’nold, we can’t fathom your body image.
a barrage why this is back.
of sequels,
reboots and
spinoffs. Let
GQ’s mood
chart help MINIONS
By Pierre Coffin &
you decide Kyle Balda
what’s worth The world’s favourite
getting yellow henchbeings now
revved up CO serve new supervillain
M Sandra Bullock. Aren’t you
over REALITY
E
going bananas already?

D
CHECK

Y
POINTLESS CUTESY CGI
MISSION:
IMPOSSIBLE SEQUEL IRRATIONAL
ROGUE MAN
NATION By Woody Allen
ION

By Chris PEOPLE TALKING An existentialist

McQuarrie TOO MUCH philosophy professor
TOM CRUISE
The real question STUNTS falls for his student.
ACT

isn’t “Who’s trying Moral of the story:

to kill the what If you’re suffering
now?” but “Why the A MIGHTY from writer’s block,

CR
FALL
hell is Simon Pegg NEW try sex with a (much)
still here?” SUPERHERO! DATE
IM younger woman.
NIGHT
E
ANT-MAN HO
By Peyton Reed RROR
An ant-riding, redemption-
seeking Paul Rudd with a
French-bearded Michael
Douglas for a mentor?
At least it isn’t (yet)
another Spider-man.
MR HOLMES
THE By Bill Condon
W U LT U R E * GALLOWS Sherlock is 93, retired
E By Travis Cluff & and scratching his
R

once-shrewd head
U

Chris Lofing
C U LT

CU

A red room + over the case that

LT U R E

woman strangled on did him in. And about

camera + resurrection where he put his hat.
20 years later = Girl Where’s that Watson
W
*

all over you. when you need him?

U

* LT
U
*** RE

BOOKS MUSIC
Go Set A Watchman Boys Don’t Cry
WORDS: NIDHI GUPTA. IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES

By Harper Lee By Frank Ocean

The mystery of a manuscript “found” after 55 The R&B phenom is taking
years makes this the most-awaited literary a break from Tumblr and
sequel of, well, all time. Not least because finally releasing his second
it follows up on a book that everyone and studio record (as announced
their grandmother read in high school. (Or on, uh, Tumblr). He’s being
pretended to, because reading was once ironic with that title, though
cool.) However, there’s already a shortcut for – Ocean’s weepy, whispery
this one: Reese Witherspoon’s voice on the audiobook will have ballads are exactly why you’ll
you hooked. Like it did on the otherwise ho-hum Wild. buy this album.

104 — JULY 2015

 BOOKS

LOVE & ALGORITHMS

Comedian Aziz Ansari gets
surprisingly serious about
relationships in the Digital Age
in his book Modern Romance,
writes John Heilpern

A ziz Ansari, who is among

the most popular stand-
up comedians in the
US, met me for lunch
at Cherche Midi, on the Bowery, New
York, looking like a hip, surprised
sprite. Mr Ansari famously went from
playing a delusional Lothario on Parks
And Recreation to having 5.6 million

WORDS: NIDHI GUPTA (SIDEBAR). PORTRAIT: PHOTO: GASPER TRINGDALE; STYLIST: ALICIA LOMBARDINI; GROOMING: KEIKO HAMAGUCHI. IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES (COUPLE)
Twitter followers and selling out
Madison Square Garden twice with his
one-man show. “Are you into splitsies?”
he asked me.
It was a firstie. We had a hamachi
crudo, followed by his choice of pan-
seared salmon and steak frites to share.
“Absolutely!” said the waiter. “Thank
you, sir,” said Aziz.
We were meeting to discuss his first
book, Modern Romance (for which
he received a reported $3.5 million
advance), written with the sociologist
Eric Klinenberg and published last
month by Penguin Press. It’s an
unexpectedly serious work about the
challenges and pitfalls of looking for
love in the Digital Age via Match.com,
OkCupid, Tinder, Twitter, Facebook –
the whole techno shebang.
Aziz Ansari is now 32. He isn’t, then,
a bewildered fogey when it comes to
understanding our hyper-connected

Modern Romance
times. But he’s old enough, he told again!”?’ The movie would be, like,
By Aziz Ansari me, to still speak to someone on 20 minutes!”
Penguin Press, the phone. Texting is less anxiety- He believes that the most
June 2015
ridden. (“Hey, w’sup!”) And it makes intimate relationship we have is
it easier to cheat, break up and with our cell phones. According
snoop. He mentioned the erotic to his research, OkCupid creates
thriller Unfaithful, from 2002, in some 40,000 dates every day,
which poor old Richard Gere hires while two billion swipes on Tinder
a private detective to snoop on his generate 12 million matches a day.
beautiful wife, Diane Lane, who’s “It’s a stunning number, and I think
having a wild affair with a French it’s beautiful that all these tools
dude. “If they made Unfaithful now,” are able to help people find love
Aziz explained amusingly, “he’d just and happiness. I mean, sometimes
look at her smartphone and be like, it doesn’t go well. But there are
‘Who’s this guy you’re texting who’s so many people it’s helped. If you
saying, “Let’s go fuck in the stairwell look at it one way, it’s creating all

106 — JULY 2015

this love in the world that wouldn’t be
“If they made POST-SCRIPT
created otherwise.” Three more books that attempt to
There was a time when we were
buying personal ads in these things Unfaithful now, decode the concept of love in the
new millennium:
called newspapers. (“Attractive
mid-30s male interested in travel, he’d just look at her IN REAL LIFE:
LOVE, LIES &
Chopin and mountaineering would
like to meet blonde 20-year-old.”) In smartphone and be IDENTITY IN THE
DIGITAL AGE
contrast, Aziz quoted an insecure
young man he interviewed complaining like, ‘Who’s this guy Nev
Schulman
he had only 70 matches on Tinder,
whereas an attractive female friend you’re texting who’s The host of MTV’s
Catfish lays out
of his had hundreds. “Seventy women? the rules for
That’s insane!” saying, “Let’s go translating online
“I used to know about four women,” relationships into
I said. fuck in the stairwell successful ones
in real life.
“Yeah, me too! But now you get into
this whole paradox of choice. What’s again!”?’ The INDIA IN LOVE:
weird is that all the norms are changing
so fast. Is there too much choice? Just movie would be, MARRIAGE AND
SEXUALITY
because you have 70 matches – don’t IN THE 21ST
try to hang out with all 70. You can like, 20 minutes!” CENTURY
hang out with a few and see if there’s a Ira Trivedi
connection.” The novelist
charts relationship
EM Forster’s fabled 1910 epigraph, in Modern Romance that technology
statuses across the
“Only connect”, has been transformed has turned his generation into country to find a
into a frantic Web search not only for “the rudest, flakiest people ever.” sexual revolution
relationships or marriage (or sex) but “I think our cell phones have afoot.
also for perfect love. Aziz, a romantic given us the tools to be rude,”
realist, sees the downside. He writes he explained (though he remains LOVE
characteristically polite). “It’s ILLUMINATED:
easier to send a text to split up EXPLORING
with someone than to have a LIFE’S MOST
conversation and, you know, deal MYSTIFYING
SUBJECT...
with the ramifications. It’s easier Daniel Jones
because you’re not going to hear Jones analyzes
the disappointment in their voice.” matters of the
We’ve become souls divided, heart through
he maintains, between the real self the stories he
and the cell phone self. And we chronicles in his
get ourselves wrong! When Aziz NYT column.
was writing stand-up about online
dating, he experimented with filling
out the forms of dummy accounts
on several dating sites. The person say, ‘I want someone I have a very deep
he truthfully described he wanted connection with and I can sit around
to find “was a little younger than having the most fun with – ever!’”
me, small, with dark hair”. But the In the end, every dating tool is a
woman he’s been dating for the past means to a traditional outcome – a
two years and is now happily living real, live, risky meeting! In fact, Aziz
with in Los Angeles is a little older, first met his steady girl, a pastry chef,
taller and blonde. through mutual friends before they
Match.com’s own research began the texting dance between
algorithm confirms the surprising them (which he publishes in Modern
discovery that the partner people Romance). And, as a bonus, his parents,
say they want online often doesn’t immigrants to the US from Tamil
match up to the one they’re actually Nadu, are the successful outcome of
interested in. “Who knows who an arranged marriage. They were
you’re eliminating?” said Aziz. His married a week after they met, some
current love wouldn’t have made it 35 years ago.
through the filters he placed on his Falling in love is the eternal mystery,
own online dating profile. “This is Aziz Ansari agrees, and, for good and
Ansari with girlfriend Courtney McBloom
the thing,” he said. “If we could bad, till death do us part, the Digital
have just one checkbox, it would Age is here to help.

JULY 2015 — 107

 SOCIAL ETIQUETTE

SMALL talk made slick

Can’t fathom what your subordinates at the office party are blathering on about?
GQ upgrades your conversation-starters – and it’s not all about the weather

TV Binge- Social Delhi ß The New “I’m So

Media
Viewing Overload Mumbai New Diet Tired”
Movies The evening news Moving to Canada Recreational drugs “I’m so bored.”
PAST ANALOGUE

Anyone with a TV Your peer group Anyone who Friends and family Work colleagues
(or laptop or tablet lives in one of
WHO TO ENGAGE or smartphone) these two cities

The pedant who cites Teenagers Anyone who lives Pregnant women Your boss
Tolstoy when talking in Kolkata
BEWARE OF about The Wire

“What shows are “I’m thinking “Delhi will “Have you seen “I’m so tired.”
you watching?” of deleting my always be Delhi, Karan lately? He
Facebook account.” but Mumbai’s looks incredible!
KICK-OFF changing a lot. It’s What do you think
COMMENT not a one-industry he did?”
town any more!”

“We were late “I’m not really “When you’re in “I’ve tried it all “God, me too. I
to The Jinx. My on social media. Delhi, you can – Atkins, Paleo, am sooooo tired.
girlfriend had to My mom used to feel the energy. Weight Watchers, I’ve been working
catch up on House comment on my Can’t beat it for even the 20/20 nonstop. I can’t
Of Cards, and of Facebook page so culture. But it’s diet. Now I’m even remember the
course she would’ve I joined Twitter. so stressful! I feel gluten-free. It’s last time I read a
killed me if I’d Now she retweets much healthier been about a year, book. This morning,
watched The Jinx my posts. I’m on in Mumbai, more and I’m down two I fell asleep in the
without her, so I LinkedIn – for active. Yeah, the jeans sizes. Plus, shower – can you
decided to give The work. I’m also on traffic sucks, but if I have tons more believe it?! Then
WHEN IT’S SAFE Big Bang Theory Instagram. It’s a you live near your energy. It’s because I hit a wall in the
TO TUNE OUT another chance – purer experience work and your the wheat we eat afternoon and I
and it’s gotten really than Facebook, friends, it’s the now is making really had to fight
good again! You y’know? I’m more best. I hear you on us sick! All that my way through
just have to stick of a lurker, but I the lack of seasons. processing. No it. I just have a lot
with it. Still, it’s no post now and then, But I can’t deal wonder so many going on right
Empire. Cookie’s so people know I with another Delhi of us are allergic. now. Business is
the best. Remember still exist. Check it winter. The last Don’t do a juice booming. It’s a nice
the bib scene?! out: I’m up to 532 one was brutal!” cleanse, though. problem to have,
BOO BOO KITTY!!!” followers!” It’s a scam.” but still.”

“Do you think “Ever heard of “They invented “Then there’s the “You really should
“CURVEBALL” I should cut Yik Yak?” Mumbai to make danger of losing too try green tea. It’s
RESPONSE WHEN the cord?” you miss Delhi.” much weight too fast. the perfect pick-
SOMEONE THINKS Loosens up the skin, me-up.”
YOU’RE NOT and then you need to
LISTENING get a tuck anyway.”

“I can’t keep up. “Why didn’t “BKC is the HKV “I guess I was “All I need is four
It’s starting to feel you follow me of Mumbai.” blessed with a hours of sleep and
THE FAUX PAS
WORDS: LAURENCE LOWE

like work.” back on Twitter?” speedy metabolism.” I’m good to go.”

“NO SPOILERS.” “We should live “What about “Fuck it – I’m “Sorry to cut things
THE IT’S-A-WRAP stream this confab Bengaluru, though?” getting the short, but I can barely
COMMENT on Periscope!” spaghetti carbonara.” keep my eyes open.
Goodnight, everyone.”

108 — JULY 2015

PALLADIUM MALL, MUMBAI
6PM TO MIDNIGHT
PARTICIPATING BRANDS:
Accessorize Guess ONLY
Aftershock London Hackett London Paul Smith
Amber & Shirrin Heel & Buckle Promod
AM:PM Hidesign Punjab Grill
Being Human Hugo Boss Ritu Kumar
Brooks Brothers INGLOT ROYCE’
Burberry Jack & Jones Shahenaz Home Shop
Cheemo Jean Claude Biguine Steve Madden
Diesel Jimmy Choo Superdry
Dune Kenneth Cole The Body Shop
Ermenegildo Zegna Kiehl’s The Collective
Ethos La Prairie Thomas Pink
Foodhall La Folie Patisserie Tommy Hilfiger
Forest Essentials Le15 Patisserie Tommy Hilfiger Childrenswear
French Connection L’Occitane Tumi
Gossip MAC Vero Moda
Gucci Nine West Zara
 MANSKILLS

with the red pen, “when you have the pen.” “Can I
have the pen?” he said. “Shhh,” they all said.
“Fine,” he said, and went to the stationery
cupboard, fetched another pen, brought it back in and
said, “This whole pen thing is total bollocks.” And then
there was some shouting. Even though formulating
new innovative processes in corporate blah-de-blah
was literally what he’d just gone and done.
The chairs had gone a few months earlier, he
said, when somebody, somewhere, had renamed
“meetings” to “stand-ups”. The theory here being
that if you let people have chairs in meetings, then
meetings last too long because people never want to
leave. The real trouble came when you had to have a
stand-up in a meeting room which still had chairs in
it, because there wasn’t ever enough space. So they
started quite often having “sit-down stand-ups”, and
nobody ever mentioned that this was odd.
I was reading the other day (perhaps on my phone,
in a meeting) that Sheryl Sandberg, who is the COO
of Facebook (many meetings), veteran of both Google
(even more meetings) and the US treasury (basically
one big meeting that has been running since 1789), has
been advising women on how they should behave in
meetings. She says meetings are always dominated by
men. Male executives, she’s noticed, speak far more
than their female counterparts. And the insinuation
here is that this is because they are more confident and
thus believe they have more to say.
This is a fundamental female misunderstanding
of the male brain. Men aren’t more confident in
meetings. They’re just more bored. For we are simple
creatures, what else is there to do? We’ve tried paying
attention and it hasn’t worked. We’ve enjoyed a brief
period of idle lust. We’ve taken apart our pens and put
them back together. We’ve stuck a sharp key, for no
reason at all, clean through the sole of our shoe. We’ve
hummed, for a while, at the exact tone and pitch of the
air conditioning, to see if anybody would notice.
And nobody has.
Then, suddenly, we’ve clicked back into focus.

HOW not TO BEHAVE IN “Hell,” we’ve thought to ourselves. “He’s still talking? It’s been ages
now. And he’s not even telling us anything. He’s just doing what
people in meetings always do, which is saying the words ‘going

MEETINGS
forward’ and ‘liaison’ over and over again. And if this doesn’t end
soon, I shall lose my mind. Thus, I must start talking instead. It is the
only way.”
Still. I am fortunate. My rare meetings these days are usually brief,
Brainstorm session, conference or ‘stand-up’ – call it what sensible affairs, with people quite tersely telling me to go away and
you want, the office meeting is hell. But here are innovative do things. This, to me, is how it should be. Occasionally though, I am
WORDS: HUGO RIFKIND. ILLUSTRATION: ANDRE CARRILHO

ideas on how to survive one. Or not inexplicably sucked into long, endless meetings, full of people who
have already had a pre-meeting about the meeting, and will meet after
the meeting for a meeting about how the meeting went. I can’t cope.

I
I just can’t. I feel my mind drifting back, always, to the worst torture of
’ve a friend with a proper job, where you wear a tie, and go to an my early teenage years, which was geography lessons.
office, have a secretary, and all that sort of stuff. Given that most of We used to get stoned on solvent during geography lessons.
my peers these days seem to work in glorified garden sheds, in their Everybody did. Stuck in a meeting, I start to feel as though I have
pyjamas, we all find him fascinating. It’s like knowing a spaceman. still not recovered from a particularly strong hit I took in 1991; that
Anyway, he toddled into his workplace the other day for a meeting I am perhaps sitting in the same slack-jawed daze, in the same place,
about formulating innovative new processes in corporate blah-de-blah, in a hopeless and empty stasis inflicted by Mrs Whatsherface going
or some such. Everybody was crammed in a very small room with no on and on about bloody coastal erosion. I chew pens and start to
chairs, and staring at a guy with a red pen. fear I have an inky beard. I loll. I swoon. I do all the things I said up
“What’s with the pen?” he said. “Shh,” they all said. “No,” he said. above and more. “Oh god,” I think. “Oh, no. Oh, please. Is this really
“Seriously. What’s with the pen?” “You may only speak,” said the guy necessary? Can’t you just send me a fucking text?”

