EVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS - SUNDER G. ADVANI

Pioneer of international hotels and casinos in India

EVEN EVEN AGAINSTAGAINSTALL ALL ODDSODDS

SUNDER ADVANI

EVEN AGAINST ALL ODDSPB 1

SUNDER G. ADVANI

EVEN AGAINST

ALLODDS

Pioneer of international hotels and casinos in India

SUNDER ADVANI

EVEN AGAINST ALL ODDSEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS2 3

For my grandson, Samir

‘Pursue your passion with perseverance!’

DESIGNED AND PRINTED BY

Peninsula Spenta, Mathuradas Mill Compound, N. M. Joshi Marg, Lower Parel (W), Mumbai – 400 013. Tel: +91-22-2481 1010 Fax: +91-22-2481 1021 Website: www.spentamultimedia.com

Executive Publisher Maneck E. Davar

Editor Saaz Aggarwal

Design Shahna Garg Advani Milind S Parkar

Digital Imaging Rohit Nayak, Vikas Padloskar

Project Coordinator Gurpreet Saluja

Cover and Back cover photography Jeetin Sharma

EVEN AGAINST ALL ODDSEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS4 5

A{_Vm^ H m§VAmitabh Kant

_w»` H m¶©H mar A{YH marChief Executive Officer

^maV gaH ma ZrVr Am`moJ, g§gX _mJ©,

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I first met Sunder Advani about fifteen years ago, when I was joint secretary Ministry of Tourism of the Government of India. Sunder has remained in touch and worked with me on areas relating to travel and tourism. Sunder never fails to call me on his monthly visits to Delhi and whenever possible. I always try to meet him. He is the most dynamic eighty year old I know, and his commitment to the tourism and hospitality industries in India is matchless

In the fifty years that span Sunder’s career in India, our country has made tremendous strides in development, and he has been responsible, as an individual, in implementing some of the most important changes in this sector. In 1969,when five-star hotels were the realm of a very small elite in India, when foreign companies were still viewed with suspicion, and before the Indo-US trade relationship had begun to develop, Sunder Advani introduced an American hotel chain into India. It was the first instance of franchising in India and is a testimony to his vision for the future, and to his persistence in fighting an uphill battle on many fronts. In the 1970s, Sunder Advani who built and successfully ran India’s first airport hotel. In the 1980s, Sunder was one of the pioneers of developing Goa as a destination for luxury tourism. His hotel is one of the best in the state, and when the Minister of Tourism of China visited India with a delegation of industrialists in 2005, I requested him to host them as I felt his hotel would be the best place for them to get an impression of Goa and of India. In those days, even Sunder had the license for the only full-fledged casino in Goa, an opulent setting for an elegant evening.

When Sunder invited me to the keynote speaker at a seminar he arranged at the US India Economic Summit in Delhi in September 2016, I accepted with pleasure. Over the years, I have travelled with the Indian delegation in which Sunder played a key role to WTTC forums and have observed his passion for causes related to tourism and hospitality in India. These include matters like building a new airport in Goa and continuing with the existing one at Dabolim. He has constantly and vigorously raised issued relating to high taxation in tourism. He has also strongly raised issues about TFCI and IACC as well. We have lively discussion on these and other matters which he has passionate views about. It is this passion which has made him a solid pillar of support in all the initiatives I have made to develop tourism in India. He is a man of tremendous energy, Vibrancy and dynamism and totally committed to the cause of India tourism.

(Amitabh Kant)

FOREWORD

Government of India NATIONAL INSTITUTION FOR TRANSFORMING INDIA

NITI Aayog, Parliament Street, New Delhi-110001

Tel.: 23096576, 23096574 Fax : 23096575 E-mail : [email protected], [email protected]

gwaoe à^ySuresh Prabhu

_§ÍmrMinister

Sunder Advani has contributed to shape India’s hotel and tourism industry through his vision and untiring efforts. In the 1960s, as a young man living in the USA for almost fifteen years, Sunder Advani worked in a prestigious and well-paying job in one of the largest management consulting firms in Washington. At his father’s urging, he left it behind and came to live in a newly independent developing nation. He was one of the pioneers who brought international standards to the hospitality industry in India.

Sunder Advani could foresee the potential in Goa and worked single-mindedly to develop it as a tourism destination. Today Sunder Advani continues his relentless campaign with initiatives to promote tourism, bring more international tourists and increase tourist spend in India. He has held his conviction and striven to develop the industry for last fifty years and continues to be so in his eightieth year.

I wish him all the best for his future endeavours.

(Suresh Prabhu)

FROM THE DESK

CONTENTSEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS6 7

Con

ten

ts

30

120.14.

186.

08.

58. 230.

98.

72.

Growing up

Paradise in GoaThe American Dream

A thousand moons

Looking back at Eighty

It was a very good year We are family

Another first

India’s first franchise

LOOKING BACK AT EIGHTYEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS8 9

LOOKING BACK AT EIGHTY

I’ve lived a life that’s full

I’ve traveled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way

~ Frank Sinatra ~


It was 1969 when I left a promising career in USA to live in Bombay, a city I was unfamiliar with.

Fifteen years had passed since I left my home, at the age of fifteen, to study and then work

overseas. In all those years I had only one brief holiday in India. I knew absolutely nothing about

how to do business in India; I had no idea about the ground realities of India.

These days, it’s common for young people to move to India from other countries. Offices in Indian

cities have a good share of expatriates and NRIs, from interns to sales executives and even a few

Managing Directors. It’s not just the perception of India as an exotic place with unmatched cultural

and social experiences. It’s also because, with a gloomy world economy and galloping growth in

India, India is increasingly seen as a land of opportunity.

In 1969, it was a different story. Twenty-two years after Independence, India’s struggle towards

progress was intense. Hunger was common. While a person could expect to live to 71 in USA and

61 in China, life expectancy in India in 1969 was just 48. Children routinely died of malnutrition.

At the macro level, one of the major economic problems of the day were a crippling shortage of

foreign exchange, coupled with a lack of any manufacturing or services offering which could be

considered worthy of drawing export earnings.

When I left the US, I was working as a Senior Economist at EBS Management Consultants, a

division of Ebasco Services, one of the largest firms of Management Consultants in the USA (the

others being Booz Allen, McKinsey and Arthur D Little). Our head office was at 2 Rector Street in Posing with my friend’s Chevy convertible. Philadelphia, 1956

A first-generation shirt-sleeves entrepreneur, I have spent fifty years campaigning for causes related to tourism, and continue to do so with the same energy and enthusiasm today when I am eighty.


New York city and I was based in Washington DC. I was a young bachelor with a well-paid job,

living at one of the best addresses in USA in those days, Watergate Apartments in Washington DC.

My next door neighbor and friend was US Senator, Russell Long of Louisiana. Another prominent

occupant was the Private Secretary to US President Richard Nixon, whose inaugural ball I had

attended.

My colleagues tried to dissuade me from returning to India, convinced that I was making a terrible

mistake. India was then known in the US as a backward country of dangerous diseases and

snake charmers. My friends and associates urged me not to take the hasty decision of leaving

for unknown prospects and risk losing my US Green Card, which I had just recently acquired

after waiting for six years and making many sacrifices including high fees to several Immigration

lawyers.

I moved to India, however, with great hope. My father had been trying to persuade me to do so for

a long time and I had been working on putting things in place for me to move, while also retaining

a base in the US so that I could retreat in case things did not work out.

