Money, luxury and fame - the new super-rich of India | DW Documentary

[Music] this luxurious residence near the Indian capital of Delhi is being prepared to host one of the most anticipated weddings of the year the Alliance of two wealthy families in the textile industry before nearly a thousand and big guests and now let's dance in honor of the young prince who's getting married [Music] bridegroom's money garland is an ostentatious symbol of power and prosperity 'even Luthra is the guest of honour he has no qualms about flashing his cash the young self-made millionaire is the bride's cousin the self-described serial entrepreneur has made a very substantial donation to the heaven distributes envelopes of cash she's 22 years old and claims to earn nearly a million euros a month and spends two thirds of the year travelling abroad but he wouldn't have missed this wedding for anything when I grew up you know that's what they say doesn't matter how successful you get dad don't forget where you came for indian weddings mostly go on for a long time usually at least a week with five or six functions and it means a lot it's it's a very excessive over-the-top affair the food having Indian big fat Indian weddings so definitely something I enjoyed for sure with one foot in the culture of tradition and the other in the culture of excess evan has a taste for parties luxury and money he embodies the success of a young generation of Indian businessmen eager to get rich they've been called the new Maharaja's members of an expanding class of money delete who unlike older generations of discrete tycoons enjoy flaunting their wealth since 2015 India has ranked third behind the US and China among countries with the most billionaires following a spurt of economic growth from 2003 there are 4 times more Indian billionaires today than there were 25 years ago while hundreds of millions of Indians continued to live in extreme poverty the science of leading family businesses are living large we train for this that you know in our IT system you are trained to get into the family business you expected Gautam Singhania was given a billion dollar textile empire by his father in a decade his fortune has multiplied tenfold Indian billionaires have a penchant for expensive toys for Mitchell Nita Manny's birthday they spent over 200 that's more than 2 billion rupees and it's not just lavish spending there seems to be a deeply entrenched culture of tax evasion yes most flamboyant a wilful defaulter liquor baron Vijay Mallya left India in 2016 to escape charges of fraud and money laundering we met him in Britain how come that you don't come home for face the justice of your country for example there are stories of upward mobility Kalpana Suraj was born a Dalit the lowest Hindu caste known as The Untouchables faced discrimination exclusion and abject poverty but today she runs a multimillion-dollar company in Mumbai we would considered slaves glad I fought to make history my house a girl by a Vietnamese please who are the entrepreneurs in India's burgeoning ranks of billionaires what are their secrets for months we investigated the elite circle of the new Maharaja's and maharani's Loida in the suburbs of Delhi a gated community with secured grounds and private guards for the wealthy on the terrace of his parents home we meet up with the young tech entrepreneur Evan Luthra the luxury duplex has a commanding view of the capital Nevin lives here with his mother and father they're a family of Sikhs a religious community with a reputation for a strong work ethic and business acumen his father is also an entrepreneur who made his fortune in the fashion and textile industry Evan shows early on to follow in his footsteps but in a different field at the age of 12 he devised his first smartphone app after high school he pursued a career in the field of startups these are goals that I set for myself that by 21 I would be making a million a month which I'm pretty close by 23rd I want to be at million a week and by 25 a million today he aspires to become a billionaire and he's not shy about displaying the success of his achievements so far for Evan all that glitters is gold he sees all his acquisitions as investments I I got him it's it's I I love gold and black these are two of my colors which I really like so even I got this solid gold iPhone 7 made because I'm always on my phone I paid ten thousand pounds for this but when I sell it was probably gonna sell for a lot more than ten thousand it's just an acid reptile skin is another one of his weaknesses with a signature glint of gold of course yeah it's all Python it's kind of illegal in India to wear Python we put a jail for this but I mean I'm pretty sure nobody really cares and there's a lot of people in the open so yeah in this bag is about eight thousand dollars but it's it's the thing is it doesn't lose its value I could sell this back again probably would sell for a lot more especially it's got my initials on it now arrival at the headquarters of the family business home to the young man's office evans secret to success the surge in on demand apps and the cheap cost