110 — JULY 2015

 THE WORLD’S
BEST COMPETE.
YOU DECIDE
WHO WINS

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 EDITED BY VARUN GODINHO

What does it take to build a `6-crore Bentley?

A private jet is the only way to roll

EXEMPLARY

ENGLISH
CUSTOM
Bentley’s Mulsanne Speed is stately enough for Dave Besseling to sit
in the back and sip champagne like a duke, but sporty enough
to see how close he can get to that 200mph top speed. (But maybe
give that a go before hitting the champers, OK?)

JULY 2015 — 113

BENTLEY MULSANNE SPEED

T
here’s a pub in Cheshire And there’s much to fiddle with all this from over a million available
BENTLEY
County, England, called here – automatic mesh window MULSANNE custom colour schemes. There’s a guy,
the Cheshire Cat, where a shades for the rear and sides, headrest SPEED on a stool, and it takes him 36 hours to
grinning image of Lewis consoles for the GPS, satellite radio or sew a full Mulsanne. Add to that the
Carroll’s famous feline DVD, seatback “picnic tables” stocked five hours it takes for another person
MAIN PAINT
entices motorists in for a pint or a pie. with iPads, kneading massage settings ORANGE FLAME who’s already had a year’s practice to
Further south down Whitchurch Road in the seats, a built-in champagne stretch and stitch the leather around
is the gate to Bolesworth Castle, which chiller. “There’s about £50,000 worth of VENEER the steering wheel.
is not the Downton Abbey set, but extras built in,” says James. And that’s PIANO BLACK When you step onto the factory
pretty close. above the already-prohibitive £250,000 0-60MPH floor of the Mulsanne line and stroll
Pick your preferred cultural price tag. But once you’ve been taken 4.9 SEC around the stations required to go
reference, England is never short on through the factory in Crewe, about 40 from naked chassis to full Bentley
such places, and there aren’t many miles south-west of all this referential PRICE and see the custom wood and leather
APPROX
English cars better suited to cruise into English culture, these numbers start to `6 CRORE you’ve chosen for your interiors pre-
either of those fantasy lands than a make sense. installation, no matter what the hues,
Bentley. Especially a big fat Mulsanne Run your fingers along the seams of they’ll pop in contrast to the factory’s
with such a squint-inducing paint job. your seat. If you’re driving a Mulsanne clinical whiteness. It’s like a hospital,
“It’s called orange flame,” says you’ve purchased for yourself, you or Willy Wonka’s TV studio. Not that
Bentley’s James Barlow, talking over will have chosen the colour of that they’ll let you film anything in there.
his shoulder from the front seat. “Go stitching, which is also around the There’s a whole separate section
on,” he encourages, “have a good fiddle headrests, the gear shift and the in another building where the 14
back there.” steering wheel. You would have chosen European bull hides needed to
upholster each Mulsanne are treated,
ensuring you’ll have that “new car
smell” times a thousand long after
the car gets old. Across another alley
on site, there’s over £30,000 worth of
veneers in the woodshop’s storage
vault at any given time, and a team of
apprentices nearby are hard at training
to perfect those signature paper-thin
inlays for the dashboard and the door
panels. That part of the factory smells
like what you’d imagine as paradise
for Queen Elizabeth’s baby gryphon,
the one she keeps in the basement of
Buckingham Palace - or just anyone
who likes the smell of wood.
Because this is all Bentley’s deal:
customizing everything. The leather
and the wood. And they like metal.

114 — JULY 2015

 THE BENTLEY
MULSANNE IS THE
QUINTESSENCE
OF STATELY
BRITISH FANTASY
gone down about 20 per cent by the
time we circle back towards Crewe.
Not that fuel economy is likley to be a
deal-breaker for anyone looking to buy
one of these monsters.
We’ve been driving for about 90
minutes when we pull back in front
of the factory, where “a Mulsanne is
completed every 86 minutes,” says Nick
Still, Mulsanne production manager.
Which means there’s a chance a shiny
new Bentley may have just come off
the assembly line, been quality checked
inside and out, and run through “the
Monsoon room” for leaks. There’s only
a ten per cent chance it’ll stay in the
UK – about 85 per cent of Bentley’s
business is overseas, mainly the US and
China. And though India isn’t much of
that last five per cent, I joke, “You know,
Nick, you could always just send me
one in Mumbai if you want some real
A lot. “You see this bit here?” – the And also, we should be clear, this is monsoon testing.”
Mulsanne’s lead interior designer, not only a Mulsanne but a Mulsanne Nick laughs with enough incredulity
George Bowen, had pointed out Speed, which means you can move that I ditch even my comparably
earlier in the day – “right there TEST from cruising lord to drag racer in the moderate second idea, which is to ask if
beside the gearshift? Feel how cold
it is.” No el cheapo plastic for these
DRIVE time it takes to switch to the driver’s
seat. Once you’re up there, you’re
we can at least swing back to the gates
of Bolesworth Castle, just to see, when
guys. (Well, there is one plastic part looking at 0 to 60mph in 4.9 seconds. we showed up in our orange Bentley, if
but George said he’s working on If you wish to accomplish this feat on we could gain passage up to the main
being able to produce it in glass and Cheshire’s curvy lanes, five seconds is house. If any car could be a free pass to
maintain quality so let’s let him try about the time before you’ll be testing a listed estate… And if not, we could at
and take care of that before we call the sports car handling on this tank-like least play Mad Hatter at the Cheshire
anyone out on it.) Almost as an aside, sedan, and likely nodding in approval. Cat pub for a while to make up for it.
George explained that when you’re If you’ve got a decent straightaway, the Or we could always just load up the
in the driver’s seat, your downward Mulsanne’s V8 6.75-litre engine will Mulsanne’s champagne cooler and see
line of sight is not flush to the door propel you to a top speed of 200mph. where we end up when the stocks need
panels, so he moved them down And with all this weight capable of to be refilled. Any of those outings
2 millimetres to keep the driver’s travelling at such speeds on our good would make for some exemplary
sightlines continuous. “Can you see 60-mile tear, the gas gauge has only English custom.
the difference?” he asked. I wasn’t
quite sure I could, but I wasn’t going
to argue with the guy who took
three months to get the curve in the
dashboard right. “It might be a bit of
an OCD thing,” he joked.

D
o you want to drive now?”
asks James, just as I’ve begun
thinking of ways I could survive
without ever leaving this back seat.
I feel like we should at least figure
out where the closest off-licence
would be to get some bubbly into its
compartment. This is the quintessence
of stately British fantasy here, being
languidly chauffeured around the
countryside, because when you’re
in the back seat of one of these, you
shouldn’t have to move too fast for
anyone. My fantasy would have
included a man named Jeeves, not
James, but I’m not complaining.

JULY 2015 — 115

PRIVATE JETS

THE (REAL) MILE HIGH CLUB

While you’re scrambling to score 13 inches of extra legroom in Premium Economy,
the truly wealthy are living life king-size aboard these private jets

THE $65 MILLION JET

GULFSTREAM
G650ER
THE BEST A TYCOON CAN GET
The ultimate business jet, the
Gulfstream G650, recently got a
massive update. This Extended
Range (ER) version can hold an
additional 1,800kg of fuel, making it
the longest-flying jet in civil aviation
(it can do Mumbai-New York in
one hop). It’s one of the fastest, too,
with twin Rolls-Royce humdinger
engines that allow for a maximum
speed of Mach 0.925, a paltry 90kph
shy of the speed of sound. There’s a
four-year waiting period for this $65
SPECS: million jet, so we recommend you
find a billionaire willing to sell his
ENGINES TOP SPEED RANGE MAX CRUISING PASSENGERS LENGTH WINGSPAN HEIGHT MAX TAKEOFF PRICE G650 (Bernie Ecclestone sold his for
Twin Rolls-Royce Mach 0.925 13,890km ALTITUDE 11-18 99ft 9in 99ft 7in 25ft WEIGHT $65 million a profit of $10 million) and then have
BR725A1-12 51,000ft 46,992kg
Gulfstream upgrade it for $2 mil.

COMING SOON
BOMBARDIER GLOBAL 8000
WORDS: VARUN GODINHO

Currently under development, Bombardier claims

its Global 8000 will be able to travel an impressive
14,631km (that’s further than the G650ER) non-stop.
Expect to see one in the skies by 2017.

116 — JULY 2015

 VOTE & WIN LUXE HOTEL STAYS: READERS’ TRAVEL AWARDS 2015

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HAPPILY EVER AFTER

The Honeymoon Special
Planning a honeymoon this year? Condé Nast Traveller’s Honeymoon special has you
covered. With our list of new honeymoon spots, plus all the information you need on
where to stay and what to pack, Condé Nast Traveller will ensure your memories last
a lifetime. Also, cool getaways if you’re visiting London, safaris in Tanzania, monsoon
breaks and the best shopping in Srinagar.

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Awards 2015

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@CNTIndia | www.cntraveller.in
 PRIVATE JETS

DAHER-SOCATA TBM 900

$3 MILLION
The single-engined turboprop is 60 per cent more
cost-efficient than a jet engine aircraft. It consumes
five litres of fuel per person for every 100km – that’s
even better than a family sedan.

UNDER $5 MILLION

JETIQUETTE
The stakes are higher than your
cruising altitude
> PUNCTUALITY IS NOT POLITE, IT’S CRUCIAL
Your host will have booked a slot, and delays cost by the minute.
Keep the plane waiting on the tarmac and you can forget a
second invitation.
> BEHAVE AS YOU WOULD ON A YACHT
Which is to say, do not mess up the interior. Chances are it’s
bespoke, so damage will prove excruciatingly expensive to fix.
> HERE’S A TIP: DON’T
The pilot is a salaried aviator. But do buy your host a thank-
you gift.
> SOCIAL FAUX PAS
Tweeting pictures of the people on board – just, no.
> KNOW WHO’S IN CHARGE
You are entirely beholden to your host. Let him pick his seat
first, as he’ll have a favourite. If he wants to sleep, be quiet. If he
HONDAJET wants to drink, drink with him.
$4.5 MILLION > DRESS THE PART
If it isn’t a business trip, cocoon yourself in the accepted high-
Slotted into the Very Light
Jet category, this one’s built
net-worth travel uniform: dress sneakers, soft jeans, polo and a
for quick, fuel-efficient intra- cashmere zip-up jumper with a hood.
continental jaunts. Nearly > A WORD ABOUT BAGS
three decades in the making, Bring soft luggage only; if the hold fills up it will be stashed in
deliveries are expected to
the washroom.
commence later this year.
Honda F1 driver Jenson > CHECK YOURSELF
Button, who signed up for Don’t go all airline geek and start talking about FAs – they’re air
the first two when bookings hostesses. It is, however, perfectly okay to say “wheels-up” rather
began in 2008, will be than “takeoff”.
awaiting his with glee. WORDS: VARUN GODINHO, CHARLIE BURTON (JETIQUETTE)

THE ALTERNATIVES
RENT A JET JOIN A JET POOL
Because you’re loaded, but not that loaded (YES, IT’S A THING)
The next time you want to fly abroad in comfort, Fly private, pay Business
check out Taj Air’s website, which allows you to Empty legs are when someone books
rent private jets for a reasonable price – relatively a private jet one way but the aircraft
speaking, anyway. A flight from Mumbai to London needs to return to its homebase. Sites
on a Dassault 2000LX costs approx `65 lakh for 8-9 like PrivateFly act as aggregators for
people, while a trip for two on board Etihad’s The those journeys and offer you a seat,
Residence for half that distance (from Abu Dhabi some for less than $2,000. that’s often
to London) costs `13 lakh. Flying private might cheaper than a Business Class ticket on
suddenly add up after all. tajaironline.com the same route. privatefly.in

118 — JULY 2015

 IRST TIME E
R THE F VER
FO

PRESENTS

THE

SMAR
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G U I
to THE
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 Tips, tricks, cheat sheets across
Style, Grooming, Fashion, Travel, Good Life
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122 — JULY 2015
 WALL STREET SHUFFLE
In 2007, Rupert Murdoch gobbled up another of the world’s great newspapers and,
with great relish, the new wolf of the Wall Street Journal began to reshape it
in his image. But the old broadsheet bit back and now – somehow, against all odds –
it remains a unique bastion of defiance at the heart of the News Corp empire

Written by MICHAEL WOLFF

he purchase of the Wall Street Journal may not Not long after, he held his first get-together with the Journal’s
turn out to be the capstone of Rupert Murdoch’s managers and brought along Col Allan, the profane, scabrous,
career, as he himself thought and hoped it would Australian tabloid editor who runs the New York Post. And
be, but it is becoming an ever more curious then, in short order, he moved the paper from its historic
chapter. After seven years, the paper has managed position in the Financial District uptown to News Corporation’s
both to accommodate Murdoch and defy him at headquarters, cheek-by-jowl with the New York Post and
the same time. Fox News.
In a way, it’s a reminder of the inherent strengths of quality Eight years later, almost all the paper’s management has been
news organizations and their cultural values (though this is not thoroughly Murdochized, much of the culture upended and the
necessarily such a positive attribute). paper’s fundamental brand and purpose realigned. And yet it
Murdoch began his bid for Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent, remains not just recognizable but fundamentally set in its ways,
in March 2007. It was a complex, long-shot, divide-and-conquer ever cautious in its reporting, bureaucratic in its systems, slow
battle, of the kind that Murdoch is very good at and for which in its response, and in some deep, core sense wholly resistant
most other businessmen have little patience. The objections to to change. It is a reasonable daily question: the true point of
Murdoch, from the paper’s managers, its controlling shareholders Murdoch’s long and hugely expensive – $5.6 billion – battle for
– the multi-generational Bancroft family – and liberal society in the paper… What was it again?
general, were fierce and unrelenting. Murdoch was a certain

M
destroyer of quality journalism. Not only was he a vulgarian, quite urdoch’s model for his assault on the Journal was his
probably unable to even recognize quality, but – contrary to every transformative takeover, in 1981, of the Times. As with
tenet of the 125-year-history of the Journal – he regarded the very the Times, having agreed to a series of contractual
point of journalism to reside in the power it afforded him to grow restraints on his behaviour he would remake the paper through
his own influence and fortune. his own force of will and the zeal of his loyal managers. His plan
While Murdoch was trying to mollify his critics, asking why was to make life difficult, or impossible, for anyone less than
he would want to buy something to destroy it, he was privately wholly loyal. “We’ll just have to fire a lot of people,” he said, not
derisive about the Journal’s methods, culture and style. He was without some relish, as he made his plans. In this way, he would
barely able to contain himself about all the changes he would turn the paper’s importance to his own uses, while remaking it in
make. I doubt he saw himself as leading anything less than an his image.
overthrow. Not only was the Journal, to him, ponderous and Along with Thomson, Les Hinton, who had been the
pretentious, but it represented the haughtiness and snobbery executive chairman of News International in the UK and a
which he’d had to overcome throughout his entire career – indeed, Murdoch lieutenant for almost his entire career, came to run
much of the point of his career has been about destroying such Dow Jones. Most of all, Murdoch himself would devote the
haughtiness and snobbery. bulk of his daily time to the Journal. Within a year, most of the
Arriving in the newsroom on the day the deal was finally done, Journal’s top old regime managers were gone. When Hinton
after months of war, in December 2007, he began to publicly took the fall for the hacking issues in London and resigned from
IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES

sideline the paper’s ranking editor, Marcus Brauchli, whom he had the company, Murdoch tried an outsider, Lex Fenwick from
agreed not to fire, but whom he would force out anyway shortly Bloomberg. When that proved less than smooth – as outsiders
afterwards. (To circumvent his agreement to keep Brauchli as the in the Murdoch world often find – he dispatched Fenwick
top editor, he installed the then-Times editor Robert Thomson and brought in Will Lewis, who had come over from News
as publisher, but gave him all the top editorial responsibilities.) International for a New York position. (Lewis had been a