Part of the incentive of my move to India was the opportunity to introduce something new. Having

lived and worked in the US I had, I felt, quite a lot to offer India. My father was running a successful

hotel and it was very clear to us that India needed more hotels. In the years to come, I would be

the first person to bring global hotel chains into India. This was just one of the many ‘firsts’ on my

list and these included India’s first ever instance of franchising, India’s first airport hotel, India’s

first hotel golf course and India’s first casino. There were more. Most of these are now considered

quite commonplace, and it’s impossible for anyone who takes these things for granted today to

understand the challenges I faced while bringing them in. There were many times when I felt the

edifice a trying to build crumbling around me and had to fight with all my might to prevent myself

from being buried in the ruins. My story is the story of continuous, never-ending ups and downs!

It took me many, many knocks on the head to learn that if you own less than 25.1 percent of a

company you are nobody. It doesn’t matter if the business was your idea and you did all the work,

raised a large part of the money and built it all up from scratch, you will only get credit and control

if you own at least 50.1 percent. Until recently there was also the tremendous challenge of getting

government permissions to proceed with anything. Work could be stalled for no reason, and for

someone without substantial personal funds this meant the continuous risk of a steady drain of

expenses funded by high interest loans. Working in a fledgling industry without any documented

SOPs – and assuming the same standards and ethical

norms as I was used to in the US – I nearly went bankrupt

more than once.

I must also say that for the many I encountered who were

ruthless, greedy and dishonest – I was also extremely

fortunate to have many people go out of their way to

help me, some of them for no reason except that they

were helpful people. Things worked out alright for me but

there was constant learning and some of these lessons

are just as valid today as when I learnt them.

Footnote:Over the years, many Indian places have had their names officially Indianized. Bombay officially became Mumbai in 1997; Poona became Pune in 1993; Madras became Chennai in 1996 and Calcutta became Kolkata in 2001. In this book, I have used the old names while the cities were called by those names, and the new ones after the names were changed.

facing page left • The Caravela casino ship sailing in front of our Caravela Beach Resort, Goa.facing page right • The Holiday Inn ‘Great Sign’ that was seen in front of every Holiday Inn in the world until some years ago.facing page bottom • The casino floor of our ship casino in Goa with a roulette table in the foreground and décor by a Las Vegas designer.

I was a young bachelor with a well-paid job, living at one of the best addresses in USA in those days, Watergate Apartments in Washington DC.

THE AMERICAN DREAMEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS14 15

THE

AMERICANDREAM

~ Gloria Estefan ~

Get on your feet

Get up and make it happen

Get on your feet

Stand up and take some action


I arrived in USA in 1955, after several unhappy months in London, and took to it at once. After cold,

grey, serious London – a place I would come to appreciate only in later years – it was wonderful to

be somewhere where everyone was outgoing and friendly, smiling and greeting strangers, and more

concerned about the outcome of the baseball game than grim world affairs.

I was sixteen years old, and had somehow convinced my father that higher education in USA would

be far preferable to anything UK could offer. I had been a good student in school, appreciated by my

teachers, and twice skipping grades with the ‘double promotion’ smart kids were given back then. My

father believed that I should do justice to my potential by becoming a doctor. Unfortunately, however,

I cannot stand the sight of blood and preferred to be a pharmacist. We visited the US consulate,

looking for options, and found that the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (PCPS) was

considered one of the best in the US. I secured admission as a Freshman in September 1955.

Part of the reason my father agreed to send me to PCPS was because he was acquainted with a

Lalwani family with two sons studying there, Indru and Gul. I shared their two-bedroom apartment,

located at 4118 Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia, with the advantage of being just four blocks

from college.

It was a chore doing housework but we were conscientious about going to the laundromat and

washing the sheets and towels ourselves! The college cafeteria was inexpensive and there was a

diner close to our home – but I do remember learning to make scrambled eggs, which we had for

breakfast once in a while.

Philadelphia was neatly laid out, with streets named after different types of wood. Our next home was

close to our college at 43rd and Chester Avenue, and just four blocks from the International House

on 3909 Spruce Street. International House was a place which gave students a warm welcome to

My most formative years, from sixteen till I crossed thirty, were spent on the East Coast of USA, studying and then working as an Economist. It was a happy and successful period of my life. I played competitive tennis, enjoyed music and dancing, and lived the American dream.

facing page • Just before a table tennis match in Philadelphia, April 1956

Sunny days (1955-1963)


America, companionship with others like us from countries all

around the world. There were other educational institutes in

Philadelphia, and International House was a great meeting

point, buzzing with the camaraderie of students from different

countries. We played bridge, chess and table tennis, and there

was a TV room with a television set where we would watch

popular shows of the day together. The Doris Day Show was

one of our favourites, with its famous ad ‘See the USA in a

Chevrolet’ which I must say did influence me in time to come!

Another of my favourites was the Perry Como Show. I was

soon nicknamed ‘Sonny’, a name which I was told suited my

disposition.

On weekdays we were kept busy with the required courses in

Chemistry, Biology, Zoology, Mathematics and other lectures.

I scored A and B in all subjects in my Freshman year, and still

found enough time to play table tennis during breaks.

One of the things I soon realized was that American education

is totally different from the system we inherited from the British

colonial rulers. In India students are expected to memorize

what they read in textbooks. In USA, students are guided to

think for themselves. In this kind of environment, I realized

soon enough that I was in the wrong stream of learning for

my specific needs and aptitude. So, after a year at PCPS (and

after explaining to my father that I did not need to become a

pharmacist to make medicines but could hire pharmacists to

help doctors if I learnt the art of running a business) I switched

to doing a Bachelors in Business Administration at Temple

University and was admitted as a Sophomore.

Temple had excellent teachers. I remember Professor Roy

Buckwalter who taught Labour Relations, he had a great sense

of humour, and Professor Alan White who taught Business

Law (where I scored an A). These courses gave me a solid

backing later in my life in Bombay, as did Social Psychology

and Statistics. The photograph in my passport on my first journey overseas in 1954.

Philadelphia, 1956:left top • On a sunny winter morning, posing in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum.bottom • Waiting for a tram car on the way to a concert.right top • At a special evening at International House with some of the other students (you can see me standing on the right).


During these years, I made friends with a few students from

India: Mulloy Mahtab from the princely Burdwan Family in

Calcutta and his friend Shamsunder Aggarwal; and Prabhu

Vasudeva, Bahadur Modi, Sudhir Makim and Vijay Makim from

Bombay. Shamsunder raved about New York University, where

he was studying. It sounded so attractive that I got myself

transferred to NYU. However, even at the impressionable age of

eighteen, I found the wayward culture of the university campus

in Greenwich Village not at all to my liking. Dean Peabody was

happy to have me back at Temple, and I graduated with a

Bachelors in Business Administration in June 1959. Temple had

16,000 students at that time and was well known. The comedian

Bill Cosby and the famous Basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain

were in college during my time at Temple.

Once I joined Temple, I started using the subway. It was a short

walk on Broad Street from the subway to the campus. Right

outside the subway, a strategically-located showroom displayed

a 1955 Oldsmobile 88. Stepping out and walking towards the

campus, I passed it every day and eventually this became my

first car, purchased in September 1957, at a discounted price of

USD1550 as it was a two-year-old model.

My father was sending me USD200 per month to cover my

living expenses and of course he paid my tuition and examination

fees directly to the university. If I needed anything extra, there

was a godfather in New York to whom I could go for help. His

name was Henry Pohl and he was a senior director of a very

large company, Associated Metals & Minerals Corporation.