of labour in India he has a team of computer specialists in the basement of the building all specializing in the development of mobile applications this morning he's focused on improving a new project so what we're trying to do is we are trying to add a new feature so we have already weathered user logging into the right we want to make a profile function for the the user can see one profile and see which is as possible please can you give an estimate of how long will we take to build this out bottle pop is designed for partying urban youth somebody wants to go out and with your friends and get a good service and they wanna they intend to spend money this app allows you to book a table with a click of a button to rapidly grow his revenue Evan also buys ideas from others he's bought shares in several dozens of startups benefiting from their profits and watching his money grow my $90,000 that I invested is worth now over 2 million in that company so that's how I look at it and that's the that's the 20x return instead of getting like he inherited his knack for business from his father a fashion industry entrepreneur he provided Evan with an initial investment to start him off this workshop produces clothing for American ready-to-wear brands though it was skeptical at first Evans father is now amazed by his son's achievements that is it there are kids you know even don't know what to do but he on his own kid knows that he has a life while his father is delighted by his success his sons spending habits are a different matter religion and tradition are important to this family last year 240 days while he was out of ideas Oh fine 1320 days that you are in India you know it follows tradition traditions will have to wait evan is organizing his trips to europe in the united states where he plans to indulge in a glamorous lifestyle the indian nouveau riche take their cue from the dazzling splendor once reserved for the country's feudal princes the Maharajah's wealth was measured by the splendour of their palaces today the descendants of the Rajput dynasties still own vast estates in Rajasthan one of the most beautiful palaces belongs to the rcs our family cousins of the Maharaja of Jaipur the haces ours have ruled over these lands for three centuries now they're seeking new ways to fund their princely lifestyle the prince is in the palace today so we're raising the flag which nigga I basically already they'll just go quickly get the breakfast thirty-two-year-old Abbey Manu is the titular Prince and head of the family his day begins with silverware and waiters in uniform today he's breakfasting at the foot of his bed with his younger brother when if I go down and I breakfast and then I everybody everybody's coming to me - there's so much about happening and I hate that I feel your first meal should be in like absolutely silence and only people you want to be with so that then you can plan your whole day what to do and when to do and how to do it Bobby my news Father transformed the palace into a hotel 15 years ago entrusting its management to his eldest son everyone you've studied management in some of the country's biggest palace hotels he's very demanding I usually change my rooms and whenever I come here stay in a different room every time I come I believe in a there are a lot of advantages to it when people come to Al Cesar my hell they should feel and they should live those two days of their life how I live you know so that's the reason if you see the palace every room is absolutely different and showcases my life and my style and my passion for whatever I do the palace hotel offers a vacation fit for a Maharaja but maintaining this 17th century palace costs a fortune especially since its owner wants only the best so this is the main Durbar Hall of the palace and this is where people used to come and meet my grandfather and you see all of them out there in paintings we've used in about fourteen thousand pieces of gold leaf to renovate this room back to its glory and it took me about a year to finish this job the gold leaf alone costs tens of thousands of euros to pay these vast bills and to set his Palace apart from those run his hotels by other aristocratic families Abbey Manu had an awful idea once a year he hosts an electronic music festival at his palace this morning several hundred people are at work the concerts begin in less than 24 hours in different parts of the palace this is the console which magic is gonna happen now he's not this stays the same what are you doing okay sitting here nice the idea came during drinks with a friend and Mick Jagger we were having a drink together with Babji me and Mick Jagger and Bobbie said that you know his father just recently gifted both the sons the main palace of Al Caesar and so they say oh you should do a festival there 3000 music fans will be descending on the palace for the festival most of them young hipsters from the Capitol tickets cost more than a hundred euros by a local standards a hefty price for entertainment and you have the palace right there the festival's reputation extends beyond India's borders for this third edition