JULY 2015 — 123

 long-time Telegraph editor and executive, but having fallen out
with the Telegraph found a happy fit with Murdoch.) When
Thomson stepped up to become chief executive of the entire
Murdoch newspaper company (spun off from Murdoch’s And not least of all, he changed the focus of the Journal. In a
entertainment assets, 21st Century Fox, as a result of the hacking substantial revision of the brand, it went from being the world’s
scandal), Gerry Baker, who had worked under Thomson at the leading business paper to a general interest paper with good
Times, became the Journal’s top editor. business coverage. It was doing what Murdoch wanted, competing
Much of the inner circle of Murdoch managers at the Journal with the New York Times, arguably besting it in its international
was suddenly not American. Murdoch was importing Murdoch coverage, its business reporting, even in the local New York City
talent and, with the Post his only other paper in the US, much of coverage it had added, and, to boot, in its quite un-Murdoch-like
it came from London. book coverage.
There was, too, a seismic staff change – a class upheaval. Like And yet at the same time, even with new captains, much new
the New York Times, the Journal had always had singular, best- staff, an apparent new culture and new brand positioning, the
of-breed hiring standards. The route to the Journal was through paper somehow continued to ignore Murdoch in meaningful
certain colleges and universities and other top-tier journalism ways, as nobody ever had. It spoke its own language, one that even
institutions – just the kind of exclusionary policies that Murdoch Murdoch managers seemed not to hear or be able to comprehend.
had always hated. Murdoch liked to hire people who were or Before he bought it, Murdoch had two overriding criticisms
would become Murdoch people, not people who might feel they of the Journal: it was dull and it was slow. He would stab at the
had some independent standing and a passport to go anywhere physical paper, pointing out examples of long-winded, mushy,
they wanted to. tepid and timid stories. Its slowness, often lagging the New York
Strikingly, some new hires at the Journal came from the Post Times (not to mention the internet), and general lack of urgency
(causing friction with Col Allan), a background that would have he blamed on its laborious editing and production bureaucracy.
been near anathema at the old Journal. (This, not incidentally, “Eleven editors, eleven editors, that’s what a single story goes
had the effect of lowering salaries. Journal pay standards, if not through,” he would repeat to anyone who’d listen. (In fact, eleven
journalism standards, now became closer to the Post’s.) was sometimes seven or nine, but his message was clear.) That was
All this created a significant disruption, or rupture, even a what he said he would bring to the paper, boldness and speed.
kind of class warfare in the newsroom – mostly, no surprise, And yet, seven years in, the two things that most continued to
with Murdoch winning. A steady stream of Journal grandees characterize the paper, even amid good and thorough reporting,
departed the paper, rather to Murdoch’s delight. were that it was boring and slow.
Perhaps the most notable battle was with Walt Mossberg The accusation that Murdoch was bound to destroy the
and Kara Swisher. Mossberg, the Journal’s influential gadget fundamental ethos of the power turned out to be quite wrong.
columnist, and Swisher, a former tech business columnist, had, The real nature of the ethos – part of what produced consistently
under the old regime, launched a profitable and influential reliable, if unexciting, journalism – was incredible caution, layers of
conference, the D Conference, and website, allthingsd.com. And editing, endless second guessing and a bureaucracy that restrained
then, with Murdoch in post-hacking disgrace, they decided not errant as well as distinctive voices. So strong was its instinct
to invite him. Vowing his revenge, he eventually ejected the team for institutional control that it somehow managed to override
from the company – no matter that he lost a valuable franchise Murdoch’s style and impulses – for the risky, the streamlined, and
and, after Mossberg and Swisher set up a new company, created for decisions made, for better or worse, in the heat of the moment.
a competitor. It was his paper. Everything had changed at the Journal, and yet everything
somehow remained the same. It wasn’t really a Murdoch paper
at all. It remained stuck in time, a more innocent and process-
conscious time. It was a grand (and grinding) newsroom, with
desks inside of desks, with the old guys supervising the new, with
an almost fetishistic emphasis on the careful reporting of utterly
boring news. The ultimate irony here is that this system has been
supported and maintained by Murdoch money. The massive
IMAGE: REX FEATURES, GETTY IMAGES

Murdoch investment – by some estimates as much as $1 billion

covering losses and upgrades, on top of the billions paid for the
company – maintained an infrastructure which maintains not just
standards but status quo.
The cowboy atmosphere famous at Murdoch papers, the sense
of cut-throat competition that Murdoch papers encourage (and
that, arguably, was responsible for the hacking scandal), does
not, in any real fashion, exist at the Journal. And, with the influx
of younger (cheaper) reporters from diverse backgrounds, this

124 — JULY 2015

E ven with new captains,
new staff and an apparent
new culture, the Journal
continued to ignore Murdoch
arguably makes the place, save only for its regular pay cheque,
one of the unhappiest or depressed places in journalism. And a
confusing one too. If you have to work for Murdoch, don’t you at
least get to walk a bit out on the edge?
Rather, the culture at the Journal – one that many generations of
Journal reporters grew up in without knowing any other – is top-
down, rule-based, instructional and fogeyish to a fault. Very little
that is surprising, clever, novel or, certainly, viral, gets through its
filter, including any Murdoch flare or Murdoch baseness. a large piece of the international high ground. Murdoch and
Nobody is really making news at the Journal; nobody is out in the Journal, a match that might have seemed destined for
front. That impulse is firmly discouraged. The Journal carefully international dominance, missed this boat.
chews as it has always done, producing a well-digested product.

T
While Murdoch has not been able to much change the great he nagging and perhaps fitting circumstance is that
middle bureaucracy and culture of the Journal, he has been Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal pretty much at
able to change the top. This creates a sense, not a happy one in the final moment when anybody would pay full value for a
any management book, of Murdoch’s boys, the insiders, versus newspaper. In that sense, the sale of the Journal represents the
everyone else. This too has the effect of reinforcing the status quo, newspaper business’ last proud moment. After that (less than
because the people who could change it are so removed from it a year after he finalized the deal, Lehman Brothers collapsed),
that they come to think it has already changed. In a two-tier world, there would only be the deluge.
the top is having fun, even if, confoundingly the paper is still, And yet, the Journal, as though in an entirely parallel world,
somehow, so immovably dull. has hardly been affected by it. Many other papers in the US
Its greatest failure, though, involves the one thing that Murdoch have either been in bankruptcy or have had vast staff reductions.
wanted most of all. His dream for the Journal was to create the All other Murdoch papers around the world live in doubt – but
ultimate international news organization; not just to take on the Murdoch, with great resolve and apparently no regrets, funds
Financial Times (though certainly to do that too) but to bring the the Journal’s losses (they’ve gone as high as $100 million a year,
world an international business voice that would dominate finance but are now said to be under $50 million). Even the New York
and government and reflect nothing so much as his own. When he Times tips in and out of extremis, its future wholly unclear.
bought the Journal, its once vaunted international expansion had Indeed, the Journal can often seem like the only island left – for
shrunk to a kind of child’s version of the paper, a few flimsy sheets journalists, a kind of pay cheque island. Oddly, or absurdly, its
available in a few hotels. Part of his pitch to the Bancroft family, a staff even grows. But there seems, at this point, very little sense
rallying cry really, was that he would be able to realize the Journal’s on anybody’s part that this is an opportunity, a place to invent
international destiny. the new news. That may require asking too many questions
Alas, abroad, it is still not more than its pitiable version. It may about the nature of the future. Stasis is better for all.
ably cover the rest of the world for Americans, but it has hardly Murdoch himself may not want to rock the boat too much
become an international presence. The FT continues in that role; either. He owns the last real newspaper, after all.
even the Guardian, with its anti-Murdoch raison d’être, has taken So leave it alone.

JULY 2015 — 125

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 THE PIN-UP’S
GUIDE TO THE
GALAXY
That’s right, fella.
Lisa Ray is 43,
the cancer that
didn’t kill her
is still incurable
and she’s “on
some pretty heavy
medication”. But
look at her. Just
look at her. How,
I beseech you, is
this possible?

Photographed by
FARROKH CHOTHIA
Styled by
VIJENDRA BHARDWAJ
Written by
DAVE BESSELING

BONDAGE DRESS
BY BORDELLE

JULY 2015 — 127

LINGERIE BY
L’AGENT BY AGENT
PROVOCATEUR.
BLAZER BY TOMMY
HILFIGER. HEELS BY
JIMMY CHOO

128 — JULY 2015

 t’s not to say that watching Lisa Ray And this is her power: she somehow doesn’t sound like
smooth her sheer-stockinged thighs a harem-pant patchouli quester when she talks about TM
over one another as she leans into the or Vipassana, nor does she sound like she’s high when
curve of a vintage sofa isn’t alluring. describing her Rocky Mountain getaway in beautiful
It’s not to say that when she looks British Columbia as such: “Nelson is just that magical
past the camera lens for a moment, lips in full pout and hair cookie, you know? Very high energy.” Even if she started
corkscrewing over her shoulders, something doesn’t start talking about crystal healing and the colours of auras,
insisting it’s being imprisoned against its will. I’d be off my thetans and orgone counts, or how she has a “gift” and
rusty rocking-horse to fill the world with such lies. knows that in a past life I was the Scottish woman who
What should be said here is that, despite being the really invented golf, I don’t know if I’d be less attentive.
closest thing India’s ever had to a pin-up girl – she still gets “But your spiritual pursuit doesn’t mean you should
called out for that Gladrags cover she did over 20 years ago deny life,” she says, “I’m beyond hunkering down like I
– and having been formed by uniting the holy sacraments used to in these really basic retreats. No, no, no, I want
of miscegenation – Polish, Punjabi – and deracination to be comfortable… But it’s this dualistic mind that says
– raised in Toronto, moved to Bombay in the Nineties ‘Hang on a sec! You’ve gotta…’”
and now has one foot here and one in Hong Kong – she’s “Do one or the other,” I suggest.
actually a fun, easy person to talk to. “Yeah,” she nods, “and that’s all bullshit.”
And if you didn’t know, you’d never guess she’d had “Why deny what’s available, eh?”
cancer. But far from a charity case, Lisa says she’s “grateful, “Yeah! Five-star ashrams!”
because a lot of people never experience that crisis that “How would one combine glamping and ashrams,”
shocks you into a clear way of seeing, letting go of all the stuff I think aloud, trying to beat her at her own word games.
that’s not a part of you and that you don’t need.” Far from “Glashrams?”
any reticence, “I’m sort of an open book,” she laughs, talking “Glashrams!” she laughs. “Nice. I like that. Why not?”
about the manuscript of her forthcoming memoir, which will With Lisa, somehow, none of this is contradictory.
detail, among other things, her ongoing tussle with multiple “I think at some point we have to transcend our labels,
myeloma. “This type of cancer is incurable,” she says, “people and that’s been my journey. What do you call an Indo-
don’t realize I go once a month for blood tests and I’m still on Polish-Canadian ex-Mumbaikar? It’s ridiculous.”
some pretty heavy medication.” “Post-global something something…”
“Would you have come to this clear way of seeing without “They do talk about it right?” she says. “Post-post-racial
the cancer diagnosis,” I ask, “without having experienced that identities? The next super-race?”
kind of accelerated catharsis?” Dare we contemplate a future race of übermenschen
“There’s a side of me that’s always been a seeker,” she where all the überfrauen look like her? Mustn’t think about
explains, “an introvert that needs to go off to caves and that right now.
mountains and things like that, but nothing less than a “For a long time identity was an issue in my life,” she
diagnosis of cancer would have provoked me into making the says, “but I kind of chuckle to myself now when people talk
changes that I had to make.” about me having this global identity…”
I’m still doing that thing your brain does when you meet I like the idea that we’re all eventually just going to fuck
someone you’ve only seen on TV or in magazines before. She ourselves into a nice shade of brown anyway, but aside
may look all lithe and leggy in her fashion spreads, but in from being some exemplary global citizen, Lisa does have
real life Lisa pads around like a loveable, sun-kissed, olive- wisdom to impart for young women doing what she did
skinned Smurf, smiling at goddamn everything. (Why can’t I over 20 years ago, coming to Bombay to see their faces on
be more like that?) billboards by any means necessary.
Sitting on a dressing-room stool in ligature-thin lingerie “There’s so much pressure to nip and tuck and
and sipping a Starbucks, she free-associates the last words wear the right thing, say the right thing,” she says,
of people’s sentences, and later while discussing preferred crossing off a mental checklist with flicks of her eyes.
meditation techniques, in a similar vein, she manages to “And get the injections. And squeeze yourself into
recast a verb’s past-perfect tense: “I’ve definitely dabbled, something you’re not. It’s not worth it; I wish I could put
you know? Explored deep down. Deep, umm, doven. Doven? it more eloquently… Well here’s one thing that I do say:
Is that a word? ‘Dive, dived, dove’” – eyes circling like a that I’m more beautiful for having been broken, you
ruminative Betty Boop – “Deep doven. Really?” She pauses. know? Wear your scars… Go inwards before you go
Lets it settle. “Yeah,” she decides. “I like it.” outwards. And you know what? Fuck them. Know who
Doven it is. you are first.”

JULY 2015 — 129

 o inward before
you go outward’

130 — JULY 2015

BODYSUIT BY LA PERLA.
KNICKERS BY LA SENZA

JULY 2015 — 131

PLAYSUIT BY SHIVAN &
NARRESH. JACKET BY
ASHISH SONI. HEELS
BY JIMMY CHOO

OPPOSITE PAGE:
BONDAGE DRESS BY
BORDELLE. HEELS BY
CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN
 HAIR & MAKE-UP:
DEEPA VERMA
ASSISTANT STYLIST:
TANYA VOHRA
LOCATION:
CAMELOT BUNGALOW,
MUMBAI
PRODUCTION:
VASUNDHARA SHARMA

JULY 2015 — 133

 Condé Nast India’s Alex Kuruvilla,
50 eve nt AD editor Manju Sara Rajan, Hafeez Contractor
s the sta ge at the AD
Me rce des-Be nz set

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Niels Schoenfelder, Malavika Shivakumar

RECOGNISED THE MOST

INFLUENTIAL NAMES IN
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
Fahad Samar, Simone Singh, Sunita Kohli

Condé Nast India’s (Left to Right) VK Murthy, SK Srikanth, Sandip Somany

Oona Dhabhar, Suhel Seth Manju Sara Rajan, AD Publisher
Deepa Bhatia, Amit Syngle (Seated)
 Santosh Iyer, Eberhard Kern Ashiesh Shah Sandeep Khosla Dikshu Kukreja

Architectural Digest presented

AD 50, celebrating the 50 most
influential names in Architecture
and Design at the JW Marriott
Aerocity, Delhi, in association with
Mercedes-Benz.

For the very first time, the magazine

broadened their horizons and
Sheila Sri
Prakash extended AD 50 to include our
Abha Narain Lambah
illustrious neighbours, spanning Sri
Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan
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The event saw eminent personalities

across the field of Architecture and
Design such as Hafeez Contractor,
Sandeep Khosla, Sameep Padora
amongst others, who gathered to
celebrate the 50 most significant
patrons of design and art in South
Asia who are shaping the way we live.

Sarah Bilgrami, Zayd Bilgrami, Ahsan Najmi Sameep Padora

AD’s Divya Mishra, Sunil Sethi

Sonal Sancheti Alex Kuruvilla, Sonke Hoof
Nuru Karim Punit Jasuja, Anushka Nadia Menon Martand Khosla Vasant and Revathi Kamath

Vaibhav Dimri, Madhav Raman Divya Jyoti and his wife

let
lass Cabrio
s-Benz E-C
The Mercede

Tarun Tahiliani and Manju Sara Rajan JJ Valaya Shonan Purie Trehan

Abhimanyu
Dalal Sarthak Sengupta, Sahil Bagga Sagar Chordia Kiran Vaghela Sourabh Gupta
 Siddharth Talwar (seated) and Ankur Choksi
(second from right) with the team from AD 50
The Asian Paints booth firm Studio Lotus

Manish and AD’s Sonali Thakur and Ravi Vazirani

Manit and Sonali Rastogi Tanushree Gulati

Thea and Wol Balston Phirosa Neterwala and Sunu Aibara

The QUEO set-up

Rooshad Shroff Tony Joseph

 ,
NT
N OKE,
AN
Four years after being dismissed as a novelty rapper, Himanshu Suri
has gone from hitting it big, hitting rock bottom and moving back in with his parents,
only to re-emerge as one of hip-hop’s most outspoken social critics

F
WRITTEN BY ADAM MATTHEWS PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOCELYN BAUN

or the cognoscenti, the Lower Manhattan one-third of Noughties rap group Das Racist, mugs for pics
intersection of Great Jones Street and Bowery is out front of the Great Jones Street Cafe, right across the
hallowed ground. In 1983, Andy Warhol rented a road from where Basquiat worked and died.
loft space at 57 Great Jones to the Haitian-Puerto Rican pop It’s not a coincidence we’re shooting here. Himanshu
artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose short career would take draws several parallels between himself and Basquiat.
him from spray-painting subway cars to being canonized “New York person of colour takes art world by storm,
for artwork like “Irony Of Negro Policeman”. For five years, influenced by the streets and graffiti,” explains Heems.
the brilliant, tortured Basquiat worked and lived in the loft “Eventually, he can’t take it and dies. Cautionary tale for
as he sunk deeper into paranoia and drug addiction. Finally, people like me who put all of themselves into their work.”
in 1988, Basquiat was found dead in his bath, a collection of 57 Great Jones is also just a block away from the Aicon
bloody syringes crowning the ledge of the tub. He was 27 Gallery, where as part of the lead-up to his first full-length
years old. solo album, Eat Pray Thug, Heems curated an art show
In 2015, the front of 57 Great Jones hosts a Japanese of the same name, featuring desi artists like Ratna Gupta,
butchery that displays fine cuts of Wagyu beef like Ranbir Kaleka and Abdullah MI Syed – as well as art he
diamonds, and in the back there’s an unmarked, cooler- created in partnership with Chiraag Bhakta, aka Pardon My
than-thou restaurant called Bohemian. On a blisteringly Hindi. As in his music, Heems’ visual art references borrow
cold winter day, three trailers and various barriers manned heavily from his north Indian family’s experience in the
by movie-crew types block the entrance to Number 57. United States.
The production leads to a line of young black men in tight But before you scoff at the self-described “chubby guy
pants and greying-at-the-wings white guys, all waiting for from that Das Racist fad” trying to summon a legendary
clipboard-toting PR chicks to admit them into a Nike Pop- person-of-colour on home turf, listen to “New York City
Up Store. Cops” off 2012’s Nehru Jackets, Heems’ debut solo mixtape.
As these hype-beasts vie for ostensibly rare yet mass- Its lyrical palette is as charged as any Basquiat canvas. In
produced sneakers, it’s heartening that Himanshu Suri contrast to NWA’s defiant, in-your-face classic “Fuck Tha
seems completely uninterested in entering Phil Knight’s Police”, Heems seems resigned to police brutality, tediously
church of consumption. Instead, “Heems”, best known as listing off every time the NYPD has killed an unarmed black

