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 a land of extreme wealth and poverty فاكرني هندي ولله ففي خلقة شئون
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India's Richest Man Prepares to Move Into $1B HomeUpdated: 7 hours 36 minutes ago
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Theunis Bates
Contributor
AOL News (Oct. 29) -- India's richest man will open the doors to his swank new Mumbai home Nov. 28 and take some 200 friends on a guided tour. They could be in for a long and tiring night: the $1 billion tower, which took seven years to build, stretches over 27 floors and has 400,000 square feet of residential space. That's more than seven White Houses, although some reports say the size is actually closer to 60,000 square feet -- #####alent to just one.
Either way, at least Mumbai's elite won't have any problems finding spots for their Rolls-Royces, as the concrete and glass structure boasts a six-level parking lot with 168 spaces. And tycoons keen to avoid Mumbai's congested, polluted streets have the option of landing their choppers on one of the building's three helipads.
AFP / Getty Images
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani will move into his 27-story Mumbai residence next month. The building has three helicopter pads, underground parking for 168 cars and a 50-seat theater.
After strutting around the humongous home, guests can select from a wealth of ways to relax. They could take a dip in a pool or stretch out in the yoga studio. Alternatively, they can watch a Bollywood flick in the 50-seat cinema, or sip cocktails on one of the three balconies with terrace gardens, where they can gaze out to the glistening Arabian Sea and peer down on Mumbai's teeming slums, home to 62 percent of the city's population.
India has always been a land of extreme wealth and poverty, a situation codified for many centuries in its strict caste system. But Mukesh Ambani's skyscraper -- which will be home to his wife, their three children and his mother, as well as several hundred servants -- is evidence of just how far the booming country has moved away from Mahatma Gandhi's mantra of modesty. "It's 'flaunt-it-if-you've-earned-it' thinking," Alex Kuruvilla, head of Conde Nast publications in India, told the Los Angeles Times. "For decades, natural instincts were repressed. Finally, people in India are able to live their dream."
And as India's economy continues to grow at a steady 8 percent a year -- powered by a well-educated and cheap work force -- that dream is being realized by a growing number of tycoons. Over the past two years, the number of billionaires in the country has almost tripled to 69. That's not as many as China -- home to 128 -- but India's mega tycoons are on average richer than their Chinese neighbors. In 2009, the wealthiest 100 Indians are together worth $276 billion, while their 100 Chinese counterparts are worth $170 billion, Forbes noted.
Sponsored Links At the head of these new maharajahs is Ambani, 53, who has turned his father's company, Reliance Industries, into a textiles, oil and chemical giant. He's now worth an estimated $29 billion, making him the fourth richest person in the world. But despite that vast fortune, Ambani didn't, until recently at least, have a reputation as a big spender. (That's in contrast to other moguls like steel king Lakshmi Mittal, who threw a five-day, $60 million wedding for his daughter in 2004, flying 1,000 guests and troupes of Bollywood stars to Paris.)
During an interview earlier this year with Indian columnist and socialite Shobhaa De, Ambani's wife, Nita, claimed that both she and her husband refused to fritter away money. They recently chose not to rent the presidential suite at New York's Four Seasons Hotel because the $5,000-a-night rate seemed too high. "Mukesh and I just looked at each other and said, 'An executive suite will do fine,'" Nita said. And she added that her husband still buys his favorite five-pocket khaki Dockers from Macy's when he's in the city. "You don't have to spend a lot of money to be well dressed," Nita said. "You have to look and feel fresh."
But perhaps that's one of the joys of owning what could be the world's most expensive home: People generally don't check out your pants when you tell them you own the skyscraper on the horizon.
Filed under: World, Money
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