some 40 deejays answered the princes calls and have arrived from all over the world these two experimental musicians are from Luxembourg [Music] the festival is just getting started we come across some French people in the crowd dazzled by a beam on OU's hospitality did you know the prince before no not at all that's the prince I'm thrilled so he owns the space it's magical the space the decoration and then there's the desert all around it's magnificent [Music] the princes aim is to get people talking about Aziza today his goal has been acheived music gives me an eye especially when it's being at my home after all CSUN is getting popular hell obviously comes along but the village is what gets to needs to get published the musically inclined Prince has another project in the works he wants to start a festival of traditional music in another of his family's palaces in the early 20th century India's princes were among the wealthiest people in the world today some of their descendants affluence has been eclipsed by the self-made fortunes of individuals who started with nothing in this village a 10 hour drive from Mumbai most people live from the land trapped in endemic poverty but it's the starting point of a real life rags to riches story carvanha suraj was born here today she's the CEO of a multimillion-dollar metal engineering company her father was a police officer and her family owned no land I was born in we kept it as it is I want to be able to remember where I came from to remind me of my progress from birth to today a return to the village may draw a crowd but as a low caste adalat carvanha suraj grew up here facing poverty discrimination and bullying [Music] this gutter that you see was the dividing line of the village those who lived on that side were people from superior castes and on this side were the lower castes the untouchables in India Dalits are at the bottom of the caste system known as Untouchables and considered impure they're a shunned community often forced to earn their living with unpleasant and dangerous work my grandfather used to go and work for people of higher castes and when we were little we would follow him but we never entered the homes of these people we were left outside in a well defined area for biddin from touching their food and when we were thirsty they gave us glasses that only we used Kalpana regularly returns to her village to organize charity events this morning she's inaugurating a temporary medical facility that offers free eye checkups and glasses how are you my right eyes weak these glasses should help is that good it's a two-hour walk to reach the nearest hospital so villagers are grateful for such medical assistance I know very well the problems that these people face as soon as I have free time I do what I consider a duty I try to help them to help my community I examinations health checks and blood tests Kalpana has provided a range of services for the villagers lunch is served in a tent put up for the occasion there's a festive air in the village whenever caught by now returns home she helps serve the meals herself Kalpana saw Rajas story is one of a young girl who beat the odds married off at the age of 12 she moved to a slum where she was abused by her husband and his family her father rescued her but when she returned to her village she was ostracized by the stigma of divorce people couldn't understand that I was back still now they find it hard to understand that a woman is separated from her husband they were roommates at the time they shunned me that was when I tried to commit suicide by swallowing poison after that I changed I was determined to prove that I was worth something it was the beginning of my fight the beginning of my journey [Applause] [Music] [Music] at the age of 16 Kalpana returned to Mumbai to try to earn a living with the skills she learned as a seamstress she found a job in a garment factory then worked as a tailor with a government loan she opened her own business and then began investing in real estate she bought a piece of land in the north of the city which she resold at a premium price taking advantage of soaring property prices that was when I invested everything I had a woman and untouchable as well it was historic because my whole life the rest of society has treated people from my caste like slaves of course I had to fight but I'm happy because I've kind of managed to make history my hostel gotta pee be up now make history Kalpana's courage and determination helped her overcome prejudice and exclusion but she's never forgotten where she came from even as a successful real estate entrepreneur and the head of a profitable company Kalpana prefers modesty to an ostentatious show of wealth she pursues her business interests from this unassuming office in downtown Mumbai for now the idea is to develop a hotel with a hundred and five rooms it won't be five stars the rooms are too small for it to be a luxurious palace in order to start work we need to put 4.5 million euros on the table works with her daughter Seema a graduate of a London University the 30 year old is following in her mother's