138 — JULY 2015

JULY 2015 — 139
or Hispanic man over the last four decades. Similarly laborious ecoming a rap star was never the goal. In late
repetition appears on the 11-track Eat Pray Thug, released this 2008, after graduating from Wesleyan University,
March, where the listener – of whatever skin colour – can feel a prestigious liberal arts college in Connecticut,
trapped in Heems’ head, especially as he confronts, more than Heems was working as a recruiter on Wall Street and living with
once, the moment where his otherness became inescapable. classmate Victor “Kool AD” Vazquez in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Heems attended Stuyvesant High School, one of three elite But then their band Das Racist’s song “Combination Pizza Hut And
New York City public high schools that require students to pass Taco Bell” suddenly took off. It was both infectiously catchy, and
an entrance exam. And though Stuyvesant marked the beginning by simply repeating the song title with a few variations in syntax,
of a scholastic career most Indian parents would dream of for it became an artistic statement on the ubiquitousness of American
their kids, something terrible happened very early in his second fast-food chains. The pair soon added hypeman Ashok “Dapwell”
year. On September 11, 2001, Himanshu Suri, Vice President of Kondabolu to the line-up for comic relief, and by the end of 2011
the student council, watched from less than a kilometre away as Das Racist had gone from playing free shows to appearing on
American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Late Night With Conan O’Brien and gracing the cover of Spin. In
Center at 8:46am. Seventeen minutes later, United Flight 175 hit the the Spin story, written by comedian Hari Kondabolu – Dapwell’s
South Tower. brother – readers learn of how surprised Hari was that his little
When he speaks about it, Heems’ voice quivers. “As a 15-year- brother’s band, which he didn’t take all that seriously, had actually
old,” he tells me, “I basically saw people jumping and it really “made it”.
messed with my head. We were close enough to hear people Das Racist planned much of this comedic offensive about four
hitting the ground. Even now it triggers a lot of anxiety for me.” blocks from Aicon Gallery, at Minca Ramen, Heems’ favourite
The spoken-word conclusion of Eat Pray Thug’s “Flag Japanese Noodle Bar. And it’s here, over steaming bowls of spicy
Shopping” describes how: from then on they called all of us Osama, ramen, that Heems reflects on his whirlwind sweep into fame. “It
the old Sikh men on the bus were Osama. I was Osama, we were was cool because I got to travel,” he says, seated at a tightly packed
Osama… are you Osama? five-top with me and three prep-schoolers. “It was like a vacation
“I feel like on my last couple records I made a habit of hiding from Mama and Papa at the end of college.”
behind humour or my Indian identity or Indian samples, and on In Das Racist, Heems and Kool AD enjoyed baiting their
this record it’s all out in the open,” says Heems. (That and the fact listeners, challenging them to figure out whether they were
that his label didn’t clear the Indian samples meant to appear on the joking or not. But if you listen really closely to songs like “Fake
album.) “I’m talking about collateral damage from the war on terror, Patois”, where they recount how many Nineties rappers affected
language barriers and mental health in communities of colour... I’m really bad Jamaican accents, it’s actually a love letter to hip-hop,
at a place in my career where I want to say these things.” written by guys close enough to the culture to take the piss out
Heems’ unfiltered Twitter feed often touches on similarly of it.
unsettling subject matter. And in tweets like, “my album’s about Heems remains frustrated that listeners didn’t get that. He
me trying not to die and also be a voice for my peoples”, Basquiat’s averages what seems like one retweet per day where he mocks
tragic spectre doesn’t hover too far away. fans who breathlessly tell him that they hate hip-hop but love
Yet when I ask Heems if it’s hard to be so sensitive in such a his work. “[Hip-hop] is my favorite genre,” he says, sounding
mean business, he doesn’t miss a beat. His humour, his armour, exasperated. “How am I am supposed to respond to that?”
quickly reappears. But Heems also felt limited by Das Racist’s reliance on satire.
“Who told you I’m sensitive?” he laughs. And underneath the non-stop bacchanal that Dap and Heems

140 — JULY 2015

 “MY ALBUM’S
ABOUT ME TRYING
NOT TO DIE AND
ALSO BE A VOICE
FOR MY PEOPLES”
“Yeah, I mean I am almost 30 so that was one of the main factors
for me [to get focused about my life]. I mean it’s not often that I get
to curate a room,” he says, jumping to the Eat Pray Thug exhibition,
“let alone one in Manhattan.” Then he gets up. “Let me use the
bathroom. Excuse me for one moment.”
When he comes back after a few minutes, I attempt to revisit the
chronicle on their web series Chillin’ Island, the guys weren’t Das Racist break-up, but he shuts me down.
getting along. “Wow,” he says, almost inaudibly. And a minute later, “So what’s
On December 3, 2012, the band was scheduled to play a festival up, Adam?… Is that the angle you want? Like what happened with
in Munich, Germany, but only Heems appeared on stage. “You our band?”
guys wanna know a secret?” said Heems, smiling wryly to the We sit and trade uncomfortable non-sequiturs for a couple
crowd. “Alright, so I’m going to do some Das Racist songs, but Das more minutes. “I got to use the restroom,” he says, excusing
Racist is breaking up and we’re not a band anymore.” himself again.
Kool AD struck back on Twitter: “for the record i quit das racist “Such – good – ra – men,” he muses, to no one in particular, on
2 months ago and was asked by our manager not to announce it his way back to the toilets.
yet. apparently @himanshu wanted to do it tho”.
Their major-label debut was shelved. And just like that the
never-ending party was over. “I was bummed when we actually 38//4827(
broke up because it was a way to make money really easily,”
Dapwell memorably told Spin. “I probably won’t be able to make
money that easily ever again.” “I’m so New York I live with my mama.
More than two years later, slurping ramen and drinking saké Had to leave Williamsburg and all that white drama”
at Das Racist’s old de facto HQ, Heems isn’t anxious to revisit the —“So NY”, Eat Pray Thug
break-up. The band’s implosion, followed by two years of Asian
touring – including the stint in India that birthed the sarcastic nod Girish and Veena Suri came to New York City in 1980. Like
to Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling book, Eat Pray Love – left Heems many South Asians, they landed in one of New York’s most diverse
“feeling dead inside”, he’s said. boroughs, Queens; in Flushing, its most diverse neighbourhood.
“Do you still talk to the guys from the band?” I ask, nosing the Despite earning her Masters degree in Economics in India, Veena
pork-infused steam rising out of my bowl. took work as a cashier at a local grocery chain, making just four
“I talk to Dap and Dap talks to Victor,” he says languidly, almost dollars an hour. Girish found a job as a clerk. On the side, he drove
nodding off at the table. “I mean we might shoot each other an a cab. That year Veena gave birth to their daughter, Shivani, and
email here or there occasionally, but we’re not like…” He trails off, five years later baby Himanshu arrived.
and snaps back to attention a few seconds later: “Dude, I love this To see how far the Suris have come in the past three-and-a-half
dinner. They did not skimp on the pimp.” decades, I ride the Long Island Railroad to the Hicksville station,
Heems leans back against the wall, crossing his arms in a red past the Queens neighborhoods of Glen Oaks, where the family
varsity jacket, one of three looks he picked for his photo shoot bought their first apartment, and Bellerose, where they owned
across from where Basquiat took his last hit. He looks dazed, or their own detached home. About 20 minutes later, I can tell I have
incredibly exhausted. arrived when four middle-aged men conversing in Hindi stand up
“Why is it hard for you and Victor to get along?” I ask. and get off the train, where outside the station waits a white Lexus
“It’s not hard,” he says. “We just don’t get along. He doesn’t get with the vanity plate “HIMANSHU”.
along with me. He doesn’t like me. I don’t know. Off the camera I’ll Heems immediately seems more relaxed, more friendly – more
be like ‘what up bro, how you been?’” awake – here than he was at the ramen shop in Lower Manhattan
“You ever feel like young men in their 20s are destined to fight a couple of weeks ago. After stopping for an hour at Apna Bazaar,
these battles?” a desi supermarket near at least five dosa hawkers, we drive five

JULY 2015 — 141

minutes to a huge, two-storey brick home with massive white
columns out front. The inside is decorated in what Heems
proudly calls “Punjabi Greco”, a style that screams new money.
Around here, pics of Heems are less pouty Williamsburg
hipster, more chubby-cheeked chhotu bhaiya in bedazzled
wedding suits. At home in Long Island, the self-destructive
artist is invisible. Here, Heems is both mama’s boy and doting
uncle to Zoe, his sister Shivani’s two-year-old, who greets him
by jumping into his arms and yelling “Manchu!”
Heems and Zoe are close. When he’s home, there is dance
time, yoga time and future plans for a thorough grounding in
arts and culture. And it’s easy to see why Heems moved back
in with his parents after he came back from India, where he
recorded Eat Pray Thug over three days at Bandra’s Purple
Haze studio with engineer Gaurav Gupta. In Mumbai there was
much notorious partying and debauch, but as we sit around
the Suri’s kitchen table, it’s all about Veena’s chicken kheema,
shammi kebabs and the freshest dhaniya chutney this side of
South Delhi. When we finish, she packs some for my wife and
gives me a hug goodbye.
Himanshu’s life here provides something crucial: set
boundaries, something he’s long struggled with. But this
polarity is also typical Himanshu. He even jokes about being
bi-polar on Twitter, and says he plans to move back to Mumbai
later this year. “I can live in New York but I don’t feel I can
thrive in New York”, he tweets. But with Heems, you never
know if he’s being serious about any of it. HIS APPEAL DERIVES FROM
THE TENSION BETWEEN
s we drive half an hour from his parents’ home
in Long Island to the old haunts of his Das Racist
OVERSHARING AND THEN
glory days in Brooklyn, he asks how much time I
wi l need, and I say “However long I can be around so I have a
sense of who you are.”
THROWING UP WALLS AGAIN
“What if I’m like ‘Adam I’m done?’” he says, laughing, “Then
I am a dick!” This is also essential Heems: being smart, then smart-ass, then
If you read or watch other interviews with Himanshu, it’s feeling guilty. Going through the motions with him is like living
apparent that he knows much of his appeal derives from the through one of his tracks.
tension between oversharing and then throwing up walls When we try to hit a cool-guy club for his former manager’s
again. By now we’ve crossed the boundary between textbook birthday party, the bouncer tells us calmly that the club is full, but
desi life in Long Island and the party life in Williamsburg, Heems doesn’t pull the whole “don’t you know who I am?” routine.
a kind of theme park for young adults – just imagine the “I like the way he spoke to us,” he explains as we walk. “He could
Hindutva fun police’s worst nightmare. The neighbourhood have been a dick.”
also attracts a particularly virulent breed of bearded, tattooed, Instead, we head to a far more humble abode where his friend
skinny-jeans newcomer. And while Heems says these are the Allyson is deejaying. The bar, which abuts the McDonald’s parking
douchebags who drove him out of here, I’m kind of wondering lot, is one of the last remaining real dive bars in Williamsburg, the
if, in this milieu, he’s more than a little like them. What other kind of place where the bartenders look like they actually drink.
neighbourhood in New York, or the world, could have launched In the next room, everyone dances as Allyson spins a mix of old
the ironic, maybe-joking maybe-not ethos of Das Racist? and new hip-hop. And it’s here that Heems looks most relaxed. He
“I’m the Mayor out here,” Heems says proudly, as we pull circulates, and seems to know everyone from his days at Wesleyan.
up in front of the first of three bars we’ll visit that evening. It’s Towards the end of the night, a beautiful white woman named
garden-variety Williamsburg, complete with the edit staff of Jocelyn arrives. She and Heems talk. They both look smitten.
Complex magazine holding down a table up front. Heems is At 3am he apologizes, but he won’t be able to drive me home as
composed, confident and nice to people. planned. But before we part, he sends one of his friends home with
After half an hour we leave the bar and walk two blocks me in a cab to save some cash. How very mayoral indeed.
to the ATM, where Heems sees a man passed out. While Later in the week, he emails me, “Does your piece end with me
withdrawing money, Heems notices the man’s US Army- going home with a beautiful white woman?”
issued boots and speaks to him. He’s a Polish immigrant who (You know, just in case I thought he was too much of a sensitive
has struggled with PTSD since returning from Afghanistan. soul and not an accomplished player, which would be way too desi
Heems asks the man whether he’d shot anyone or seen people and not nearly hip-hop enough.)
killed. Then he worries that he asked too many questions. “Because it should,” he writes.
 STUNNING HOMES FROM
EGYPT, KENYA,
MOROCCO & MOZAMBIQUE
+
TRENDS FROM THE BIGGEST DESIGN FAIR
JULY-AUGUST 2015
INDIA
`150

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INTERNATIONAL
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STUNNING HOMES
FROM EGYPT, KENYA,
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A LIFE REMEMBERED

MILAN REPORT
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JULY – AUGUST ISSUE. ON STANDS NOW

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EDITED BY SHIKHA SETHI

Weed: Uday Benegal

NEW Relationships: Nick Smith
Art: Kishore Singh
Design: Ayaz Basrai

IMAGE: COURTESY UDAY BENEGAL; SHUTTERSTOCK AND GETTY IMAGES

146SMOKIN’ GUNS
BY UDAY BENEGAL

IT’S TIME TO PASS

THE DOOBIE

146 — JULY 2015

I
’ve got the answer to world peace.
It’s born of the earth, easy to grow,
deliciously fragrant, looks really
pretty and is all-salubrious. Even its
name sounds like something a poet
would call her lover: marijuana.
But this isn’t another “have a doobie,
maaan, everything’s byoootiful” spiel
(that’ll come later). Right now I’m talking
colossal, industrial-sized machinations for
the express purpose of peace on the planet.
First, we muster all the technology required
to harvest, extract, mix and spark enough
cannabis to get a village high. Then, we
develop a way to harness and contain the
vaporous elixir. Finally, we hotbox every
war zone, battlefield and arms-training
camp we can find, fumigating the fuckers to
a state of inertia. They’ll crumble in a heap
of grins. ISIS on a murderous spree? Smoke-
up the suckers to the ground. Rioters on
the rampage? Tase them with THC. Border
forces getting belligerent? Pipe ’em back
down to peacetime. Nobody on weed ever
started a war.
Now, I’m not a pothead. The
first time I smoked ganja was
soon after I’d passed my
tenth standard board less harshly, a bit less lower back pain. After just a few drags of
EVERY TIME I SMOKE, I’M
exams. “School’s out judgmentally. That’s some primo Manali maal, his pain vanished.
forever!” I’d echoed
REMINDED OF WHY NATURE PUT the good thing The western world, most significantly
Alice Cooper. In THIS PLANT INTO HER WOMB. IT about stacking up that hypocritical hub of pharmaceutical
celebration of our DOESN’T JUST CALM – IT HEIGHTENS EVEN the years; you start pandering, the US, is beginning to realize
liberation, a couple of AS IT LIGHTENS. MY SENSES, ESPECIALLY to understand that just how beneficial this herb can be to
buddies and I booked MY EARS, PROBABLY THE MOST SENSITIVE you don’t know people suffering from the most severe
ourselves on the (now- OF MY FACULTIES, BECOME AWARE OF squat. And you pain. The same nation that lobbied India to
defunct) Bombay-Goa begin to accept make illegal a plant revered for centuries
A NUANCED CLARITY OTHERWISE
ferry, where we met an more than you did by healers and sages for its medicinal
Irish gardener and his
CLOUDED BY CLUTTER AND when you believed properties has begun to correct its own
girlfriend. They invited us DISTRACTION you were the shit. That shortsightedness, legalizing medical
to join their circle of temporary experience leads me to marijuana in a number of states. That the
friends who were passing around advocate for smoking marijuana a people of this country still have to talk in
a chillum. By the time it came to me, I had little later in life, after you’ve done some time. code and whisper in corners to get even a
watched their technique closely. My left I still don’t smoke often, but every time little bit of the stuff is baffling. The myths
hand cupping it expertly, I turned my right I do, I’m reminded of why nature put this have long been debunked – gateway drug
one into a funnel through which I sucked plant into her womb. It doesn’t just calm – it (piffle), addictive (false), harmful to your
hard and drew deep. I thought my chest heightens even as it lightens. My senses, health (no more than too much salt, far less
was going to cave in. But what immediately especially my ears, probably the most so than alcohol or tobacco) – but lawmakers
followed was a becalming wave that sensitive of my faculties, become aware of a have been too slow to acknowledge it.
softened every edge that resided within me. nuanced clarity otherwise clouded by clutter At a conference in Bengaluru this May
I had no trouble sleeping on the sweltering and distraction in my “normal” state. I start organized by a group called GLM (the
deck that night. to hear more clearly. That delicate snare Great Legalisation Movement, India), local
I barely smoked weed for years after that drum pattern in that song playing softly and overseas campaigners called for the
little Goan trip. Somehow, it never seemed to on the stereo? I can hear every hit, bounce, legalization of marijuana in India. That
feel right when I was in the city, and I was in rattle and ghost note my ears were missing could be one of this government’s most
a city most of the time. But a hundred moons before the spliff came around. I get so tuned progressive moves. And it wouldn’t even
or so later, after a stint of life in Versova in, it’s crazy. contravene but rather hew to its own
(maybe that was the problem) and then New What’s crazier is that this wonder plant religious beliefs. Imagine a day when the
York, something changed. When I returned is still illegal in India. Sensory perception is Indian prime minister offers a visiting
to Bombay, the urban brawl of colliding one thing; marijuana’s power as a palliative dignitary a toke of the good shit. Make in
energies I’d run from was not only still here is a whole other story. I witnessed that India, baby. Followed by a plate of sev puri
but all pumped up and fixing to fight. What power myself when I saw the effect one when the munchies hit.
had changed was my internal makeup. I’d little joint had on a buddy of mine who’d Uday Benegal likes listening to José González after
begun to look at things differently – a little been suffering for a year from debilitating he’s smoked a fat one

JULY 2015 — 147

 RELATIONSHIPS

TALK
Simply say sorry and shut up. The next word should be hers. The last
BY NICK SMITH shouldn’t always be yours. Shush.