My father owned chrome mines in Quetta. One of the biggest

applications of chrome is in car plating, and Henry Pohl was a

customer of our chrome ore. Henry Pohl invited me to his home,

situated in the fashionable area of New York called Scarsdale

populated only by millionaires, and entertained me at some

of New York’s nicer restaurants. Through him I got to see how

wealthy Americans live. He was also the one who advanced me

the money to buy my car.

In summer, many students went home for the long holidays.

We gave up the apartment, and I was able to get a room in

International House in exchange for some administrative

duties that I was expected to perform. I remember summer

picnics to Downingtown, thirty miles south of Philadelphia, and

New Hope, a beautiful place with a lot of canals frequented

by artists who displayed their work. There were dance classes

and social evenings.

In those years, the activities at the International House played

a large role in my life. I was chosen to be part of the three-

member table tennis team of International House which played

against various institutions such as the Philadelphia Textile

Institute, SKF, Smith, Kline & French, and other teams. We got

a chance to learn a little about their products and businesses.

Some of us applied to these companies after we graduated.

After two years, I decided to move to an apartment on the

campus. While at Temple, I was selected to represent the

University as part of the tennis team and the following year

I was made captain of the team. We played against other

colleges such as Swarthmore, Haverford, Lehigh and others

in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Every year, I was rewarded with a

white jersey with a big red T on the front. I didn’t know it then,

but my tennis skills would one day be instrumental in bringing

the first international hotel chain into India!

During my senior year at Temple, I took up a part-time summer

job in downtown Philadelphia next to City Hall, with a large

marketing research company called Alderson and Sessions.

Our clients included Mack Trucks, Kimberley Clark, Monsanto

and others. I learnt how to frame questionnaires, pre-test

them, interview prospective users and tabulate the answers.

The founder of the firm was Wroe Alderson who was also a

professor in Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of

Pennsylvania and as author of the book ‘Marketing Behaviour’,

is considered to be the father of modern Marketing. When I

Wearing the raincoat provided to tourists to protect them from getting wet when they take the Maid of the Mist boat to see the Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls, August 1956

During our summer break, I drove with friends to the Niagara falls, and we stopped en route at this picturesque spot.


On a college trip to the Franklin Museum in Philadelphia where the American inventor, statesman and author Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of United States, lived for many years. Franklin’s face appears on all USD100 bills. Philadelphia, 1956

“In this important phase of my life, I worked on different projects for clients in varying lines of work and learnt how to think with an open mind and solve problems. Some of them were Lockheed Martin, the US Department of Transportation, the US Economic Development Authority, the US Bureau of Mines and other bodies of the United States Government. Our findings were used to define US Government policy.”

graduated from Temple, I visited his office to bid him goodbye.

He asked me about my plans for the future, and offered to

write a letter of recommendation if I wanted to do an MBA at

Wharton. I accepted with delight.

I was not yet twenty-one, and under the age limit for a Wharton

graduate student, but with his letter, my track record and a good

GMAT score, I was admitted into the Wharton MBA program in

September 1959. Dean Blankertz asked me which Major I would

like to pursue. I picked Manufacturing as I had to convince my

father to allow me to do the MBA. Later I switched to Marketing,

explaining to my father that anyone can make drugs but it was

hard to market them in a competitive environment.

I lived at the Chestnut Arms on 41st and Chestnut Street, not

far from campus or the International House. The required

courses in the first year included Accounting, Manufacturing

Industries and Marketing, and these were held in Dietrich

Hall. However I took more courses in Marketing, Operations

Research (a new subject involving Probability, Gaming Theory

and Linear Programming), taught by Professor Ben Stevens.

Probability theory helped me in later years when I started our

casino as I understood the odds and the pay outs, which are

based on probability theory. I was also fortunate to attend talks

for Wharton students by visiting lecturers such as Bill Baumal,

an authority on Marketing and Operations Research, and a

professor at Princeton. Another inspirational speaker was

Peter Drucker, who in later years would be revered as the guru

whose insights laid the foundation for corporate management.

There were very few Indian students in the MBA program

and my friend Vinay Aggarwal from Aligarh was one. These

delightfully happy and successful days at the start of my

working life resulted in the desire to continue living in the US.

However, the US Immigration rule was that foreign students

must leave after completing their education and a maximum

of eighteen months training thereafter. Once I had completed

all my required credits for an MBA and the Comprehensives,

I delayed submitting my thesis so that I could continue to hold my student visa. I took PhD level

courses in International Trade, Price Theory at the Graduate School Of Arts and Sciences at Penn and

stayed on as a student at Wharton till 1962.

I noticed a job advertised on the campus billboard by Professor Brit Harris who was in charge of

creating an economic model for the Philadelphia Standard Metropolitan Area under a project called

the Penn Jersey Transportation Study. This involved visiting establishments in the nine-county area to

determine their growth and needs for the future and plan for their transportation requirements for the

next twenty-five years. I interacted with the City Planner of Philadelphia, John Culp, for this project

and it was a great learning experience.

Through the Wharton School, I learnt that Continental Can Company had a vacancy for a senior

position in the Quality Control department of their factory in Wilmington, Delaware. I applied and was

appointed as a Quality Control Inspector. The factory manufactured bottle caps with cork inserts and

my job was to work on the shop floor, checking the lacquer applied on the tinplate, the adhesion of the

cork to the bottle cap, and conducting other quality control tests. It was here that I closely understood

the assembly-line method of producing and packaging products, and applied the technology when I

set up our flight kitchen in Bombay in later years.

After six months in Wilmington, I applied to the head office of Continental Can in New York and was

appointed to head Marketing in their paper products division. Since this was a senior position and

they had agreed to sponsor my application for a Green Card, I was surprised and disappointed when

the Immigration authorities rejected my application, as there was no shortage of Marketing experts

in the USA. My new Immigration lawyer advised me to seek a job with a City Planning firm as there

was a shortage of City and Regional Planning professionals and I had work experience with the study

I had done for Penn Jersey Transportation. I was able to secure a position, at a lower salary, with a job

in Paterson, New Jersey. Unfortunately they did not have the authority to apply for my green card and

I shifted to a larger organization, Regional Planning Consultants, Eugene Oross & Associates in New

Brunswick, New Jersey. I prepared Master Plans for various cities and townships in New Jersey and

New York. This included making projections of their population growth, the need for schools, parks,

recreational facilities, and suggestions for zoning. I also worked on a project for the Economics


Department of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, to determine

the best use of a marshland called the Meadowlands. This was land

on the outskirts of New York city and the study involved determining

the needs of each industry as to proximity to the lucrative New York

market. I enjoyed my three years in New York, first in an apartment on

72nd Street near the East River in Manhattan, from which I moved to

a state-of-the-art building called Yorkshire Towers in Germantown,

which had garage parking and a swimming pool in the basement –

very posh for the time!

One evening as I was driving home as usual and, soon after I paid

the toll at the exit of the New Jersey Turnpike, I noticed two suited

gentlemen standing outside a black stretch limousine with a flat

tyre, trying frantically to wave a passing automobile down. I pulled

up and they asked if I could give them a ride into Manhattan. They

got in and I understood from their conversation that they were

running late for an important meeting. They asked me if I had ever

visited the 21 Club, an ultrachic restaurant in Manhattan. It was

somewhat out of my way but I took a diversion and dropped them

there. As they stepped out, thanking me profusely, they introduced

themselves as the Chairman and President of Unilever and offered

me dinner there on their account which I accepted – a wonderful

experience which I thoroughly enjoyed. These were the kinds of

things that could happen in New York in those days!