footsteps the outside will be exposed stone in addition to a business centre we want to launch a startup cafe people will be able to share ideas while having a chai or sima Suraj is developing this building in central Mumbai part of her mother's real-estate Empire the property is worth the equivalent of 120 million euros I think we have a plus point in with our building that we can able to see the Docklands there the betta station that side we have charged the other round so I think it's amazing I think people who love to sit here and you know enjoy the evenings Seema's career path was smooth by her mother's success but she appreciates the sacrifices her mother had to make to get where she is today I think what is she going to she always shown us the happy happy loving mother never informed what all she has pleased to achieve this and today when people like you come and take the interview from her interview we came to learn that how difficult it was for her to achieve all this despite the multi-million dollar projects that they manage the sadh raj family has not locked itself away in an ivory tower rather than a grand apartment in an upmarket neighbourhood the family lives in this building in a northern Mumbai suburb [Music] Siraj is humble origins make her an exception among the indian nouveau riche and her fortune can't match the assets of the country's high-flying billionaires who love nothing more than a bit of fun in the Sun white sandy beaches lined with coconut trees go up on India's west coast is a popular weekend playground for big city billionaires but beautiful though they may be the beaches are too crowded for the likes of guava and honey at the helm of a leading clothing brand Guam Sania is one of India's best known billionaires aged 53 the textile cocoon has an estimated net worth of 1.5 billion dollars on weekends he heads out on his 50 meter yacht the hashanah a three-story floating palace built entirely out of precious wood its crew is ready to set sail at anytime anywhere from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean and July August which is the best time and you know obviously we can't avoid that because of the monsoon India season is about this so it's only 11 a.m. but the party has already started the weekend always begins with a cocktail prepared by the boss himself for these old-school friends the weekend in Goa is a reunion not to be missed the breakfast especially on the menu truffle omelets caviar Japanese chocolates and fine vintage wines the champagne wishes and caviar dreams ratha organized this outing himself ordering provisions to be flown in from London this weekend he shares his privileged lifestyle with his friends by the end of the morning the group's 50-somethings are reliving their adolescence it's only the size and style of the toys that have changed Goa is the playground of India's billionaires because it's an easy distance from India's financial capital Mumbai the 22 million resident mega city ranks fourth on the world's list of cities with the most billionaires their penchant for high-rise construction has altered the city skyline some towers have an estimated worth of more than a billion euros this 36 story development was designed as a residence for singhania's family the lower floors are dedicated to the family's famous textile brand Raymond the Raymond groves claims to be the world's biggest producer of high-quality worsted wool suits at both 60% of market shares in India and 3,000 shops across the country today the group's boss is paying a visit to the brand's flagship [Music] for November we were cheap and expensive now are your fabric children new sure things are the new shipping the remote brand has been under the sink Anya's family ownership since 1944 he was losing momentum when he took his father's place as CEO in 2000 both Amma steered the company on a course of diversification today Raymond presents itself as a high-end company and its profits are up so this would be about 3 lakh rupees a meter so suit alone would be about fourteen thousand euros for just a fabric for a suit and then the stitching etc Raymond is a brand you know it really sells from 250 rupees a meter to 300 thousand rupees a meter across the range and we say you know from the taxi rather to Mister Tata everybody wears the women Raven brand in his stores the boss wears a suit in time but outside of work he prefers sportswear because a day in the life of what amis Ananya is a sprint from start to finish to avoid Mumbai's notorious traffic he takes a helicopter the company's headquarters are located north of Mumbai an american-style campus for 1,500 employees complete with royal palm trees and impeccable lawns [Music] since they acquired an old wool factory here the Singh honey is have reigned supreme so when the boss arrives to review a new collection tension Rises a notch presentation tour CMD is very difficult because he's the person who is always looking for new developments and he has got the brilliant test of the fabric looking at the fabrics available to tell you where the fabric is someone at ease or 2 and X 4 is from vicuna or the