148
RULES OF
Never let the sun set on an argument. You’ll sleep like crap, wake
up feeling crap and go to work feeling crap. Enjoy the make-up sex. At
least something good can come out of the bad.
Tell her she’s hot. Make an effort to stay attractive for her. Don’t
let complacency go to your gut. Repeat after me: none of her friends
HOW TO KEEP HER HAPPY are “hot” – even if they unquestionably are. They’re “kind of pretty,
ENGAGEMENT (AFTER THE FIRST YEAR) I guess”.
Don’t get caught in the Web. Naughty bookmarks are difficult to
explain away. Click on
“Clear History”. Don’t fall

I
’ve been with the same for the much-touted idea
person for seven years now. that honesty is always the
I’m not claiming to be an best policy. There are some
expert, but I have learned a few things it’s just not helpful
things along the way, some of for her to know. If the
which may be helpful to others. truth hurts her, consider
I don’t say any of this smugly whether that truth ought to
– I know I could often do with be told.
heeding my own advice. In fact, Book a surprise
halfway through writing this list weekend away every year.
of pick’n’mix tips, I stopped to Get her best friend in on
take my wife breakfast in bed. It the act to help. This will do
is true what they say: happy wife your reputation no harm.
equals happy life. Don’t sleep on the couch or
Make a fuss of her on her in the spare room. It’s your
birthday. If she says she doesn’t place too. She wouldn’t,
want a fuss, it means she wants a that’s for damn sure. Don’t
fuss. If in doubt: fuss. get a dog until you’re
She can pick faults in her prepared to do most of
family; you can’t. You might both the walking, feeding and
be saying the same thing, but cleaning up. I’m told it’s
you don’t have the authority to good practice for a baby.
say it. Knowing that will save you (We haven’t got there yet.)
many a pointless argument. Learn what her dad
Every problem doesn’t drinks and take him a
have to have an instant bottle when you visit.
solution. That’s Man Thinking. Remember her mum’s and
Sometimes she just wants best friend’s birthdays.
to talk about a problem and They’re allies you need to
know you understand. That’s keep close. But don’t go
Woman Thinking. overboard wooing them –
Make an effort: leave the toilet that would be weird.
seat down; change for dinner; Trust her: jealousy is
pick your boxers off the floor. corrosive, self-confidence
Don’t be selfish. If you’re making is sexy. Don’t give her
yourself a sandwich, ask if she reasons for mistrust.
wants one. It’s the little things. Remember: there’s no such
She can decorate the place thing as harmless flirting.
and make everything a whiter Pay for house bills out
shade of pale if she likes (just of a joint account. You
put your foot down on pink). But the deal is you get to choose all the shouldn’t have to pay for it all. This isn’t the Seventies. Learn how the
electronics. However, when she says that TV is too big, she’s right. washing machine and dishwasher work. Do your fair share. There’s
Say “I love you” to each other every day. You both need to hear that. no such thing as Woman’s Work. This isn’t the Seventies. It’s your
Hold hands in public. But no tongues. Eat dinner at the table. Talk about job to put the bins out, dispose of lizards and fix stuff. (There is such
your respective days. Talk about anything. Just talk. a thing as Man’s Work, apparently.) Use this double standard to your
Don’t let her come between you and your friends. It’s even possible advantage. God knows you could do with having the moral high
to make your friends hers too, but they’ll always be mainly yours. ground once in a while.
Maintain some semblance of independence. It’s called the Boys’ Night Find a TV series box set you both love. Then, over the next few
Out – a once-a-month free pass to drink, swear, shout, expel gas and months, watch every episode together. Go to bed at the same time.
suffer an I’m-never-drinking-again hangover with impunity. Learn to spoon. Take her breakfast in bed once in a while. Make every
There has to be give and take. If she makes you watch Sex And Wednesday date night. Dinner, the cinema, a picnic at home curled up
The City or have dinner with her freaky cousin, that’s a FUN credit on the sofa in front of that box set. Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s time
in the bank for you to redeem as you wish. (Remember, FUN credits set aside for the two of you. And McNulty from The Wire.
work both ways.) If you can’t handle the freaky cousin, develop an Send flowers, but never to the house. That’s a wasted chance to
IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES

impossible-to-disprove medical condition, such as migraines or a make you look good to her work friends. Flowers are expensive.
bad back, as a Get Out Of Jail card. Do not overplay it, lest any telltale Extract the maximum value.
behavioural pattern be discerned. It should be a last resort. Don’t take your relationship for granted. Sounds glib, but it’s the
Arguing is normal – arguably healthy, even. Don’t bottle things most important rule of all.
up. But no swearing or threats. That’s a line you never cross. Sorry Good luck.
doesn’t have to be the hardest word. Just say it. And no “sorry but…” Nick Smith is the Editor in Chief of GQ Australia

148 — JULY 2015

 ART

TALK

150
STORMING THE
BASTION
BY KISHORE SINGH

PHOTO: © ZARINA; COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND LUHRING AUGUSTINE, NEW YORK (HOME, BLINDING LIGHT). GOGI SAROJ PAL (HAT YOGINI). PRIVATE COLLECTION, NEW YORK, COURTESY TALWAR GALLERY, NEW YORK/NEW
MEET THE FEMALE
TRAILBLAZERS OF
MODERN INDIAN ART

I
n death, as in life, Amrita
Sher-Gil could set
heartbeats racing and
make hearts stand still – a
contradiction she mastered
as India’s first “modern” artist,
having dissed the efforts of her
peers. She may not have sold
sZarina
much in her tragically short Hashmi
lifetime – she died at 28 – but Home Is
she was well-known, having A Foreign
courted maharajas and flirted Place (1999).
Portfolio of
with bureaucrats, painted nudes 36 woodcuts,
and posed topless. She was as with Urdu text
breathtakingly beautiful in life as printed in black
on Kozo paper
in her self-portraits, one of which

DELHI (UNTITLED). SHOBHA BROOTA (UNTITLED 14). ARPITA SINGH AND VADEHRA ART GALLERY (WISH DREAM)
went under the hammer in New
York this March for a whopping
$2.92 million, or `18.1 crore. Seven
decades after she died, Amrita
Sher-Gil is finally getting her due.
Women artists were rare
in the formal world of art at
the start of the 20th century.
Sunayani Devi, of the eponymous
Tagore family, might have been
a vanguard, but her subjects
seemed to consist exclusively of
milkmaids and bejewelled village
belles. Amrita Sher-Gil’s fierce
indictment of such sentimental
paintings marked the first thrust
towards an “Indian modernism”.
It was a while before other
artists joined her rank, though,
creating contexts that emerged
from their everyday lives. They
could be decorative, as B Prabha’s
fisherwomen invariably ended uNasreen
up being. Or abstract, as the Mohamedi
sGogi Saroj Pal Untitled (circa
world discovered of Zarina
Hat Yogini 1980s). Ink and
Hashmi at her Guggenheim (1996). Gouache graphite on
retrospective in 2013. on paper paper

150 — JULY 2015

 artist, they’ve stood their ground,
NEW ON THE
BLOCK
questioning gender discrimination
and marginalization not only in their
Bharti Kher lives but also in their practice.
has made the Many have parallelled the lives of
sperm-shaped their artist spouses: Bharti is as well
bindi her
calling card, known as Subodh Gupta, and equally
Reena Saini successful; Anju is more visually
Kallat studies articulate than the highly regarded Atul
memory and
geography, Dodiya; Reena is impressing her search
Anju Dodiya for our lost histories in a manner that’s
recalls ancient different from Jitish Kallat’s futuristic
myths, Ranjani
Shettar creates works set within a technological
a world of framework. Nor must it be easy. Do
delicate they compete for the same awards,
shadows.
All of them
fellowships and outings at biennales
believe in art and exhibitions? How do they tackle
sShobha Broota beyond their vulnerability – theirs as well as those of
Untitled 14 own sex.
their partners?
(2011). Acrylic As they steer the course of debates
and oil on canvas
and discussions with their art, the
female artist is no longer a novelty.
Or minimalist, as in the case of Nasreen the male gaze but refusing to surrender Eight decades after Amrita Sher-Gil
Mohamedi’s work, in which each line to it. From being subjects, these artists had stormed the bastions of Indian
is imbued with emotion. The New have made the transition to proponents art, she’s being feted for her striking
York-based Hashmi’s work has been of art. originality. That it was accompanied
a quest for the lost geographies of her Mostly, though, women artists vZarina Hashmi by her glamorous beauty and
homelands, and Mohamedi worked have had to struggle to hold their own Blinding Light tempestuous lifestyle is the icing on
(2010). Okawara
despite a rare neurological disorder and in a man’s world – ironically, even paper gilded with the cake.
severe pain that claimed her life when as painting or the creative arts are 22-carat gold leaf Kishore Singh is a critic and art consultant
only 53 years old. Still, she painted as considered a female or effete field –
though her life depended on it, exiling and recompense for their efforts has
herself to a life of loneliness in Europe, been prejudicial. And yet, this has not
where the serrations of the sea on the stopped them, as contemporary artists,
beach would inform the perfect lines of from commanding the market with
her work. as much authority, like Bharti Kher;
When Arpita Singh had become the opening up the space for discussion
most expensive woman artist in India – as Nalini Malani; manipulating
a mural by her sold for `9.6 crore in 2010 nostalgia like Anju Dodiya and Reena
– sceptics had wondered at it. Didn’t she Saini Kallat; or bringing in political
concern herself with the ordinary? Yet, it discourse like Anita Dube. Artist for
is this “ordinary” that has extraordinary
resonance. Guns and airplanes
threatened her existence, violence vArpita Singh
lurked round the rose bower, there was Wish Dream (2001). Oil on canvas
deceit in the air. Arpana Caur’s paintings
too point to similar calamities of a social
fabric rendered, genocide and the
healing touch provided by teachers and
keepers of the faith, who sew it back.
Many women do bring in the
spiritual, and the feminine divine, in
their work – whether it’s Gogi Saroj Pal
with her predatory Kali stalking the
earth with a bleeding, severed head,
or Shobha Broota’s meditative force.
The chain-smoking, outspoken Pal has
an unusual take on feminism that is
rooted in India’s nurturing environment.
“You are a daughter, a sister, a wife,
a mother,” she says, explaining why
her female nayikas are shown either
tethered, unable to escape these familial
ties, or are self-absorbed, oblivious to

JULY 2015 — 151

 DESIGN

TALK
scene. “We’ve seen a steady rise in people
wanting to set up small urban, edible green
spaces – in their home windows, balconies
and terraces, or any other open space they
can get their hands on. Young homeowners
especially are flooding their balconies
with all kinds of herbs and vegetables, and
sharing the harvest with friends.” It’s an
encouraging development, and one that’s
only going to scale up.
Some of the most forward-looking
governments in the world are partnering
with local design agencies and architectural
practices to develop park-bridges – open
spaces that synergize with transport
systems, such as Heatherwick Studio’s
fantastic Garden Bridge proposal that
spans the Thames in London, and is set
to open in 2018. Closer to home, the
Mumbai Port Trust’s central kitchen is
a beautiful example of this symbiosis.
Situated at the Victoria docks, it caters
to over 2,000 employees, and generates
almost 20kg of kitchen waste daily. In a
BY AYAZ BASRAI

152
remarkably radical step, the employees
set up a 3,000sqft garden on their kitchen
terrace, beginning with two saplings in

SKY PARKS AND ROOFTOP GARDENS

2002, which now houses more than 150

TAKING THE
varieties of flowers, fruit, herbs and

– WELCOME TO THE FUTURE OF OUR medicinal plants.

GREEN LINE
At the diametric other end of these
CONCRETE AND GLASS CITIES initiatives, one finds the activist art track,
a zone of rebellion and activism. Guerilla
gardening movements are finding

T
momentum across the world, where
he Grand Trunk Road, built by grow local herbs on their rooftops that disused plots are being repurposed
Sher Shah Suri and stretching are sold at a discount at stations. to create accidental gardens,
over 2,500km from Chittagong Mumbai is one of the thereby adding a new vitality
to Kabul, Afghanistan, is one of densest cities in the world, to otherwise ignored
Asia’s oldest and longest roads. with over 20 million PICTURE A CITY areas. Seed bombs are
A wide succession of rulers have added to, people crushed into its WHERE EACH STRUCTURE the weapon of choice
and modified, its ancient infrastructure to confines. Given space IS SOME FORM OF GARDEN. of these urban green
make it more usable and safer for the vast crunches of this kind, SKYWALKS ARE ELEVATED warriors: where a small
community of travellers over the centuries. it’s almost impossible to time-bomb of mulch,
GARDENS, AND MASS TRANSIT
The overwhelming majority of trees planted imagine massive parks fertilizer and wildflower
along the GT are banyans, a species with or gardens dotting the
SYSTEMS GROW LOCAL HERBS ON seeds thrown onto a
massive shady foliage and far-reaching life, city. Yet the future lies in THEIR ROOFTOPS THAT ARE small patch of earth
with some trees clocking over 500 years. The new initiatives, ranging SOLD AT A DISCOUNT AT suddenly erupts into
vision of the rulers, who chose mulberry and from “micro” urban farming STATIONS surprising bursts of colour
other broad-leafed trees to create cooling to new forms of dissent like on sidewalks – even under
canopies over hot stretches, is admirable. To guerilla gardening. sewage grates and gutters. New-
plant a tree that would outlive the context in Rooftop gardens and communal age street art styles include Moss Art,
which it’s planted is an act of great humility vegetable patches are already populating where a mix of curd and moss is used on
and forward-thinking, something we seem our landscape, creating tiny pockets of old walls to create living content, a weird
to desperately lack in creating five-year resistance and beauty on an otherwise bleak new interaction where living things fuel
plans for our cities. Imagine a 500-year plan concrete and glass canvas. This is a trend that creative output. It’s a trend that’s erupted
for Mumbai, and what that might look like. will eventually play out at a city level, with in the West and is starting to take root
Picture a city where each structure is progressively minded governments backing locally too, among India’s more socially
some form of garden. There is a building community projects, even subsidizing them conscious artists.
harvest, where the fruits of the carefully and providing comprehensive frameworks What we’re witnessing is the birth of
planned terrace gardens are equally for setting these up. Vegetables and fruits a new civil war of the best kind, where
distributed, and societies have access to the will be fresher, and available at a much- the green stages a comeback against the
inhospitable forces of our toxic cities. Both
IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES

fresh produce, farmed right above them. discounted price, with the gardeners deciding
Herbs are pesticide-free and controlled what to grow and how to make best use of sides are hiring aggressively, training
at the source. Children have active the produce. Surplus may sometimes even rigorously and consolidating their forces.
growing environments to engage with, be sold to fund the next round of planting. Choose your weapon.
not manicured golf courses. Skywalks are Shaan Lalwani, founder of Vriksha Nursery Ayaz Basrai is the co-founder of the Busride Design
elevated gardens, and mass transit systems in Mumbai, is an active participant in this Studio

152 — JULY 2015

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 WATER-REPELLENT
JACKET BY LACOSTE.
VEST BY ERMENEGILDO
ZEGNA. TRACK PANTS
BY IZZUE. HIGH-TOPS
BY LOUIS LEEMAN.
WATCH BY FOSSIL

N
OI
BER
O
HAY
S
AK
IK
TE

R
A
PR
A
ANN
T KH
MI

O
NA
Your summer
ing
tur suits just

P
a
Fe
got KO’d by
designer-refined

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athletic wear

PHOTOGRAPHED BY
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STYLED BY
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154 — JULY 2015

 BOMBER JACKET
BY PHILIPP PLEIN.
T-SHIRT BY AMI.
TROUSERS BY NEIL
BARRETT. HIGH-
TOPS BY GIUSEPPE
ZANOTTI

JULY 2015 — 155

 POLO SHIRT BY DIOR
HOMME. TRACK PANTS
BY ZEGNA.
SOCKS BY ADIDAS.
HIGH-TOPS BY
GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI

000 —
156 MAY 2015
JULY 2015
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MARRAS. VEST BY
G-STAR RAW

JULY 2015 — 157

 VEST BY ADIDAS.
TRACK PANTS BY
DSQUARED2. HIGH-
TOPS BY GIVENCHY
BY RICCARDO TISCI

158 — JULY 2015

 VEST, SHORTS;
BOTH BY DIRK
BIKKEMBERGS.
HIGH-TOPS BY
GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI

JULY 2015 — 159

 JACKET BY
RICHARD JAMES.
T-SHIRT BY
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160 — JULY 2015

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SHORTS; ALL BY
GIVENCHY BY
RICCARDO TISCI.
HIGH-TOPS BY ETRO.
WATCH BY CHOPARD.
BACKPACK BY DIRK
BIKKEMBERGS

JULY 2015 — 161

 ON NAMIT:
SUIT BY GUCCI.
T-SHIRT BY
AMI. HIGH-
TOPS BY LOUIS
LEEMAN. WATCH
BY DIESEL

ON PRATEIK:
BLAZER BY
CANALI. JACKET
BY LACOSTE.
PANTS BY
VALENTINO.
HIGH-TOPS
BY GIUSEPPE
ZANOTTI. WATCH
BY EMPORIO
ARMANI

ON AKSHAY:
BLAZER BY DIRK
BIKKEMBERGS.
T-SHIRT BY YMC.
CHINOS BY
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TOPS BY LOUIS
LEEMAN. WATCH
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162 — JULY 2015

JACKET, TRAINERS;
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CHINOS BY PHILIPP
PLEIN. WATCH BY
EMPORIO ARMANI.