One of the stresses of this period was the uncertainty of knowing

if I would be able to stay on in the US. It was a relief when my

application was approved. And so, when I received an offer from a

large management consulting firm based in Washington DC, EBS

Management Consultants, at a salary 80 percent higher than what

I was earning, there was nothing to stop me from taking it up. My

office was located two block from the White House on the fifth floor

of the Cafritz Building at 1625 I Street. This is the first time I saw an

office building where one could drive a car up a ramp all the way

to the fifth floor and directly enter one’s office. Fifty-five years ago,

this was something so exclusively modern that there couldn’t have

been many buildings anywhere in the world with the facility.

Helping define policy in DC (1964-1969)

At EBS, I was in charge of the Economics section. The president of the company was William B

Saunders, and he was a specialist in Transportation Planning. My immediate boss was Frank Piovia, a

well-known economist, from whom I learnt quite a bit. I worked on projects for clients such as Lockheed

Martin, the US Department of Transportation, the US Economic Development Administration, the

US Bureau of Mines, and other government bodies, where our findings were used to define policy.

Some of the projects involved finding methods to improve the backward areas of the United States,

carrying out cost benefit analysis of alternate methods of transportation and other essential decisions

which in those days were at the forefront of development planning. It was a senior position, with

several Americans working under me, and a handsome salary.

In the course of one project, I was assigned to do a study on the poultry industry on Delmarva

Peninsula, which skirts the Chesapeake Bay. I was taking a summer course on Computer Time Share

at American University, and one of my fellow students was a US Marine. When he invited me to

join him on his boat for a cruise to Annapolis, it seemed like a good way to add to my knowledge

about the peninsula as well as a lovely diversion on an extra-warm weekend. We set sail in his little

12-foot boat which had its mast on the upper deck and the controls, where the captain steered the

boat, on the lower deck. About fifteen minutes after we entered the Chesapeake Bay, there was a

thunderstorm. The waves on either side of the boat rose, and water flowed onto the upper deck. I

felt seasick. The mast on the upper deck swung violently from one side of the boat to the other and

almost knocked me into the sea more than once. The ordeal continued for over an hour. Just when I

had started thinking that I could not possibly hold on tight any longer and was preparing myself to be

swept out into the merciless sea, the waves reduced in intensity and the rain stopped. My friend was

an expert seaman and he brought the boat safely into Annapolis harbour.

I enjoyed my life in DC very much. On moving there from Manhattan, I lived in a complex of two

buildings called River House a twenty-minute drive to my office located near the White House. After

a busy day at the office and on weekends, I would play tennis with other residents on the River

“I enjoyed my three years in New York, first in an apartment on 72nd Street near the East River in Manhattan, from which I moved to a state-of-the-art building called Yorkshire Towers in Germantown, which had garage parking and a swimming pool in the basement – very posh for the time!”

Playing Scrabble in my apartment. 1360 York Avenue, Manhattan, New York, 1962


Lincoln Memorial, which was a short walk from Watergate, and the

direct view of the imposing Washington Monument a few miles

away. My other pastime was to cross the road from Watergate to

the Potomac River. I love water, and when a friend invited me for a

ride on the Potomac in his amphibious car, I gladly accepted. We

drove the car up to a ramp near the National Airport and people

watched with horror when we drove the car right into the river! We

sailed on the calm river on many days.

I visited New York regularly to see Broadway shows and indulge my

passion for dancing, at the famous Palladium, which was the home

of Latin music. I mingled with the social elite of DC and by 1966 had

accumulated enough savings to move to the prestigious Watergate

East Apartments. One of my friends invited me to accompany her to

the Capitol Building for a party in honour of the US President. I was

introduced to President Lyndon B Johnson who asked me where I

was born. When I told him, he replied, “We are doing a lot of good

things for that country”.

I was also invited to attend President Nixon’s Inaugural Ball at the

Statler Hilton, and was keen to catch a glimpse of him. However,

when he did not show up until past midnight, we left. I had wanted

to see the president – but, to be honest, I was very unhappy on the

day that President Johnson was defeated by Richard Nixon in the

1968 November presidential elections. I believed that the US would

decline under Nixon’s leadership and this was when the thought of

leaving USA and moving to India began to appeal to me.

For a long time, my father had been trying to convince me to do so. It

had become a continuous campaign, and I received frequent letters

from him about the opportunities for entrepreneurship in India. A

hotelier himself, my father identified a piece of land with frontage on

Bombay’s iconic Juhu beach. He wrote to me saying that the owner

of the land was eager to develop it and wanted to partner with us

to do so. As I began to think about how to go about it, I realised that

my best contribution would be to arrange a tie-up with a US hotel

chain and build the hotel my father wanted to build in Bombay. That

House tennis court. Many of the tennis enthusiasts worked at the

Pentagon next door, home of the Defense Department and the

largest government building in the Washington area. After being

selected as a member of the River House tennis team, I won several

matches for the team – some of which were reported in the local

newspapers.

Washington is a city of impressive government buildings and

surrounded by beautiful parks. I loved climbing the steps of the

top • Watergate complexfacing page top • On the Potomac River in Washington, sailing in an amphibious car – a wonder of its time! This car could drive on city roads up to about 30 miles an hour and drive right into the river and convert into a boat. It was made by Isetta, an Italian manufacturer, and was kept afloat by a bilge pump. Washington, 1968


way, I would be running a hotel in India with the best global practices and be able

to attract international visitors.

With my father’s continuous insistence, I began cold-calling the major hotel

chains in the US. I found that Curt Strand of Hilton, people at Howard Johnson

and Robert Tisch of Loews were not the least bit interested in setting up hotels

in India. Western International Hotels (then owned by United Airlines) did not say

“No,” but their CEO told me that the decision would be made by Mr Anderson,

the person in charge of building their new Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok. He

My boss, economist Frank Piovia, Director at EBS Management Consultants, oversees my report for final binding. Washington DC, 1968

suggested that I visit Bangkok and see if he could spare the

time to visit Bombay and work out a deal with me. I did so

in 1969 on my way back to India, and Anderson promised to

come to Bombay to consider the opportunities, but never

did.

It was late 1968 when I fixed an appointment to meet the

Head of Development of Holiday Inns, the largest hotel

chain in the US at the time. I flew to Memphis, Tennessee,

the Holiday Inns headquarters, along with my colleague

Bob Lammiman. Bob was quite a bit junior to me and I had

requested him to accompany me not just because he had

a little experience in the hospitality industry, but because,

in the America of the time, it was important for me to be

represented by a true-blooded local if I wanted to convince

anyone that they should have faith in me as a business

partner in a joint venture. The time in which Indians would

be respected for their brains and ingenuity, and employed

in droves in corporate America, even leading many of its

largest and most prestigious companies, was decades into

the future. In those days, I may have earned a handsome

salary of USD13,000 – but I could never hope to be president

of General Motors. “Snake charmers” – that’s what Indians

were known as. When I introduced myself, people could not

pronounce my name; they would say ‘Sunder’ to rhyme with

‘thunder’. As for Advani, it would be mistaken for the Italian

word ‘Avanti’ – Italians were more familiar to the Americans

than Indians. It was easier to answer to ‘Sonny’ – after all, as

youngsters one just wants to be accepted. And perhaps our

history of British colonial domination was still too recent for

an Indian in America to feel calmly assertive.