posh Mina or the cashmere he's very hot the boss arrives his team has 30 minutes to win him over I'm sorry not Cooper will be one cat again the postman can be one feature and we can [Music] the textile king holds the reins of his family business firmly in his hands and like any sovereign qua Thomason Hanyu has his court and his protocol this is the antechamber of power behind this door the throne room a showcase with the glory of this billionaire and his family memories of pictures of my was then put up you know paintings which have no meaning to me the singhania's are an old family from Rajasthan they're part of the merchant community whose members have long featured on India's rich list of this company groomed for this role yeah I think from childhood you've been trained for this that you know in our IT system you are trained to get into the family business and you expect it to do that so whether it was dinner conversations or weekend conversations what you know a lot of conversations revolve around business so you sort of learnt that way I'm already 10 we all come from Rajasthan from a small part called Shaikh Javert and therefore we call shake over tomorrow a reason and for some strange reason the shakeout Emiratis have all gone out and become big business mints it seems that business acumen has once again passed to the next generation my elder daughter is very keen on running the business she's been coming here since the age of five trying to tell meetings she walks from the office and asks around and very inquisitive so it's good but that's he I am a woman at the head of this group would be a first in this male-dominated business but it's not unthinkable for Mijares family and community take precedence ultra ambitious megalomaniacs the new Maharaja's cast themselves as the heroes of modern india while they party an underfunded social net has left more than 40 million of the country's children suffering from malnutrition some of India's wealthy are masters of tax evasion in 2016 Indian assets stashed overseas were estimated at around 500 billion dollars India's most flamboyant a wilful defaulter how does a business pattern who owes banks thousands of crores of rupees get relieved the country now his passport has been revoked by the government the country's most notorious tax dodger is Vijay Mallya a chairman of the multinational conglomerate United Breweries group whose interests include aviation real estate and fertilizer not content with the fortune he made from a business empire including Kingfisher beer he set his sights on launching an airline earning him another moniker the branson of bangalore but searching oil prices and high government fuel levies sank his dream he left India after defaulting on debts of more than a billion euros linked to his failing enterprise Indian authorities moved to seize his assets villas planes and cars but months after he escaped the country we found his fleet of gleaming vintage cars in Delhi using a hidden camera we checked out Malia's secret stash 40 rare luxury cars mahlia left him behind when he fled the country at the time of filming his whereabouts were unclear but we traced him to France under coat de xira where he owns a spectacular residence near kin on the innocent marguerite one of the most expensive properties in the area [Music] the villa and it's expensive gardens are estimated to be worth between 30 and 40 million euros local residents know the man we're looking for the billionaire has managed to secure special privileges in this car free community how did he get around the island by car or minivan but it's a pedestrian island jakar free yes but he's the only one who's authorized yes to huge boats here too had a nice department in Monaco yes he's got a good here let's go thither while his secluded estate offers a haven of peace the heady party scene in nearby Monaco is entirely to Vijay Mallya's taste for high living [Music] he's hosted a series of lavish receptions during the Formula One Grand Prix like this one on his mega yacht in 2013 Remo D'Souza has long been Malia's go-to DJ I play for his parties in Monaco during the f1 so that's when we are like to be on the yacht he's got a huge hundred foot the odd he's flown me a couple of times in the past in his private jet because he decides sometimes last minute you know like I won't have a body and he actually has a full-fledged nightclub inside his villa and go up I pray for his 50th birthday which of the huge celebration in Goa like Enrique Iglesias lionel richie all flew down to wish him and stuff like that four days of non-stop events but in 2016 the party was over for Vijay Mallya facing fraud charges in India he escaped to London he's been a UK resident since he joined the ranks of the global super-rich more than twenty years ago like many of them who have a first or second residence in the British capital Mallya maintains at least two we tracked him down to his mansion on the northern outskirts of London though our request for an interview went unanswered we did manage to catch up with him indulging in his favorite hobby race cars at the time he was still the