FASHION
COORDINATOR:
RAVNEET CHANNA
ASSISTANT STYLIST:
DESIREE FERNANDES
HAIR: SHEFALI
SHETTY/BBLUNT
MAKE-UP: XAVIER
D’SOUZA/FATMU
SET & PROPS:
BINDIYA & NARII
PRODUCTION:
VASUNDHARA
SHARMA

JULY 2015 — 163

IN THE LAIR OF

JO ES
Menswear designer Kim Jones has given Louis Vuitton
some serious streetwear cred. But rest assured, the
iconic Monogram and Damier aren’t going anywhere

Photographed by ADRIAN MESKO Styled by GRANT PEARCE

Written by SHIVANGI LOLAYEKAR

hen I meet Kim Jones on the sprawling lawns of Jaipur’s

Rambagh Palace, he’s wheezing from what he thinks might be
hay fever. He’s just arrived on the red eye from London, but it’s
his third trip to Rajasthan and Louis Vuitton’s Style director is
getting pretty used to the desert atmosphere. The first time Jones was here,
it was to scour vintage fabrics, royal courts and maharaja costumes. He was
in the process of putting together his latest collection, and had come to the
right place.
It’s easy to get inspired in Jaipur: palaces line busy streets and ancient ruins
coexist with a developing world, a juxtaposition that makes for an engaging
perspective. Especially for Jones, who had so far based every one of his
collections on a new city. Then Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer 2015 show was
unveiled in Paris. And it had none of the flamboyance you’d expect from being
inspired by India. The clothes were modern and wearable – a man in Santa Fe
would look as much at home in them as a man in Tokyo. India was in the details:
colour, mirror work and sundials made their way on to silhouettes that would
appeal to any stylish man.
And that’s the crux of Kim Jones’ genius. Since joining Louis Vuitton in
2011, he’s infused it with his edgy streetwear aesthetic, while still retaining LV’s
timelessness. Unlike his peers at other fashion houses, Jones doesn’t depend on
an influential circle of friends (Kate Moss and David Beckham, from a long list)
or intend to create groundbreaking fashion that no one in the real world would
wear. His low-key manner belies his ambition to make LV the brand of the
zeitgeist. And he’s doing it very cleverly, using travel as his catalyst – something
that’s always been LV’s epigraph, and core to Jones’ life. It’s why he’s riding
high and showing no sign of slowing down. Besides, who wouldn’t want a
passport stamped from Atacama to India, even if it comes with a little sniffling?

164 — JULY 2015

 ON INDIA
“I’m very much about hands-on research. The first time I came to Jaipur, I was looking for things
that could lend to the collection and the show. I was looking for the real essence of luxury – the way
maharajas lived and the fact that they had this relationship with Louis Vuitton trunks. I was looking at
the kind of lifestyle in India where men played polo... the Air Force, guys on the streets – they wore a
really cool silhouette with a chic Seventies vibe. It was ahead of Europe, it was ahead of everywhere.
You’d see it in India and then you’d see it in other parts of the world, without realizing that India’s the
birthplace for a lot of things, a melting pot of cultures. I wanted to celebrate that: a modern India.”

PHOTO: LOUIS VUITTON MALLETIER – KIM JONES (PORTRAIT)

166 — JULY 2015

 “They are iconic but they’re so easy
to work with. For this collection we
did the Monogram linings because
I wanted to do something that was
less branded but still had the real
“What’s really special in this essence of the brand. Louis Vuitton
collection are the trunks we did himself was very much a modern
inspired by The Beatles coming to man. He was doing things that
India. We did a record box, and a no one was doing at that time. He
guitar case, as well.” really thought about functionality.”

AROUND THE
Personal style? No, thanks
“I wear what I feel comfortable in. There are different
WORLD
“I grew up in Africa but we always went back
clothes for different occasions but I normally wear chinos
to London and Europe because I’m half Danish.
or jeans with a shirt or a sweatshirt, something that’s
really easy. I normally don’t think about me, I think about We’d travel all the time and that’s why it’s
everyone else I’m dressing.” second nature to me. I lived in very remote parts
of Africa and saw Maasai warriors and Afar
Kim’s still got street cred… tribesmen. They had this amazing look, wore
loads of colour and interesting silhouettes. It was
“I’ve injected a lot of my sportswear aesthetic into Vuitton.
Men who buy our clothes do it to facilitate their lifestyles. style. You don’t need to have money to have
We do a lot of formal suits but are now looking at ways style. It can come from anywhere.”
to make that comfortable for a guy. At the same time,
men buy clothes for their leisure time. When I talk about
sportswear now, I talk about American sportswear – it’s a
whole wardrobe. It’s not just sporty clothes, it’s a bit more
grown up, because I’ve grown up a bit.”
GOING FORWARD
… And then some “We have a really good base for what we do at Vuitton. The
idea is to continue to keep it very steady. Even with this
“I’ve got some T-shirts from Ethiopia that I’ve had since
collection, inspired by India. It was a celebration of colour,
I was about 10. I love the graphics on them and they’ve
pattern, shapes and styles, but with the same message:
always stayed in a box in my house. They’re cool, vintage
travel, functionality, tradition, technology.”
wildlife T-shirts, very Seventies and weird. I was very

THE NEW SEASON

particular about what I wore when I was a child. I’d drive
my parents mad. Up until the age of five, I’d refuse to wear
clothes, and then when I started wearing clothes, I’d wear “When I was 14 and got back to London, my sister was
one colour from head-to-toe.” moving out of the house and she threw her magazines
into a pile. I picked them up and the first things I saw

John Galliano likes Kim Jones were Christopher Nemeth’s designs on a page of i-D.
I realized then that I wanted to do fashion design, and
“He bought half of my collection for research when I was he’s been a real inspiration since. For me, Nemeth was a
studying at Central Saint Martins. I just remember being very master pattern-cutter – and not trained. He was an artist
upset because one of those blazers took me five months to and an illustrator obsessed by anatomy and understood
make and it was the only one I’d made. But that’s an amazing the human body very well. He’s the central force of our
compliment for someone like him to wear your clothes.” Fall/Winter 2015-16 collection.”
 “I LOVE FACTS AND FIGURES, I KEEP ABSORBING
INFORMATION – I’M VERY VISUALLY AWARE OF THE
WORLD AND THAT’S ONE OF MY STRENGTHS”

168 — JULY 2015

 PHOTO ASSISTANT:
TUCKER WYDEN
FASHION EDITOR:
JACKY TAM
HAIR & MAKE-UP:
GEORGIOS/
ANIMA TALENT
WARDROBE: LOUIS
VUITTON
MODEL: SARVESH
MAMGAI/FLYING
PIGS PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION:
SUHANA SHARMA,
BHAVNA PATEL/
FLYING PIGS
PRODUCTION
LOCATION:
JAIPUR
DOWNTOWN,
JAIGARH FORT

JULY 2015 — 169

 TROPIC
THUNDER
Beat the rain and book your next flight out.
From the boardwalk to the beach and the
bodega to the bar – we’ve got you covered

TROUSERS BY
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PHOTOGRAPHED BY JC DE MARCOS BY CHURCH’S

170 — JULY 2015

 1. BOOTS BY
CLARKS
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MUNICH
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11
8
10

JULY 2015 — 171

 1. SNEAKERS BY
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EMPORIO ARMANI
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BY DSQUARED2
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4
5

9
6

172 — JULY 2015

SUIT BY GUCCI.
SHIRT BY MASSIMO
DUTTI. SHOES BY
EMPORIO ARMANI

JULY 2015 — 173

 SUIT BY FAÇONNABLE.
BROGUES BY SALVATORE
FERRAGAMO. BRIEFCASE
BY GIORGIO ARMANI
 1

1. SOCKS BY
ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA
2. BOOTS BY
G-STAR RAW
3. OXFORDS BY
MASSIMO DUTTI
4. SNEAKERS BY
REEBOK 8
5. SNEAKERS BY BOSS 9
6. BAG BY LOEWE
7. POUCH BY LOEWE
8. WALLET BY
STEVE MONO
9. WALLET BY
LOUIS VUITTON

ASSISTANT STYLIST:
PATI SIRÉ, LAURA
AGUILAR
PRODUCTION:
INMA BARANDICA
MODEL: EDUARDO L/
SALVADOR MODELS

JULY 2015 — 175

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15 BIOGRAPHIES

THE

15
BIOGRAPHIES
EVERY MAN
SHOULD READ
Nothing against that Booker-
winning piece of magic realism
or anything, but sometimes
ÀFWLRQFDQIHHODELW\RXNQRZ
made up. Instead, learn from
1 MUHAMMAD ALI
KING OF THE WORLD
BY DAVID REMNICK (1998)

Behold: the greatest boxer of all time

getting treatment from a narrative-
journalism heavyweight. The Champ
had been written about as much as
WORDS: DANIEL RILEY, DAVE BESSELING. IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES

the outsized triumphs and any athlete ever, but David Remnick
did more than tell a story narrowly
monstrous mistakes of these focused on Ali’s individual experiences
with victory and vice. Rather, he
superlative specimens: actors, crafted a broad social and political
narrative, then placed the famed
athletes, artists and other pugilist within it. It’s a biography of a
man as much as it is a biography of a
giants of industries whose myth – “an American myth,” Remnick
writes, “who has come to mean many
names don’t necessarily begin things to many people: a symbol of
faith, a symbol of conviction and
with the letter ‘A’ defiance, a symbol of beauty and skill
and courage, a symbol of racial pride,
of wit and love.”

178 — JULY 2015

 3
BOB DYLAN
CHRONICLES:
VOLUME ONE
BY BOB DYLAN (2004)

The most written-about songwriter of

all time put an end to others’ attempts
by writing the weirdest, most
wonderful version himself. Dozens of
writers had tried before, but it took
Dylan doing Dylan to get to the heart
of it: impressionistic line-writing,
fractured chronologies, rivers of
metaphor, elliptical anecdotes and
– for those looking for a little more
grounding than the poetry provides
– cameo-filled set pieces of the most
satisfying sort. Rarely is there a
moment when we learn how A led
directly to B, but there’s a concerted
effort to relate not how something
was but how something felt/seemed/
appeared to have transpired. And
Volume Two is still on the slate.

NASEERUDDIN SHAH
AND THEN
ONE DAY
By Naseeruddin Shah (2014)
SSI
In an industry prone to
haughty deflection of
Agassi (2009)
anything that might dare
psychologist-couch cloud the halogen glow of
nal (that’s really how Agassi stardom, the legendary actor
llaborator, JR Moehringer, writes plainly and openly
worked through it) that all great sports about the critical junctions of
books strive to be. The abuse of youth his life, even the dirty bits.
training; the depths of disappointment Laying it all out may be a
and heights of ecstasy, recounted with function of age – what does
acuity; the coming-clean of celebrity he have to lose now anyway?
dating and crystal meth. (It will put – or maybe it’s that the tome
you at ease that you were never the only covers his life up to age
star athlete you’d hoped you’d be.) This 32, thus preempting his most gossip-ready phases.
would be a crazy book from any athlete; You may not get Shah’s laundry list of bedded
that it’s from one of the most talented Bollywood babes, but as far as origin stories go, you
and popular tennis players in history will understand what went into the making of this
makes it all the more irresistible. stalwart of stage and screen.

5
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
A LIFE IN DARKNESS
AND LIGHT
BY PATRICK MCGILLIGAN (2003)

He’s the most widely examined film director of all time,

and he’s still wildly misunderstood. McGilligan’s book is
a master course for anyone interested in movie-making, a
boring-down into the relationships with Cary Grant, Grace
Kelly and company, and a more suitably complex building-
out of the 2D perversions (and stalker accusations) that have
come to cloud his legacy in recent decades. It’s a hugely big
book that never feels long – the definitive take on the master.
JULY 2015 — 179
15 BIOGRAPHIES

CHARDS

h Richards (2010)

e: Keith. Because: the

. Because: Mick, Charlie,
Ronnie, Brian, Bill & Bobby.
Because: Smack, Jack & Coke.

6
Because: Altamont, Hyde Park
& Nellcôte. Because: Open G
tuning & the blues. Because:
Two bars of “Malagueña” and
you’re in. This is the best book
STEVE JOBS ever written about sex, drugs
STEVE JOBS & rock ’n’ roll.
BY WALTER ISAACSON
(2011)

8
It’s a panoramic JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
tribute to a singular
mind; the definitive
A LIFE
portrait of the BY MARY LUTYENS (2005)
definitive company;
a playbook for Jiddu Krishnamurti died in
engineers, designers 1986, but today’s India would
and managers in tech do well to revisit the writings
and the wider world; of this unassuming Tamil
an “Idiot’s Guide To Nadu-born philosopher. He
Seventies Start-ups didn’t wear any funny hats,
And Noughties never drove a Rolls Royce, and
Revivals”; a manual no devotee sex scandal has ever
for megalomania touched him. He didn’t even
(and veganism); and want you to necessarily spread
a best-seller of such his message: “Do not repeat
magnitude that it’s after me words that you do not
dumb to opt out. understand,” he wrote. “Do
It’s the only book not merely put on a mask of my
your less readerly ideas, for it will be an illusion
bros have read since and you will thereby deceive
college, but don’t yourself.” And that right there is
let that suggest how you cull the boys from the
anything other than men, the milquetoast questers
the fact that Jobs from the real thinkers. And if

WORDS: DANIEL RILEY, WILLIAM WELCH, GEOFFREY GAGNON, DAVE BESSELING. IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES
offers up entry points you’re willing to call yourself
for countless kinds out on your own bullshit, he
of men. only gets better from there.

10
ROBERT EVANS DEAN MARTIN

THE KID STAYS DINO

IN THE PICTURE BY NICK TOSCHES
(1992)
By Robert Evans (1994)
Dino was the first tell-all about this
Evans wrote the Great Hollywood inscrutable star – it’s also the best.
Memoir. A “half-assed actor” in the Fifties, Tosches pulls no punches in this
he then became the head of Paramount unauthorized biography, which traces
Pictures. Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, the Rat Packer from his early days
The Godfather, Chinatown – that sort as Dino Crocetti, a teenage gambler
of rap sheet. He was the consummate in Ohio, to Dean Martin, a marquee
Hollywood cad – he’s been married seven name with a $500 nose job, a cross-
times – and film inspiration for Dustin media sensation before “cross-media”
Hoffman in Wag The Dog. He strove to was a thing. But Tosches is interested
be an unapologetic original, a true north in more than fantastic celebrity; in
he followed to heights from which he had unsparing detail, he traces Dino’s
a singular view of the industry. Today’s sad, slow decline into a twilight of
straight-shooting, publicity-choked pills and booze. The result is a lesson
middle ground will make you restless in what not to do when you reach the
once you’ve tasted this. end of your prime.

180 — JULY 2015

 12
ANDREW CARNEGIE
ANDREW CARNEGIE
BY DAVID NASAW (2006)

Of all the American robber barons, Andrew Carnegie

feels the most modern. The most likable, too – though
that may sell him short (which, at five feet, he was as
well). He was born a pauper and became, in the words
of financier JP Morgan, “the richest man in the world”.
Sure, Carnegie was no saint. In the laissez-faire Gilded
Age, righteousness was rarely rewarded. He sold crap-
ass securities and used an early railroad gig to ink
insider deals that set him up in the steel business. He
made his first million by 35 but vowed to die penniless
and began funding libraries, museums, concert halls
and colleges – setting an example that modern plutocrats
like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett aspire to today.