In Memphis, Tennessee in 1968, Bob and I met with the man

who would decide if Holiday Inns would be interested in

entering India. This was Jerry Sims, the head of their Real

Estate Division, and he found my proposition interesting,

which was encouraging to me.

Enjoying travels across the USA in my new car, an Impala Chevrolet Convertible. When I returned to India on a transfer of residence in 1970, this was one of the prized possessions I took with me!

GROWING UPEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS30 31

GROWING UP

~ Johnny Mathis ~

Before the rising sun we fly

So many roads to choose

We start our walking and learn to run

And yes, we’ve just begun

Oh yeah!


Sentimental JourneyWhen I set out for India in early 1969, it was with the knowledge of the tremendous potential for the

hospitality industry. The manager of Air India in Washington DC, whose office on Connecticut Avenue

was very close to mine, had told me that India had hardly any hotels. One of my biggest advantages

was that my father was a successful hotelier. Another advantage, of course, is that hospitality is in

my blood. I come from the Sindhi community and we have always been steeped in hospitality. To us,

hospitality is second nature.

I was born in Karachi on December 28, 1938, to Gurdasmal and Rukmani Advani. I was their eldest

child. My parents told me that they had met on the tennis court, and I suppose that might have

something to do with my proficiency in tennis! Quite unusual for the time, they fell in love and arranged

their own marriage. The match was not favoured by her parents who felt that my father’s family was

not socially compatible with theirs.

My mother Rukmani came from one of the most illustrious families of our community. Her father,

Jhamatmal Bilaram Shivdasani, was born into a family of prominent lawyers. His elder brother,

Rupchand Bilaram, rose to be Judicial Commissioner of Sindh, an exalted position quite on par with

our rulers, the British. He was widely revered as an educationist and philanthropist. Jhamatmal was

a man not in public life, but a man of religion, devoted to Devi, the mother goddess. He had given up

his profession to take care of the extensive family lands in Nawabshah for Rupchand.

My early life was comfortable and happy. The Partition of India brought a period of struggle, but in the years that followed my father grew to be a respected hotelier. My college education started at age sixteen, with a voyage on a cruise liner to London via Genoa in 1954. Over the next six years in US universities, I travelled on business to Tokyo, Honolulu, Berlin and Paris, and stayed at some of the world’s most luxurious hotels in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, Puerto Rico, and in the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

previous page • Dressed in my best overall suit and bow tie with a new hat hanging on the handle of my new scooter. This may have been my fifth birthday. Karachi c1945facing page • My grandmother Sukar Advani between my younger brother Venu and me; my father Gurdas, my youngest brother Haresh and our mother Rukmani, in my father’s office in Karachi in 1955.


Jhamatmal, his wife Popribai and their three children Bhagwan,

Hiranand and Rukmani, also known as Papani, lived in Amil

Colony No 2, and this was where I spent the first few years

of my life. My parents named me Sunder, which means ‘good

looking’ but they were an extraordinarily good looking couple

themselves. My mother had beautiful features (which she

retained until she died at a hundred and three) and my father,

who resembled the famous Italian movie star Rossano Brazzi,

was called ‘Tommy’ in the community, a word which was also

used for the dashing British soldiers who were posted in

Karachi during the Second World War.

My father Gurdas had lost his father, Dharamdas, when he was

only nine. I don’t know much about my grandfather, but my

grandmother, Sukar, who played a large part in my upbringing,

showed me his photograph. Wearing a tie and suit, with a turban

on his head, he looked like a man of wealth and prestige. When

he married Sukar, he was a widower with a son, Chandumal,

from his first wife. Sukar would have been fourteen – and a

widow at twenty-three. So my father’s early days would have

been days of hardship and struggle. Our community, the Amils

of Sindh, are defined by our commitment to education. In India

in the 1920s, to complete schooling and pass the matriculation

examination was restricted to the brightest and most ambitious,

but boys of our community invariably studied further. My father,

being the only bread winner of the family, remained only a

‘matriculate’, to his everlasting regret. That could have been

the reason his father-in-law considered him not good enough

for his only daughter. However, he was an extremely intelligent

and resourceful person. He learnt typing and shorthand and

as I was growing up, he held a good position: assistant to Mr

Hyde, the British general manager of Thomas Cook. The fact

that he was an excellent cricketer and a tennis player with a

pleasing personality probably appealed to the Englishman.

My father was well known for his wicket-keeping skills, and

had been selected to Karachi cricket teams which would tour

and play with the teams of the Nawab of Junagadh and other

princely states in Gujarat.

Through his association with Thomas Cook, my father obtained

a lease for a hotel in the idyllic town of Srinagar which included

a houseboat on the Nagin Lake across the road, and we

travelled there occasionally on holiday. I remember watching

my father water ski on the Dal Lake. He took us to Gulmarg,

Pahalgam and Khilanmarg.

Our home overlooked Takri, a Sindhi word which means hillock.

With its natural height and the accompanying breeze, Takri

was an ideal location to fly kites. My grandfather Jhamatmal

taught me to play chess when I was seven and would wait

for me to come back from school so that we could have a

game together. A few years later, when he started finding it

difficult to beat me, he lost interest in the game! Our temple,

the Gurmandar, very close to my grandfather’s home, was not

just a place for worship but also a social spot.

I studied at St Patrick’s School, a few miles away. It was an

all-boys’ Catholic school run by the Dominican Brothers. I

remember our principal, Father Raymond, in his white robe and

tasseled belt, a great tall figure. We started the morning class

with a prayer to the Lord. I was always a good student, and

enjoyed school. After school we often visited the Karachi Club

where I loved playing on the swings and see-saws, and learnt

to play table tennis. My father played tennis every evening and

when I was older, he arranged for me to take lessons from

the marker. It was an idyllic life and it came to an end abruptly

when Partition was announced.

At home in Karachi, c1941.

top • My parents, Gurdasmal and Rukmani Advani.above • My father Gurdas Advani, me, my mother Rukmani, Haresh, Venu and our father’s mother Sukar.


Partition (1947-1949)

On August 15, 1947, India was granted freedom from the British Empire, after a long struggle for self-

rule. Along with the rejoicing that took place across the nation, there was some uncertainty in Sindh.

The country had been divided in two by the departing rulers, and the new nation of Pakistan was

formed, an Islamic state.

The story of Sindh has not been much documented and it stands out for many reasons. The states

of Punjab and Bengal had been divided in two, with one part of each going to India and the other to

Pakistan. So the Hindus of Punjab and Bengal could remain in the Indian parts of their home states and

the Muslims could remain in the Pakistan parts. Sindh, however, was given intact to Pakistan. It was

assumed that the Hindus of Sindh would remain in their home state, even though it was in Pakistan.

left • Our houseboat, Shahzada.right • Posing in front of Shahzada, with guests of our Deluxe Hotel, which was across the road. My mother Rukmani is seen sitting on the extreme left and I am next to her. My father is third from left in the back row. Char Chinar, Srinagar, 1946

They had lived in harmony as a minority community in Sindh for centuries, and it was assumed that

they would continue to do so.