owner of Force India Formula One team unveiling its car for the 2017 season after engaging him in a conversation about his favorite sport we coaxed the exiled billionaire into talking about his legal woes he denies any wrongdoing I do not owe one euro personally to any bank Kingfisher Airlines Limited unfortunately closed down the business and they tried to hold me personally responsible become one for face the justice of the country why should I first of all there has to be a proper legal charge against me which there isn't but it turns out Indian authorities had filed criminal fraud charges against Mallya just the previous month and two months after we met him here Mallya was arrested by Scotland Yard on her next tradition warrant he's remained free on bail as he fights efforts to send him back to India Vijay Mallya's spectacular fall hasn't put a damper on the billionaire aspirations of young Indians it is bling bling SUV even Luthra is hard to overlook as he drives around London marketing his new app bottle pop [Music] London is the best market for Mellencamp you know there's just too many people spending too much disposable income on bottles that they don't remember the next day excluding myself you go out and people will obviously be buying more and more champagne bottles and sparklers because they do it the girls come to the tables and that's what they want they weren't able to show it's it's a shallow society it's always a competition because everybody can see everybody but the app makes a commission whatever our clients spend so that's how we make money with bottle pop Bevin predicts he can earn as much as twenty thousand euros and commissions per event because London is a magnet for the super-rich including of course those from India Indian businessmen have taken over London like crazy you know Lakshmi Mittal oh he's one of the biggest residences in eastern India Tata is Indian businessman he's the largest private employer in all of the UK an Indian company is the biggest private Evan spends a lot of time in London not least to scout out new business ideas tonight he has a meeting at a fairground with Stan a 17 year old from France with a big idea he's looking for funding for his project a virtual reality headset for medical students to practice surgical procedures a few weeks later heaven will invest five hundred eighty thousand euros in the young frenchman startup the millionaire doesn't just want recognition in india he's seeking to boost his international profile that means travelling and extravagant parties they're an essential component of his image 24 hours later we find him in Berlin in yet another luxury car this evening evan has a meeting in a suite that costs 2,700 euros a night he's joined by other millionaires like himself they're all under 25 and exclusively men [Music] Chinese German Russian and Indian these are the rich kids of Instagram the world's golden youth who vying for followers on social media they're the spoiled children of the digital age amid posts that reveal lives of extreme privilege and startling excess their Instagram message they have more money than you and this is what they can do [Music] trips to dream destinations debauched parties pampered and luxury heaven Luthor is one of the most active rich kids on social media in just a few years he's become one of the stars of the group [Music] the cost of this soiree is confidential but these 20-somethings can burn through a hundred thousand euros in one night [Music] and success is the name of the game Evon lutheran is invested in more than 40 businesses around the globe he's just one of the new Maharaja's seeking to conquer the world every year new names joined the ranks of Indian billionaires Evan Luthor oh won't rest until his millions become billions [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 1,653,107

Rating: 4.472579 out of 5

Keywords: Documentary, wealth, poverty, India, billionaires, social media, DW Documentary, DW Documentaries, Documentaries, money, luxury, rich, Evan Luthra, Abhimanyu Alsisar, Kalpana Saroj, Vijay Mallya, asians, crazy rich asians wedding scene, super-rich in India

Id: 9aUbSHbSi-k

Length: 42min 26sec (2546 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/serialposter]

Idiots. Comparing Luthra with Singhania and Mallya.

[u/lllllll______lllllll]

This Luthra guy- is he legit ? His app only has 1k downloads

[u/Ninjakahathora]

TBH I read someone's comment it made me realize that the dumbest person in the documentary are the ones who created it. Like I am pretty sure there are way better entrepreneurs in India than losers like these. None of these have a product which they are selling except the lady. If you are making a documentary like this atleast do some research.

Seems like they just posted on newspaper and whoever rich enough replied they took in documentary 😂

[u/[deleted]]

Big up to Kalpana Saroj. The only person in the documentary that I liked. All the others were rich twats who were born into it.

[u/pp62091]

I have a feeling that this Luthra guy has a very bad breath.

[u/voidyman]

Interesting .

[u/[deleted]]

who's he btw?