WILLEM DE KOONING
DE KOONING
By Mark Stevens & Annalyn Swan
(2004)
W BOY
De Kooning’s toilsome life defies all the
stereotypes of what it means to be a
ITOR
“modern master”. Sure, aspects of the GED
Abstract Expressionist’s life fit the bill hta (2011, 2014)
of an artist’s biography – he made the
scene at the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich We may have lost Vinod Mehta in March this year, but
Village with Rothko and Kline, kept up one small concession is that the founding editor-in-chief
an intense rivalry with Pollock, drank of Outlook magazine left us not one but two volumes

1
himself into the gutter and swapped of memoirs: Lucknow Boy and Editor Unplugged. Dig
out lovers like painting aprons. But into either, and any notions of bifurcation-for-profit
everything else will force you to revise are dispelled. Mehta has been around long enough to
the way you think genius works. Learn to simply have that much to say, and when he says it so
be great, but mostly learn to be patient. well – the pith and wit of a man holding court with a
He’d grunt and scrape at his canvases for series of anecdotes at a cocktail party – even his multi-
months at a time, painstakingly inching page screed on Rupert Murdoch feels... What’s that BASHARAT PEER
his way towards immortality. word so often forgotten in journalism? Oh right: Fun. CURFEWED
NIGHT

14
By Basharat Peer (2010)
MALCOLM X Of all our entries, we’re
A LIFE OF kind of cheating on

REINVENTION this one. Curfewed

Night is, technically,
BY MANNING MARABLE (2011) neither biography nor
autobiography. You’ll find it
America in 2015 looks a hell of at the bookshop filed under
a lot more like the dire 1964 fiction. But the childhood
that Malcolm described in his scenes of growing up in
landmark “The Ballot Or The Kashmir in the fraught mid-
Bullet” speech than the cuddly Nineties are straight from
future Martin Luther King put Basharat Peer’s experience.
forth in “I Have A Dream”. Yet When you read about the
what’s so striking about Marable’s irreplaceable contents of a
book is how the supposedly rigid father’s library under threat
beliefs of Malcolm’s fiery militant from the blunt force of
foil were constantly evolving, and military ordnance, you know
how he came to have no allies, the pain and longing is not
just enemies – which makes this made up. Until someone’s
book as suspenseful as a double- memoir tops it, Curfewed
agent spy novel. Night stays on this list.

JULY 2015 — 181

 I

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fit of swearing when a corner of your
beard is carelessly nicked. Think of
the world’s first smart trimmer as
your wingman. When switched on, a
laser pops out from those blades and
indicates the line along which you
need to clip your facial hair. With 17
PHOTO AGENCY: PHOTOLINK

pre-programmed trim lengths and a

minimum setting of 0.4mm, you’ll be
able to shape your beard or goatee
with deft precision. Just stay within
the lines.

Philips BT9280, `7,500; philips.com

JULY 2015 — 183

 THE GADGETS

Gr omng
THE BEST
ICED SHAVE
There’s no way you’re still
using a Nokia 6600 or your
company-issued BlackBerry
– like everyone else, you
“got with it” and switched
to a real smartphone. That’s
why you need to change
electric razors too. The Braun
CoolTec is the iPhone 6 of
shavers right now. Essentially
a repackaged Series 3 with
Thermo Electric Cooling (TEC)
technology, it reduces skin
irritation that comes from
repeatedly driving those tiny
blades over your face. That
said, the CoolTec won’t work
on your long hipster beards,
and it won’t give you the
kind of clean shave you’d get
with a cut-throat razor – few
electric shavers will. But
you won’t walk out of your
bathroom tomato-faced from
a skin rash after using it.
Which, in our books, is a win.

Braun CoolTec Shaver, approx

`13,800; braun.com

PHOTO AGENCY: PHOTOLINK

184 — JULY 2015

 Tilt
the brush
head and move
the green bristles
up and down
to clean your
T-Zone

BRUSH
YOUR
FACE
BEFORE BED
(and in the morning )

You’ve spotted it in your

girlfriend’s bathroom, but
didn’t dare ask what it was.
“It” is a Clinique Cleansing
brush, which uses 9,000 good
vibrations a minute to scrub
your mug – dislodging dirt
and grime far more effectively
than washing your face with
soap and water could. The
device is waterproof, and
doesn’t need to be charged too
frequently, so you can easily
pack it in your DOPP kit for a
short work trip or a weekend
away. The only thing that’s not
cool? Sharing your girl’s brush.

Clinique Sonic System

Purifying Cleansing Brush,
`12,500; clinique.in

Gently
massage your
cheeks with the
soft white bristles.
Unclogged pores mean
less ingrowths and
less irritation while
shaving.

GQ TIP: Use a pea-sized

amount of clear gel with

the brush, never a scrub.
And just like you would
with your toothbrush,
replace the head every
three months, or as soon
as the bristles start fraying.

JULY 2015 — 185

 THE GADGETS

Gr omng

THE
LAWNMOWER
FOR YOUR NOSE
(and ears)
The only creatures on whom
visible nose and ear hair is
acceptable are trolls. And the
BFG. Not you. Just twist the
bottom of the Philips Ear &
Nose Hair Trimmer to get it
humming and buzz any unsightly
stragglers. Then rinse and put
it away until you need it again
two weeks later. It’s far more
efficient than using a mirror and
scissor and trying desperately
not to nick yourself, and there’s
no uncomfortable pulling either.
Plus, at under `1,000, it’s a slam
dunk purchase that will help you
avoid a major grooming turn-off.

Philips NT1150 Ear and Nose

Hair Trimmer, `995; philips.com

PHOTO AGENCY: PHOTOLINK

186 — JULY 2015

THE COMB
OVER… SO YOU
DON’T NEED A
COMB-OVER
Your hair’s thinning and you’re
panicking (quite rightly). A
transplant seems too dire but
all the densifying hair products
you’ve been using are having
zero effect. Your best shot is
this laser comb from Advanced
Hair Studio that uses low-
level laser light to energize
the follicles on your scalp and
stimulate hair growth. You’ll
need to use a special serum
and conditioner too, but the
extra effort is worth it. Because
when it comes to hair loss, the
golden rule is: You gotta work
hard to keep what you’ve got
– while you’ve still got it. Just
ask Warney.

Advanced Hair Studio Laser

Comb; AHS’ Fitness Programme
starts at `75,000 and includes
the device, prescribed
medication and consultations
with AHS trichologists;
advancedhairstudioindia.com

HOW TO USE IT:

Starting from the hairline, place
the comb flat on your scalp, so
both rows of teeth are touching
it. Leave it there for four seconds.
Once you hear a beep, move the
device about half an inch further
down, without lifting the device
off your scalp. Repeat till you’ve
covered your entire head. Do this
every alternate day.

JULY 2015 — 187

 FLORAL SCENTS

Gr omng

Are you
man “Flowers grow from the earth,” he says.

enoughto
“Does that make them feminine? Or is dirt
masculine?”
Christopher Brosius, perfumer and founder

floral?
of the fragrance line CB I Hate Perfume,

wear
doesn’t consider gender when he creates a
scent, and he encourages others to sniff with
an open mind. “Every now and then, there’s
a surprise,” he says. “A guy you’d consider a
‘dude’ will choose To See a Flower – a mix of
hyacinth, crocus, daffodils and jonquils. It’s
about ‘Do you like the way it smells or not?’ It’s
It takes confidence to use a scent you might find on your
that simple.” Of course, considering a scent’s
girlfriend’s dresser. No wonder smelling like a rose is the appeal to those with whom you share space
new power move is also wise, a fact I learned one night while
test-driving Maison Francis Kurkdjian Paris’
Oud Satin Mood. As I slid close to my wife
in hopes of seducing her with rose essence
hen I was five, my sister decided and vanilla, she blurted, “You smell like my
she was tired of having a little grandma’s friend Harriett – she’s dead.” Oddly
brother. So she outfitted me with TRY THESE
specific mood-killing message received. The
a dress, a palette’s worth of dark blue eye following evening’s offering, Byredo’s orris-
shadow, a shock of red lipstick and a healthy infused Gypsy Water, inspired more affection,
spritz of Primo!, our mother’s Giorgio and she liked Le Labo’s Rose 31 so much that
knockoff, then paraded me in front of our she started stealing it from me – so she’d be
parents. My father surveyed his only son, reminded of me throughout the day, or so I tell
now a tiny drag queen answering to “Denise”, myself – a bit of medicine-cabinet petty larceny
and brushed all that aside in favour of the big that’s apparently not uncommon. “We often
issue: “Boys shouldn’t smell like flowers.” The have couples wearing the same scent,” Brosius
next day, we took an emergency fishing trip. confirms. “It becomes a bond.”
If recent mass-market fragrance trends Fortunately for any man who bristles at the
are any indication, some of your favourite DUNHILL DESIRE BLACK
thought of swapping gold filigree atomizers
(APPROX `5,300)
perfumers suffered similar childhood with his girlfriend, bottle designs vary as widely
traumas. Popular brands are increasingly as the concoctions within – from the pink petal
offering “extreme” or “intense” formulas, detailing of L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Rose Privée
featuring higher concentrations and added to Lalique’s violet-centric eau de toilette, whose
notes of leather, coffee and musk and manly art-deco flacon was inspired by the
packaging that looks like it rolled off the Orient Express. Niche-market fragrances are
Aston Martin assembly line. And while there’s largely eschewing sex-indicative packaging
nothing inherently wrong with a signature altogether, according to Mindy Yang, curator
scent that screams “I’m an M-A-N!”, such of the SoHo-based perfumery MiN New York.
loud olfactory statements can seem like “We created a gender-neutral shape that’s
conspicuous compensation for shortcomings LALIQUE HOMMAGE À modular and modern,” she says of the bottles
unseen. Instead, try the ultimate in quiet, L’HOMME (APPROX `4,400)
for Shaman, a signature unisex eau de parfum
confident masculinity: smelling like an orange which incorporates notes of violet and rose in
blossom, a gardenia or a heliotrope. addition to incense, patchouli and absinthe.
And, really, why not let the flower power “Because we do witness how design and
WORDS: DAVID WALTERS. IMAGE: CHRIS GORMAN, GETTY IMAGES

shine through? You’ve already been wearing decoration affect purchase decisions.”
florals – though they may have been obscured One last thing to consider: While your
by an overspiced, mossed-out fog or omitted newfound floral freedom may announce to
from the name. The industry’s dirty little the world that you’re a self-assured tuberose
secret is that it’s been peddling petals to guys man, what you choose to reveal beyond that
the entire time. “All men’s fragrances have is up to you. “If you want to run through a field
florals in them,” says Eric Weiser, co-owner of flowers, nobody’s going to give a damn,”
of Twisted Lily, a boutique in Brooklyn. “They LE LABO FRAGRANCES
Weiser concludes. “If guys are secretive about
ROSE 31 (APPROX `4,500)
just don’t always advertise them.” Weiser what they’re wearing, it’s only because they
estimates that 95 per cent of his stock is unisex don’t want their buddies copying their scent.”
and has noticed an uptick in the popularity
of jasmine scents among male clientele, an
indication that consumers are rejecting the
sexual compartmentalization of fragrance.

188 — JULY 2015

THE ULTIMATE
GUIDE TO
LUXE LIVING

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ON STANDS AUGUST 2015

 Rediscover Dubai WITH
PHOTOGRAPH: MAZEN ABUSROUR

Condé Nast Traveller brings you its first-ever comprehensive guide with all
you need to know about the spectacular city of Dubai: the top hotels, must-visit
restaurants, fantastic shopping, cultural events or the best places to take your
kids, discover it all in Condé Nast Traveller’s Dubai supplement.
Trust us, it’s a keeper.

Complimentary supplement with Condé Nast Traveller’s Aug-Sept 2015 issue

For advertising opportunities, contact

[email protected]
 GQ CENTRAL

For
more, see
LISA RAY: THE
PIN-UP’S GUIDE
TO THE GALAXY
on PAGE 127

Under cover

RAY OF LIGHT
It takes a timeless location like Mumbai’s
Sex on fire

Camelot store to shoot an equally stunning

beauty like Lisa Ray
hen you come across a secluded 100-year-old

W bungalow in the middle of bustling Mumbai,

you wish for time to stop so you can take all
of it in. Much like when you meet the subject of GQ’s
sumptuous shoot, Lisa Ray.
The leggy supermodel is the answer to every man’s
dreams: an eternal pin-up woman. A lover of old-world
elegance. And of this colonial-style furniture store in
particular. As photographer Farrokh Chothia captured
her wandering around the sprawling verandahs, sun-
lit terraces and through ivy-covered doorways, she
could be overheard saying, “I wish I’d hosted my
wedding here!”

CAMELOT
127 Kemps Corner,
Next to Om Chambers
Mumbai — 400036
Tel: 022-2364 4594

192 — JULY 2015

 ON NAMIT:
T-SHIRT BY LACOSTE. JACKET BY RAEY. JEANS, WATCH; BOTH
BY DIESEL. SHOES BY CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN

ON AKSHAY:
T-SHIRT, JEANS; BOTH BY EMPORIO ARMANI.
JUMPER BY HACKETT LONDON. WATCH BY CHOPARD.
SHOES BY VALENTINO
WHERE TO BUY
THE MERCHANDISE FEATURED EDITORIALLY
ON PRATEIK: HAS BEEN ORDERED FROM THE FOLLOWING
VEST BY GUCCI. JUMPER BY MICHAEL KORS. JEANS BY STORES. SOME SHOPS MAY CARRY A SELECTION
EMPORIO ARMANI. WATCH BY DIESEL. SHOES BY CLARKS ONLY. PRICES AND AVAILABILITY WERE CHECKED
AT THE TIME OF GOING TO PRESS, BUT WE
CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT PRICES WILL NOT
CHANGE, OR THAT SPECIFIC ITEMS WILL BE IN
STOCK WHEN THE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED. WE
SUGGEST THAT, BEFORE VISITING A STORE, YOU
CALL TO MAKE SURE THEY HAVE YOUR SIZE