When Partition came, it was not religion but greed for the Hindu wealth and property that made

Hindus the target of attack. Pakistan had been created as a homeland for the Muslims of India, and

there was a large influx of Muslim refugees into Sindh from other parts of India. Initially, the Hindus

were able to take recourse in police and government protection, but the problem soon became so big

that even the police and government were unable – and perhaps unwilling – to protect the Hindus. In

a dignified attempt to carry on with peaceful lives and make the best of the situation, Hindu families all

across Sindh began making arrangements to leave. Many believed that it was a temporary situation

and that they would come back to their homes after the trouble died down.

My father had no intention of leaving. However, soon after Partition, he sent my mother, my grandmother

Sukar, my younger brother Venu, and me, to safety in Bombay. We stayed in a small place near the Taj

Hotel for some time, after which my mother returned to Karachi. My grandmother took Venu and me

and we moved in with my father’s stepbrother Chandumal’s family.

In Karachi, Chandumal had lived in a house close to ours. A Mr Merchant from Bombay approached

my father and offered to exchange his home in Bombay with Chandumal’s in Karachi. The exchange

was transacted and Chandumal and his family left for Bombay. To their horror, they found that they

had been cheated as their house in Karachi had been exchanged for a stable outside Mr Merchant’s

house on Hill Road, Bandra. So for more than a year, my grandmother and I lived with Chandumal,

his wife and five children, in a rough one-room accommodation with the toilet in a corridor thirty feet

away. We were cramped and uncomfortable, and those are days I do not wish to dwell on. However,

this period of shared stress strengthened my bonds of affection with Chandumal’s children and these

would endure.

“Unlike Bombay, which introduced Prohibition in 1949, Karachi had no restrictions and in those days was a good runner-up to Beirut in terms of glamourous night life. My father travelled to Turkey, Iran, Lebanon and other countries to bring cabaret artistes for our hotel – the only hotel in Karachi to host a cabaret. Our chefs were the talk of the town with their superb continental cuisine and delectable desserts like Russian Charlotte, Bread and Butter Pudding and Creme Caramel which I remember till this day! Business boomed.”


My father arranged for my grandmother and me to live with an acquaintance, Dr Kalyanpurkar, and

they kindly gave us a bedroom in their home in Sneha Sadan, opposite the Ritz Hotel in Churchgate.

I was transferred from St Stanislaus’ School in Bandra to The Cathedral & John Connon School. One

of my memories of those days is an episode when I was caned by our headmaster, the Englishman

Bruce, for helping myself to a hockey stick belonging to another student, Vellodi, so that I could join

in a game of hockey during break time. The scars remained for many years. I remember being a

member of Palmer House. We played cricket supervised by an Australian whom we called “Uncle”,

every evening at the Oval which was very near to where I stayed. Although I did not excel like my

father, my forte was that of an off-break bowler. My closest friend was the son of the owner, Mr Kapur,

of Ritz Hotel. We lost touch back in the 1950s, but I do have a clear memory of the splendid blue

Packard that his family owned!

In late 1949 or early 1950, my father decided that it was safe enough for us to return to Karachi. It was

a great relief to be back at home with my parents, but I soon saw that many things had changed in

Sindh. Though I was only twelve years old, I could sense the differences. While outwardly we were

rich and successful, behind closed doors we would whisper about things that could not be spoken

when others were listening. The people who had been in charge in Sindh had almost all left, to be

replaced by people from the other side of the new border. There were many changes, but my father

had played his cards well and our family remained safe.

Staying on (1950-1954) While a large majority of Hindus had left Sindh to settle in different parts of the world, there were a few

who stayed on. My father was one, and my grandfather Jhamatmal was another.

In 1950, finding the environment in Sindh increasingly hostile, Jhamatmal sent his sons Hiranand

(Hiro) and Bhagwan to seek opportunities in Bombay. Hiro took up a government job which gave

him stability and a steady income, but he would always miss the life he had left behind, riding around

his farms on horseback to manage the labour and crops on

his ancestral land. Bhagwan travelled back and forth between

Bombay and Karachi and made a living with his skills at cards.

He was so good that in later years he would be rated as India’s

best bridge player; he was also a national-level tennis player.

When the Thomas Cook manager Mr Hyde left Karachi and

returned to England as many others like him did, preferring

not to stay on in a country where they were no longer seen as

rulers, my father became the first Indian manager of Thomas

Cook.

Our family physician was Dr Naraindas Mirchandani. When he

decided to leave Sindh and settle in Bombay, he gave the keys

of his home to my father, entrusting him to find a buyer. My

father was able to sell it to a textile magnate from Bombay who

wanted to rent out all the properties he was buying. This is

when my father’s entrepreneurial bent came to the fore. He had

experienced being a hotelier with the lease in Kashmir, which

he had lost due to Partition. He now took this opportunity and

rented Dr Naraindas’s house from Mr Usman, and converted

it into a hotel. To start with, the hotel had just five rooms but

in time he expanded it. As the hotel grew, he gave up his job

at Thomas Cook to take care of the hotel full-time. My father

made good and, through hard work and God’s grace, a Hindu

in Pakistan, rose to such wealth that he was able to educate

his three sons, me, Venu and our brother Haresh who was

born in 1951, in the best US universities.

When I arrived back in Karachi in 1950, our family home was in

the penthouse of our hotel, three bedrooms and a large living

room. It was one of the tall buildings of its time and the view

from our terrace was terrific. We were located on Kutchery

Road, opposite the Karachi Club and a short walk away from

the home of the President of Pakistan. In this elite, exclusive

area of Karachi, we were well integrated and there was no

stigma of being Hindu, as there may have been in other parts

of the new Pakistan.

“When I arrived back in Karachi in 1950, our family home was in the penthouse of our hotel, three bedrooms and a large living room. It was one of the tall buildings of its time and the view from our terrace was terrific.”

With my younger brother, Venu. Karachi, 1952


My mother’s cousin Hira Rupchand Shivdasani, a senior diplomat, had been recently posted to the

Indian High Commission in Karachi. It was good having my cousins Kamala and Rajni in Karachi since

all the other children I had grown up with had left. Theirs was one of the few Indian families we could

socialize with. Next door to them lived Colonel JC Kapur, the military attache of the embassy, and his

wife Rajrani and their children Rajni, Pompy and Naveen. Rajrani was the daughter of Rai Bahadur

Oberoi and when I read his biography recently, I recognized them in a photograph.

The Taj Hotel, as my father named it, stood on 2200 square yards of land. The original structure had

just one upper storey but my father expanded it, adding two floors and a lift, and a penthouse with a

huge terrace at the top. My father also acquired an adjoining property where he built more guest rooms. My mother

played a part too, assisting my father wholeheartedly. She managed the Purchasing and Stores of the hotel, and

over the years, built up substantial savings for the family. Our manager was Rahman and my father took good care

of him and motivated him to run the best hotel in Karachi.

Unlike Bombay, which introduced Prohibition in 1949, Karachi had no restrictions and in those days was a good

runner-up to Beirut in terms of glamourous night life. My father travelled to Turkey, Iran, Lebanon and other countries

to bring cabaret artistes for our hotel – the only hotel in Karachi to host a cabaret. Our chefs were the talk of

the town with their superb continental cuisine and delectable desserts like Russian Charlotte, Bread and Butter

Pudding and Creme Caramel which I remember till this day! Business boomed.

With the elite of the city bringing their guests to our hotel for meals, my father developed a formidable social

network. He entertained the country’s leaders in luxurious surroundings and often catered to their dinner parties

without a charge. In fact, my father was responsible for safely evacuating quite a few Hindu families from Pakistan

in the decades after Partition.

