Splendid House, Mr. Ambani! What About the Neighborhood, Though?
Antilia Tower
Adeel Halim/Bloomberg
Antilia Tower, the new residence of Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman of India's Reliance Industries Ltd. Ambani's personal wealth is estimated to be $27 billion.
Antilia Tower, the new residence of Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman of India's Reliance Industries Ltd. Ambani's personal wealth is estimated to be $27 billion. Photographer: Adeel Halim/Bloomberg
Antilia Tower
Adeel Halim/Bloomberg
Antilia Tower, the new residence of Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman of India's Reliance Industries Ltd.
Antilia Tower, the new residence of Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman of India's Reliance Industries Ltd. Photographer: Adeel Halim/Bloomberg
Mukesh D. Ambani
Pankaj Nangia/Bloomberg
Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. Ambani's personal wealth is estimated to be $27 billion.
Mukesh D. Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. Ambani's personal wealth is estimated to be $27 billion. Photographer: Pankaj Nangia/Bloomberg
Dharavi slum area of Mumbai
Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg
A man and children on a street in the Dharavi area of Mumbai, India. Of the 19 million people who reside in Mumbai and its suburbs, half live in slums.
A man and children on a street in the Dharavi area of Mumbai, India. Of the 19 million people who reside in Mumbai and its suburbs, half live in slums. Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg
Mumbai traffic
Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg
Cars, pedestrians, carts and motorcycles move down a congested street in Mumbai. Corruption, disregard for traffic laws, congested roads and a lack of car safety features all contribute to India having the world's deadliest roads.
Cars, pedestrians, carts and motorcycles move down a congested street in Mumbai. Corruption, disregard for traffic laws, congested roads and a lack of car safety features all contribute to India having the world's deadliest roads. Photographer: Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg
Dear Mr. Mukesh Ambani:
I drove by your new, 27-story home on Altamount Road during my recent visit to Mumbai, the city of my birth.
With its massive gates, its funky Lego-like construction, helipads, a cinema, a swimming pool, a panoramic view of the Arabian Sea and a reported price tag of $1 billion, it looked worthy of the richest man in India, not to mention the chairman of its largest company, Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL)
Really, though, Mr. Ambani, have you looked at your neighborhood recently?
Bombay, as it was called when I was growing up, was always a crowded, congested and filthy city. We still put up with it because of its buzz, freedom, esprit, its westward orientation and New York-style promise that said if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
The city’s misery and defecating multitudes -- made famous by Slumdog Millionaire -- were always there, a source of shame and sorrow.
Yet the dirt and grime never bothered me as much as it did during my last visit. That’s not because I’ve been spoiled by Paris, the city where I now reside and which epitomizes beautiful living. No, it’s because I find it hard to reconcile the ambitions of India’s financial capital with its realities.
This month Mumbai was named among the world’s top 10 billionaire cities by Forbes magazine, boasting 20 people with a net worth of at least $1 billion each, led by you with $27 billion. The city alone accounts for 6 percent of India’s $1.3 trillion economy and about 40 percent of its tax collections.
Falling Apart
It houses the Tata Group, your own Reliance Industries, the Aditya Birla Group, Hindustan Petroleum Corp., Bharat Petroleum Corp. -- with just those five generating revenue of more than $150 billion annually. It is also the city that most of Bollywood’s stars call home.
For all that, much of Mumbai is disintegrating, nay decaying. Even your own Altamount Road looks shabby. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, or King Khan as he is known, has a garbage-strewn seafront across from his beautiful bungalow called “Mannat” in the suburb of Bandra.
Half the city looks as though it will crumble if someone huffed and puffed really hard on it. Another third looks as if it should be torn down immediately for the safety of its inhabitants.
The decay has been setting in for years, of course. What ails the city seems to be a complete lack of municipal zoning and patchy garbage collection. Add to that a severely twisted rent-control system that leaves landlords with no incentive to take care of their buildings.
Jade Jagger
Those same property laws also cap construction and push rents and real estate prices to laughably high levels -- especially given how run down residential and commercial blocks are and the piles of rubble and garbage not far from even the most exclusive properties.
It’s no wonder that more than half the city’s 20 million people live in slums and shanty towns, mostly illegally with no access to the bare minimum required for a life of dignity -- hence the open-air toilets.
My Mumbai friends tell me things are changing. Yes, I see fancy new buildings sprouting haphazardly like weeds in various parts of the city and its suburbs. There are gleaming new glass and chrome malls selling every international brand, from Gucci to Mango.
Yes, I’ve read Jade Jagger, the daughter of Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger, is set to design homes for a Mumbai luxury residential project. I’ve also followed U.S. billionaire real- estate developer Donald Trump’s plans for entering the Indian property market with a luxury residential tower in Mumbai.
Yes, You Can
None of these plans does much to better the city itself or the lives of most of its residents. Like you, Mr. Ambani, the people in these fancy towers will have to block out the city’s filth and misery.
Your multi-story home for your family of five causes little envy in this city -- which is astonishing considering the squalor in much of Mumbai. Wearing a khaki uniform several sizes too large for him, the scrawny driver of my hired car pointed your house out with a great deal of pride. He probably lives in a slum.
You can’t squander such big-heartedness.
Of course, the city’s problems are complex and politically difficult to fix. Yet it seems to me you and your fellow billionaires have an obligation -- or to put it in very Indian terms, a duty -- to make the city a better place. If anyone can make a difference to Project Mumbai, you can.
Think of it in business terms: You’ll be boosting the value of your new house.
To contact the reporter on this story: Vidya Root in Paris at vroot@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this column: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.
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