Louis Vuitton Mumbai, 022- Roger Dubuis Mumbai,

6664 4134; Delhi, DLF Emporio, Time Avenue, 022-2651 5757;
011-4669 0000; Bengaluru, UB Delhi, Kapoor Watch Co,
City, 080-4246 0000 011-4653 6667
Louis Leeman Rohit Gandhi + Rahul
(louisleemanparis.com) Khanna Delhi, DLF Emporio,
Louis Philippe Mumbai, 011-4654 7462
022-6527 0338 Rolex Mumbai, 022-6625
3600; Delhi 011-4699 0000;
M Bengaluru, 080-2211 3976
Mango Man
(shop.mango.com/IN/men) S
Massimo Dutti Salvatore Ferragamo
(massimodutti.com) Mumbai, 022-3062 1018; Delhi,
Michael Kors Mumbai, DLF Emporio, 011-4660 9084;
022-4002 8040; Delhi, Bengaluru, 080-3004 1854
011-4056 3704 Shivan & Narresh
MUNICH Mumbai, 022-2648 3773; Delhi,
(munichsports.com) 011-2653 6072
Sony (sony.co.in)
N SS Homme Mumbai,
Neil Barrett 022-2651 1738
(neilbarrett.com) Steve Mono
Nautica Mumbai, Palladium, (stevemono.com)
022-4005 0822 Stutterheim
(stutterheim.com)
A 9950; Delhi, Ambience, Dolce & Gabbana Hackett London Mumbai, O
Adidas Mumbai, 99 3007 011-4087 0786 (dolcegabbana.com) Palladium, 022-4347 2888 Omega Mumbai, 022-6655 T
9114; Delhi, 011-4573 4261; Burberry Mumbai, Palladium, DSquared2 Heel & Buckle Mumbai, 0351; Delhi, 011-4151 3255; TAG Heuer Mumbai,
Bengaluru, 080-4091 5678 022-4080 1990; Delhi, DLF See The Collective 022-4022 3354 Bengaluru, 080-4098 2106 022-3060 2001; Delhi,
Ami (amiparis.fr) Emporio, 011-4652 9850; Dunhill Delhi, 011-2336 6777; Hermès Mumbai, 022-2271 98711 98885; Bengaluru,
Anita Dongre Mumbai, Bengaluru, UB City, Bengaluru, 080-4173 8990 7400; Delhi, 011-4360 7780 P 080-4098 2109
022-6634 0923 080-4173 8825 Dynomighty HondaJet Panerai Mumbai, 022-2288 Tarun Tahiliani Mumbai,
Antar-Agni by Ujjawal (dynomighty.com) (hondajet.honda.com) 5052; Delhi, Johnson 022-2642 0643
Dubey (ujjawaldubey.com) C Hublot Mumbai, Rose Watch Co, 011-3231 5645; The Bro Code
Antonio Marras Calvin Klein Jeans E The Watch Bar, 022-2362 Bengaluru, Ethos Westminster, (thebrocode.in)
(antoniomarras.it) Mumbai, 022-2648 4794; Delhi, Emporio Armani 0275; Delhi, 011-2469 3712; 080-4163 6912 The Collective Mumbai,
Ashish N Soni Delhi, DLF 011-4059 7502; Bengaluru, Mumbai, Palladium, 022-4347 Bengaluru, 080-4098 2100 Paul Smith Mumbai, 022-4343 8888; Delhi,
Emporio, 011-4606 0955 080-4098 6227 3211; Delhi, DLF Emporio, 011- Hugo Boss Mumbai, Palladium, 022-6658 9960; 011-4087 8888; Bengaluru,
Audemars Piguet Mumbai, Canali Mumbai, Palladium, 4604 0783; Bengaluru, UB City, 022-2665 5560; Delhi, DLF Delhi, DLF Emporio, 011-4604 080-6767 8888
Time Avenue, 022-2651 5858; 022-4009 8685; Delhi, DLF 080-4146 9333 Emporio, 011-4604 0773; 0744; Bengaluru, UB City, Thomas Pink
Delhi, Kapoor Watch Co, Emporio, 011-4604 0731; Ermenegildo Zegna Bengaluru, 080-2520 7200 080-4173 8882/3 Mumbai, Palladium, 022-4023
011-4134 5678 Bengaluru, UB City, Mumbai, 022-2285 7000; Hunter Original Park Avenue 6090; Delhi, Ambience, 011-
080-4173 8997 Delhi, 011-4606 0999 (hunterboots.com) (parkavenueselect.com) 4087 0783
B Celio Mumbai, Palladium, Etro (etro.com) Pepe Jeans Mumbai, Tissot Mumbai 022-2494
Being Human Mumbai, 022-4080 2301 I 022-2498 5020; Delhi, 0954; Delhi, 011-4375 1174;
022-2660 1190 Chopard Mumbai, 022-2288 F Izzue (izzue.com) 011-4158 0491; Bengaluru, Bengaluru, 080-6726 6283
Bell & Ross Mumbai, Time 4757; Delhi, 011-4666 2833; Façonnable 080-4126 8020 T.M. Lewin (tmlewin.com)
Avenue, 022-2655 5757; Delhi, Bengaluru, 080-4098 2100 (faconnable.com) J Philips Mumbai, 022-2493 Tod’s Delhi, DLF Emporio,
Ethos Summit, 011-4058 8700 Christian Louboutin French Connection Just Cavalli 4400; Delhi, 011-2374 2578 011-4666 2700
Bentley Mumbai, 022-6671 Mumbai, 022-4347 1787; Delhi, Mumbai, 022-2648 2731; Delhi, (justcavalli.com) Philipp Plein Tom Ford Delhi, DLF
0907; Delhi, 011-2412 1717 011-4101 7111 011-4059 7575 Jimmy Choo Mumbai, (philipp-plein.com) Emporio, 011-4103 3059
Blackberrys Mumbai, Church’s (heelandbuckle.com) Fossil Mumbai, 022-3027 7070; Delhi, DLF Prada (prada.com) Tommy Hilfiger Mumbai,
Phoenix, 022-2492 4282; Delhi, Clube Bossa 022-6677 7999 Emporio, 011-4660 9069 Puma Mumbai, High Street 022-2646 2847; Delhi, 99 1169
Ambience, 011-4087 0084 (clubebossa.com) Phoenix, 022-6725 3454; 7222; Bengaluru, 080-2268
Bombardier Clarks Mumbai, High Street G L Delhi, Select Citywalk, 2091
(bombardier.com) Phoenix, 022-6749 5061; Delhi, Gas Mumbai, 022-2600 0008; L’agent by Agent 011-4056 6907; Bengaluru,
Bordelle DLF Promenade, 011-4650 Delhi, 011-4051 2669 Provocateur 080-3016 0040 V
(bordelle.co.uk) 8023; Bengaluru, Phoenix Geox (geox.com) (agentprovocateur.com) Valentino
Bottega Veneta Mumbai, Market City, 080-6726 6052 Giorgio Armani Delhi, Lacoste Mumbai, 022- Q (valentino.com)
The Galleria, 022-3027 7090; Clinique Mumbai, Palladium, DLF Emporio, 011-4606 0948 4347 0190/4000; Delhi, DLF Quiksilver Mumbai, 022- Vector x
Delhi, DLF Emporio, 011-4609 022-4347 3774 Givenchy (givenchy.com) Promenade, 011-4617 0682/3; 6634 5011; Delhi, Ambience, (vector-x.com)
8272; Bengaluru, UB City, Corneliani Mumbai, 022-6631 Giuseppe Zanotti Bengaluru, 080-4147 6660/1 011-4087 0727; Bengaluru, Victorinox
080-4173 8931 1303/4; Delhi, 011-4604 0722; (giuseppezanottidesign.com) Lalique (lalique.com) 080-6726 6376 (victorinox.com)
Breakbounce Bengaluru, 080-4173 8170 Gulfstream La Perla (laperla.com) Van Heusen Mumbai,
(breakbounce.com) (gulfstream.com) La Senza Mumbai, 022-6736 R Palladium, 022-6615 2898;
Breguet Mumbai, Time D Graham Mumbai, Rose The 3563; Delhi, DLF Promenade, Raey (matchesfashion.com) Delhi, 011-4164 7925
Avenue, 9819 73127; Delhi, Daher-Socata (tbm.aero) Watch Bar, 022-2362 0275; 011-4104 2371; Bengaluru, Raymond Mumbai, 022-2268
Johnson Watch Co, DC Mumbai, Palladium, Delhi, Kapoor watch Co, 080-6726 6344 6002; Delhi, 011-4702 2822; Y
011-4151 3121 022-6634 5011 011-4653 6667 Levi’s Mumbai, 022-264 Bengaluru, 080-2206 7770 You Must Create
Breitling Mumbai, Times of Diesel Mumbai, 022-2661 Greubel Forsey Delhi, Swiss 1101; Delhi, 011-4151 3345; Reebok Mumbai, 022-2202 (youmustcreate.com)
PHOTO: ARJUN MARK

Lord, 022-2369 5254; Delhi, 8282; Delhi, DLF Emporio, 011- Promotion, 011-4616 0505 Bengaluru, 080-3251 4943 4250; Delhi, 011-4347 4660
Kapoor Watch Co, 011-4653 4052 3915; Bengaluru, UB City, G-Star Raw (g-star.com) Le Labo Fragrances Richard James Z
6667; Bengaluru, Rodeo Drive, 080-4173 8004 Gucci Mumbai, 022-3027 (lelabofragrances.com) See The Collective Zara Mumbai, Palladium,
080-4173 8825 Dior Homme Delhi, DLF 7060; Delhi, 011-4647 1111 Loewe (loewe.com) Richard Mille 022-4347 3850; Delhi, DLF
Brioni (brioni.com) Emporio, 011-4600 5900 Lottusse (lottusse.com) (richardmille.com) Promenade, 011-4513 7124;
Brooks Brothers Dirk Bikkembergs H Longines Mumbai, 022-6743 Roberto Cavalli Delhi, DLF Bengaluru, Phoenix Market
Mumbai, Palladium, 022-2265 (bikkembergs.com) H&M (hm.com) 9853; Delhi, 011-4359 2848 Emporio, 011-4696 0000 City, 080-6726 6121

JULY 2015 — 193

 MONSOON’S HOTTEST PICKS LINED UP FOR YOU

Man Up! Parisian Debut

Tennis legend Steffi Graf was party to a different kind of history in Paris.
If you were looking for a way to get a heady Graf, the ambassador of elegance for Longines, did the honours at the
dose of that intangible savoir faire and inauguration of the Swiss brand’s first monobrand boutique in France,
transform into a suave, sophisticated man of along the Left Bank in Paris. The warm wooden interiors offer the
the world, Dunhill’s Desire Black should be your perfect backdrop for the 500 iconic models, which include the Conquest
go-to scent. A powerful fragrance that is the Classic Moonphase, the official watch of Roland Garros. A museum, a VIP
essence of the modern man, it hits all the high lounge and a team of experts to provide information on product lines
notes. With a first rush of black pepper coupled round out the offerings.
with the refined notes of bergamot, grapefruit For more information, visit longines.com
and petitgrain, Desire Black captures the
timeless elegance and intensity of the man who Smart Casual
knows what he wants. If you’re a busy man about town, you
Available at all PARCOS stores need to arm yourself with the right
stuff to get your work look just right.
Samsonite’s collection of business
casual laptop bags ensures that
you go about your business with a
certain flair. Combining business and
casual, the brand’s CityVibe collection
features versatile nylon laptop
bags, and also a cabin-sized duffle
on wheels. Crafted with meticulous
attention to detail, the bags are as
handy as they are smart.
Price on request. Available at Samsonite
stores and leading retail outlets across India

Wedding Wows Get Your Face On!

Thailand is a lot of things to a lot of people – the The launch of the latest variant of
perfect bachelor party destination, for instance. Ponds’ Pollution Out Face Wash, in
Now though, if Thailand Tourism has anything to collaboration with Disney’s ABCD2, was
say about it, you might want to reconsider your all-out glamour, Bollywood style. It saw
travel plans and stick around for your wedding Ponds’ Men brand ambassador, Varun
as well. Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), Dhawan groove to the tunes from his
New Delhi and Tourism Authority of Thailand, upcoming movie while presenting the
Mumbai along with Thai Airways International new product through 4D technology.
flew down India’s top wedding planners to This Deep Clean face wash removes
Pattaya. The objective? To showcase it as the micro pollution from deep inside and
ultimate wedding destination. Not a hard sell, thoroughly cleans your skin – just the
given its stunning resorts, world-class hotels kind of thing to get you doing a little
and breathtaking sights. joyous jig of your own.
For more information, visit tourismthailand.org, or Priced at `175 for 100g; `100 for 50g.
email [email protected] Available across stores in India

194 — JULY 2015

 Summer on your wrist
Luxury watchmaker Breguet had
occasion to dial back in time for some
stylistic inspiration. The reason? To
create the masterpiece to mark the
bicentennial celebration of Abraham-
Louis Breguet’s appointment as
chronometer-maker to the navy.
The result is the Breguet Marine
Chronographe 200 Ans de Marine.
A platinum-encased watch with a
decidedly contemporary design,
its gold dial with the matte black
surface is offset by its understated
rubber strap. This one’s a definite
keepsake. The bad news – there are
just 200 of them.
Price on request. For more information,
visit breguet.com
Liquid Luxury
Glenfiddich makes history for a number
of reasons – it’s the most awarded single
malt scotch whisky in the world; it’s
one of the last family distilleries and it’s
the result of some of the oldest whisky
wisdom to pass down from generation to
generation. Lovingly crafted by masterful
experts with traditions of know-how,
Glenfiddich’s treasure trove includes the
12, 15 and 18 Year Old single malts that
have been carefully matured in their
The Chosen One
European brand SELECTED Homme,
casks. No wonder Glenfiddich whiskies
recently launched in India and available
are the most coveted by connoisseurs
online on Jabong.com, knows a thing or
across the world.
two about dressing to impress. Whether
For more information, visit glenfiddich.com
it’s laid-back casual or the classically
formal, SELECTED offers the choicest of
clothing for the modern man. The brand
features three lines to cater to all your
sartorial requirements: Indigo includes
denim, Heritage is for the smart casual
look, and if you want sophistication,
that’s what you get with the perfectly
tailored Identity collection.
Priced at `7,095. Available in select shop-
in-shops across the country and exclusively
online on jabong.com

View from the Top

Zeroed in on your next big
vacation spot yet? Opt for a
front-row seat to the most
stunning panorama in the
world: the Khyber Himalayan
Resort and Spa in Gulmarg.
Hanging high in the sky, at
an elevation of 8,825 feet in
Power Run the Pir Panjal range, with the
If you wondered what it would be like to blanket of snow all around, the
step into the shoes of the fastest man on timber-and-stone resort has
earth, just buy the IGNITE, Puma’s most earned accolades – and awards
responsive running shoe – and Usain – for its impeccable service,
Bolt’s preferred footwear. Designed for hospitality and international-
maximum return on energy and to be quality facilities.
comfortable and durable, the proprietary For more information, visit
IGNITE foam, created after extensive khyberhotels.com
research, provides perfect cushioning
and lets you move at high speeds. The
shoe takes inspiration from the shape of
a comet – appropriate, given that its MO
is to make you run like the wind.
Priced at `8,999. Available at all Puma stores

JULY 2015 — 195

OPEN LETTER

s,
Dear Superhero Movie
k an Open Letter to
oh? What’s that? You thin
Riddle us this, Superher – bee n done before? Well,
that original, that it’s all
Superhero Movies isn’t all rsel ves , Sup erhero Movies.
saying. Look at you
that’s sort of what we’re re of you can there
meless. Just how many mo
It’s shameful to be so sha ytelling, and whether
seven possible plots in stor
be? There really are only o’s plot graph is
d or Dirk Diggler, the her
you’re Theseus, Robin Hoo ny mo re Mc Donald’s
come on, how ma
pretty much the same. And
rld need?
collector cups does the wo
tched his spandex onesie
r dec ade s sinc e Chr isto pher Reeve’s Superman stre n. It’s been
It’s been almost fou e green screens back the
e-s cre en sky of Me trop olis: They didn’t even hav r Mic hae l Keaton
across the blu sense of humour – neithe
50 yea rs sinc e Ada m We st imbued Batman with a gra tefu l tha t Val Kilm er’s
over ites, though we’re
n very gregarious Gotham ted.
nor Christian Bale have bee a steaming sew er bef ore Buz zFe ed exis
car” Batman seeped into
smarmy “chicks love the onl y hur t yourself.
n? Just don ’t. You ’ll
George Clooney’s Batma t Henry
sequel, where, to contras
st ant icip ate d on the roster is the Man Of Steel ant ago nistic
Perhaps the mo eck will serve as an
ital ly enh anc ed Sup erm an pecs, Ben “Mallrats ” Affl in stor ies for
Cavill’s dig orig
affair will co-function as
ma n in this clas h of DC Comic titans. The whole The Jus tice Lea gue . But not
Bat in
r Wo ma n fran chi ses , and they’ll all meet again lver ine
Aquaman and Wonde ther X-Men, a second Wo
sub ject ed to Ma rve l’s re-cast Fantastic Four, ano ney ’s Iron Man
before you’ll be id-possible racist” Dow
, a Doc tor Stra nge rev ival, and Robert “highest-pa the fi lm, bec aus e the
solo project ensure people will see
t Captain America. This will sts, have come off a bit
being tossed into the nex s and dow n-home old-timey zeitgei rto Rican sigil than
Captain Americas, wit h the ir WW II plo t anc hor o looking more like a Pue
ism unr elat ed to Cap ’s big-screen uniform tors
tury. (A provin cial
provincial in the 21st cen
ang led ban ner .) m Silicon Valley?
the star-sp d marketplace since dot-co
wh at? To hed ge Ma rve l’s bets on the most bloate and Dar edevil – which also
And another goddamn Tho
r, too? For
like it’s alre ady gon e the way of Green Lantern rk? This
r Paul Rudd’s Ant-man?
Sou nds li? How does he still get wo
What hope is there for poo s lear ned not hin g from the careeer arc of Mr Gig
Affleck. Have film-maker keep getting this level of
work.
starred Ben “Jersey Girl” corporate garden hoses to
te big gol f ball s thro ugh odies: The
guy must suck qui there are the so-called par

WORDS: DAVE BESSELING. IMAGE: REX FEATURES

clut tere d sup er-o rbit of sell-outs and steroids,
the periphery of this g too.
And yes, way out there at t dull-ass Green Hornet thin
Gua rdia ns Of The Galaxy s, and arguably tha was
Kick-Ass’s and the ero turf. But Van Helsing
got h kid s like , the y’ve often crept close to superh wet ma ny pants
those child-abus ed it to
Even all the vampire movies Fright Night and expect
lob lead ing -ma n Col in Farrell into a remake of ind ie fi lm per form ance on
panned back in 2004, and
you can’t just
Col in Far rell ’s one hon est, passionate, very very
k about
mean, you pervs. Go thin e you’ve seen The Lost Boy
s.
(with frightened piss, we re is no other vampire movie onc
ryo ne kno ws the
your own time). Besides,
eve ting her own movie. That’s
, guy s. We ll, eve ryth ing except Wonder Woman get erhero screen
ting a bit fucking stupid
now the most forgettable sup
Hgnungph. This is all get t’s goi ng to hav e som ething to prove. Because en? Correct.
the one project we can get
behind. That’s one tha woman? Who? What? Wh
s. Hel en Slat er as Sup ergirl? Halle Berry as Cat
s with female lead
outings have been the one nerd fraternity, even if it’s
a
nde r Wo ma n will be acc epted and absorbed by the
e changed, and Wo
We’d like to think times hav n our gullets.
gav age of sup erheroes being forced dow taking the lead
gag-reflex to the lm with Wonder Woman
rou nds of soc ial me dia recently suggested, in a fi d in some of her
Perhaps, as a popular ima
ge that made the male superheroes dresse
like she say s in tha t one -frame comic to a gang of
und rules,
she could lay out some gro s pants.”
hig h-c ut out fits: “If I don’t get pants, nobody get “Pearl Harbour”
former e you, somehow, kill off Ben
plea se, in you r first fi lm or the next, can we hav
man. And
Good for you, Wonder Wo
Affleck , plea se?

196 — JULY 2015