Malavika’s Mumbaistan: Machines and Men

“In 1998, Ratan Tata (with Diana Hayden, then Miss World) put @TataMotors on the world stage at the #GenevaMotorShow with the just-launched Indica. Who would have thought that the humble Indica would go on to build Tata’s passenger car business?” said Hormazd Sorabjee, impassioned car enthusiast and editor of Autocar India, from the site of the ongoing Geneva Motor Show, widely acknowledged to be amongst the best motor shows in the world.

“The success of Indica also, in a way, gave Tata the confidence to buy Jaguar Land Rover,” said the creator of this delightful then and now montage (above) spanning two decades. Sorabjee, son of celebrated jurist Soli Sorabjee, has not missed a single year of the motor show since 1998 and says it’s almost a ritual to be in Geneva on the first Tuesday of every March.

This year, as Tata Motors celebrated its own 20th Geneva showing, with its stunning EVision concept, Sorabjee’s recording of a now stooped and visibly older Tata, accompanied by his firm’s former managing director, Ravi Kant, being given a tour of the all-electric concept by its ace designer, is a peek at the future of automobiles.

And if anyone needs to know just how stressful life at the top can be — this picture is evidence, too. Everyone, including beauty queens and financial statesmen grow old. Thank God at least the cars get faster and sleeker!

TRUE LIES

He fancies himself as something of a hard-drinking, tough-talking alpha male and was recently arrested in a stalking and molestation case, following a series of complaints over the years from a slew of distressed women. So when this high-profile angel investor, once a poster boy for upward mobility and the tech boom, recently posted a sweet endorsement of his mum’s embroidery of all things on social media accompanied with a loving and heartfelt tribute to her skills, there were many who were surprised. “The work is genuinely good and his pride in it is sincere,” they say, “But the incongruity of the situation makes for a bizarre juxtaposition,”

WTSWTM

What They Say —

“Goons of BJP have unleashed terror and all-round attack on members and supporters of CPI-M. A statue of Russian Communist icon Vladimir Lenin, in the middle of Belonia town in south Tripura, was razed with bulldozers.”

- CPI-M Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, Mohammed Salim

What They Mean —

“Even we have no idea whatsoever why there was a statue of Lenin still standing there in the first place, when the rest of the civilised world has long forgotten him, but protesting is our right and protest we must and will.”

SUSHI AND FRIENDS

Ravi Krishnan (left) with Ayesha and Nikesh Arora.

He has been gainfully employed in two of the hottest extravaganzas of contemporary urban India: fashion week and the IPL, and this week finds former executive with IMG and Rajasthan Royals, Ravi Krishnan, in the US, busy cobbling together a new initiative at the intersection of sports, media and entertainment. “I’ve been in NYC, LA and San Francisco for two weeks meeting stakeholders that are looking at opportunities in India,” he said over the phone. “There is a lot of recognition that India is at an inflection point and can benefit from cross-border cooperation.”

One of his pit stops happened to be Palo Alto, where he spent a weekend with uber tech investor formerly with Google and SoftBank Nikesh Arora and wife Ayesha, with whom he dined at Nobu, located in the Hotel Epiphany. “It was fine dining with the finest of friends,” he said of the meal. “Great food and even better company.”