When Jhamatmal died in 1957, Popri came to stay in our hotel. My father was able to get her a good price for her

bungalow. When her land was decreed to be ‘evacuee property’, he solicited the help of Dingomal Ramchandani,

another Hindu who had stayed on. Dingomal, who lived very close to us, was a senior and highly respected lawyer

of Sindh. With his help, my father was able to bring the case to the attention of the court, which decreed that the

land did indeed belong to his mother-in-law. With Jhamatmal dead and both Popri’s sons in Bombay, my father

struck a deal with the peasants who tilled the land and gave them half the proceeds when the cotton harvested

from the land was sold to the ginning factory.

From my return to Karachi in 1950 till I completed my schooling in 1953, I continued my education at St Patrick’s.

My mother was an early riser and would be up by 5.30, seeing to the morning affairs of the hotel. She was very

disciplined and worked very hard. In the afternoon, my parents took a nap after lunch and after that we went for

a walk to Clifton or visited the Karachi Club where my father played tennis and my mother played rummy. Later,

they would visit the hotel to welcome guests visiting the restaurant and nightclub. On weekends our parents would

“My parents told me that they had met on the tennis court, and I suppose that might have something to do with my proficiency in tennis!”

Our family hotel with Karachi Club in the foreground. Karachi, 1950


take me and Venu, who was four years younger than me, and baby Haresh, to Clifton, or on picnics

outside the city. Karachi Club had an annexe near Keamari and I loved swimming in the channel there.

Sometimes we would sail out from Keamari in a dhow to Manora. I loved water and always wanted to

be close to a water body. At school I did not have many friends and concentrated on my education

and obtained high marks, excelling in Mathematics and securing double promotions. Our teachers

were excellent. They had Catholic names like Mascarenhas and Nazareth. We were taught French by

a foreigner. Father Raymond was still the principal. We had several cars and chauffeurs and I would be

driven to teachers’ homes for private tuitions. I remember my favourite chauffeur, Shafi. During these

years, I took an avid interest in collecting stamps and even purchased the entire ‘mint’ collection of all

the countries of the British Empire. In those days very few of us knew that there were countries called

Seychelles, Bermuda or British Virgin Islands. This knowledge of Geography cultivated in me an urge

to travel. And so my father agreed to send me to London for my higher education.

When I took the school-leaving examinations in December 1953, I was told that I was one of the

youngest to ever do so. The papers were sent from Cambridge University, as was the norm in those

days. When the results were declared, my parents were delighted to see my exceptionally high score

and the fact that I had topped in Mathematics.

“My father was well known for his wicket-keeping skills, and had been selected to Karachi cricket teams which would tour and play with the teams of the Nawab of Junagadh and other princely states in Gujarat.”

Grey skies (1954)

I arrived in London in September 1954, a precocious fifteen-year-old who had travelled alone on the

Lloyd Triestino line from Karachi to Genoa, managed to find my way from Genoa to London, and had

my pocket picked in Naples along the way.

London Academy offered foreign students accommodation and coaching to appear for examinations

required to qualify for admission into UK universities. It was located at No 11 Cadogan Gardens in the

fashionable Chelsea area of London. The well-known stores were nearby and so were the Victoria &

Albert Museum, Albert Hall and other prominent London locations. Anthony Ball was professor and

principal and we had a very strict registrar by the name of Wakely. In my room in London.


Besides classrooms, the school also had twelve rooms for

students to live on the premises. I was a late arrival so I was

given accommodation nearby in the home of Professor Bizoni

who taught us Mathematics and Chemistry, which I shared with

a student from Greece. There were other boys from Kuwait,

Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India and Pakistan.

Housing together, eating together and studying together, we

made good friends. Years later when I arrived in Bombay where

I knew nobody, I looked up Mihir Mehta and Khalid Ismail who

had also been at London Academy with me in that bleak winter

of 1954. Most of us were from wealthy families and quite a few

were learning English for the first time. Our teachers were strict

and gave us a good grounding in grammar and literature. Our

cook was a fat Spanish lady and I enjoyed the baked beans,

eggs and sausages that were served at breakfast! Dinner was

a solemn affair at 7pm sharp and we were expected to dress

formally for it, wearing an overgarment smart young men in

those days called a ‘smoking jacket’. The British no longer

ruled India but one reason I did not enjoy my stay in London

was the feeling of superiority they continued to show towards

Indians.

London Academy was a two-minute walk to Sloane Square

underground station and was well connected being on both

the Central and District line. We used the London tubes to get

around, and once a month I visited Lloyds Bank on Parliament

Street where I would show my passport and collect the money

my father sent for my upkeep. I also visited my mother’s first

cousin Moti Shivdasani, who owned a retail shop called Sarees

Centre on 36 Gerrard Street off Leicester Square. I spent a

few weekends with him and his wife Indra at their apartment

on Abbey Road in Swiss Cottage next to the Lord’s Cricket

Ground. Keema and biryani at their home was an excellent

alternative to the bland school food! My uncle Moti was an

excellent cook and would take me shopping when he bought

lean meat. Observing him, I learnt how an Indian could run a

successful business in a foreign country in those days.

At London Academy, I took courses in Chemistry, English and

Maths. I did well in the examinations in three Ordinary Levels

and qualified to apply to study Medicine in a UK university. By

this time, however, I knew that I did not want to be a doctor.

When I returned home to Karachi, I convinced my father that I

would be better at helping doctors if I studied Pharmacy.

It was a sad time for me because I found that my grandmother

Sukar had been diagnosed with throat cancer. My father sent

her to Bombay for treatment. She was a soft and beautiful

woman and played a very large part in my upbringing. I loved

her very much and was sad to get the news that she had

died. By then I was in the USA, well settled in the Philadelphia

College of Pharmacy and Science.

Off-campus learning (1955-1962)

In the US, we had a long summer vacation from June till the

new term started in September. Some years I stayed on to get

work experience and earn a little extra pocket money. On my

first year and every alternate year, however, I made my way

home. I loved shopping to buy gifts for my mother – she had

a fondness for a French perfume called Joy and I made sure

that I took her a bottle on each visit. I would also buy a cream

which her doctor in London had recommended to treat a white

patch she had developed on her elbow. Apart from the joy of

being in my homeland with my parents, most of those visits

had all kinds of interesting events, especially in an era when

international travel was restricted to only a privileged few,

unlike today when so many more have access to it.

top • Professor Bizoni stands in front of his car, which was later damaged in a prank by students on Guy Fawkes Night, 5 Nov 1954. I was not involved in the prank but got the blame because I lived in his house!above • Outside Bizoni’s house.

With my cousins at Birla Mandir. Radhika is next to me. Calcutta, 1960


I remember the first trip back to Karachi in 1956, a long and

interesting journey. My father had asked me to stop in Japan

and pay a sales call to his clients there. Representatives of the

Nisho Company, regular purchasers of the chrome ore from our

mines in Quetta, received me at the airport and took good care

of me, showing me around Tokyo. I enjoyed visiting various

restaurants and teahouses where geishas sang and danced. I

found the Japanese people to be formal and hardworking but

also very hospitable.

On the way to Japan I had an equally interesting halt in Honolulu. I

was hosted by the Watumull family, Gulab and his wife Indru who

was my mother’s cousin. In those days, every young American

dreamt of a honeymoon in Hawaii. All of Hawaii was beautifully

developed for tourism. It was the epitome of tranquility with

swaying palms and carefree people in ‘Bermuda’ shorts! The

Hawaiian Luau was a fantastic experience – a traditional feast

where local delicacies are laid out on large buffet tables and

accompanied with entertainment such as Hawaiian music and

Hawaiian girls doing a hula dance and putting flower garlands

around necks of the tourists. I enjoyed playing tennis with

Gulab at his country club and found that he was a much better

tennis player than me. I took a conducted tour to the exhibition

centre 35 miles out of Honolulu where the arts and crafts of

Hawaii were showcased. This was a part of USA certainly quite

different from Philadelphia! It created a big impression on me

and I visited them again before I left the country to go home.

One year on my way back to Philadelphia, my father booked

me on the Queen Mary from Southampton to New York. I

enjoyed the closeness to the ocean and the opportunity to eat

and play sports near the water. In 1959, on another trip home,

I flew from New York via London and got into conversation

with a heavyset American seated next to me. I told him that I

was a student on my way home for the holidays and he said

he was on his way to the International Film Festival in Berlin.

When he offered to take me along as his assistant, the thought

of hobnobbing with film stars was tempting and I promptly agreed. He told me that he was known as

‘Bernard of Hollywood’ and was the photographer who had discovered Marilyn Monroe.Disembarking

in London, I rerouted my ticket and flew with him to Berlin, where we checked into the famous Am

Zoo Hotel.

A beautiful blue-eyed nineteen-year-old German blonde starlet, whose career he was planning to

launch at this festival, came to see him and he asked me to chaperone her. Photographers clicked

away wherever we went. He was very grateful and asked me if I would like to be interviewed live by

the legendary ‘Art Linkletter’ for his TV Show as he was doing a serial from the InterContintental Berlin.

I readily agreed as he and Bill Cosby were the two funniest TV performers at that time. I never saw the

telecast but some friends in the US told me they had. I later learnt that he was Bruno Bernard, born in

Berlin in 1912 and famous for pioneering what became known as ‘pin-up’ photography.

top & facing page • Posing in style when we stopped to have a picnic. These photos were taken by Photographer Narain Idnani, my cousin Radhika’s husband. Calcutta, 1960


Another unforgettable experience was in 1960, when I visited Bombay and Calcutta. I met my cousin

Radhika, Chandumal’s daughter, and she and her husband Narain Idnani, who was a well-known

photographer, showed me around the beautiful city with its impressive monuments and temples. In

Calcutta for the first time I saw a strange sight: long processions of people marching, chanting and

carrying red flags. I made enquiries and was told that this was a labour union, protesting against

working conditions at a company called Bird & Co which supplied labour for infrastructure projects.

I was told that these protests were quite common in Calcutta in those days. In my understanding of

economics, increased productivity had to be the biggest benefit to both labour and management and

there was something convoluted, by vested interests, in what was happening here. Little did I know

that in a few years I myself would be a victim of this type of exploitation.

In Bombay I had a great time with my cousins Hotu, Chandumal’s son, and my cousins Kamala and

Rajni. They took me out to the lively Sunday brunch places like Mocambo and Napoli which had

juke boxes and jam sessions which I loved. And when they saw my passion for Latin dancing, they

suggested that I hold lessons in cha-cha-cha, which I did. This wonderful dance was new to Bombay

and the lessons, held at the Mocha Bar of Hotel Astoria in Churchgate, were a big hit!

Chained MelodyI must admit that I am and have always been a lover of Western music. I started by listening to Radio

Ceylon at a very young age. In the US my hero was Frank Sinatra. South Philadelphia was a hotbed of

music and gave rise to such stars as Dick Clark of American Bandstand and Patti La Belle. I was able to

watch Elvis Presley live in a concert he performed in Philly in 1957. I also saw the Jackson Five perform

that year, and remember the eight-year-old Michael Jackson dancing with great joy and vigour, to the

delight of the audience. On some weekends I would visit Atlantic City to see the performances at the

Steel Pier, a spectacular stage that extended into the ocean, by stars such as Paul Anka, Bobby Darin,

Frankie Avalon and others, as well as the Miss America beauty pageant. Atlantic City was the closest

beach 57 miles away. It had a great boardwalk and was popular with students from Philly as they could

legally drink at eighteen instead of twenty-one, which was the law in Pennsylvania. In those days we

enjoyed performances of stars like Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Louis Armstrong and

others on TV. I took dance lessons at the International House and learnt ballroom dancing from Bobby

Huang, a Hong Kong Chinese who, along with his American partner Dotsie, kept us on the dance floor

with their music selection until they had to close at midnight, which was far too early for us! It was here

that I first came across Latin music and mastered the Cha-cha-cha, the Mambo and the Meringue. I

always had a great collection of music, too, and some years later when I was living in New York I lost

all my long playing records in a fire. That day, I remember driving home from my office in New Jersey

and seeing New York completely dark – something completely unheard of, an impossible thing to

happen! Coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel, people – ordinary citizens – were holding up torches and

helping direct the traffic. Later, a candle set fire to curtains in my apartment and caused a great fire in

which I lost my precious collection of music. Eventually records gave way to CDs and DVDs and over

time I built up my collection once again.

In 1960, when I returned home to Karachi, there was an unexpected showdown with my father. The

reason was because of the American friends I had made in the US. While I enjoyed spending time

with people of my own community and always felt close to them, I also considered it very important

to mingle and be a part of American society. I did not have a thick Indian accent and my nationality

was not easy to place by looking at me, but I also made conscious efforts to do so. At Wharton, I

roomed with an American student named David Grimes whose family had a palatial estate outside

Philadelphia. In those days I was dating an American girl and David, without my knowledge, had

written to my father expressing his concerns about her being the wrong person for me. My father

refused to allow me to return to the US unless I solemnly promised that I would never marry an

American and I had no choice but to dutifully do so.

Looking back, I realize how difficult it is for a young student alone and so far away from home and

family at a vulnerable age, to remain free of attachment. In our days it was even more difficult because

the lack of communication isolated us more than today, when people can easily stay in touch with

dear ones in another continent. Some believed that the easiest way to get a green card and US

citizenship was to marry an American lady. It was suggested to me by some friends but I did not think

it was the right way to do things. When I eventually married my wife, Meena, I already had my green

card. It was a complete surprise to learn that, since she was born in the US, she was entitled to US

citizenship. However, she was and always has remained even more Indian than I myself!

“Looking back, I realize how difficult it is for a young student alone and so far away from home and family at a vulnerable age, to remain free of attachment. In our days it was even more difficult because the lack of communication isolated us more than today, when people can easily stay in touch with dear ones in another continent.”


Luxury hotels of the timeMy father was head of International Hotel Association and led the Pakistan delegation to attend the

annual convention at its headquarters in Paris. In Paris, he met the Gay Para’s, owners of Beirut’s Hotel

Majestic, and that’s where I would stay when my flight from Karachi to London touched down in Beirut,

as it always did those days because fuel halts were necessary after every few hours of flying time.

In 1957, my father was the head of the Hotel & Restaurant Association of Pakistan, and was invited by

the American Hotel and Motel Association to tour the US with complimentary suites in the places on

the itinerary. Both my parents came to attend and I joined them in New York. We stayed in the Waldorf

Astoria, and that was where I first met Rai Bahadur Oberoi and his sons Biki and Tikki. He was heading

the Indian delegation and my father, who ran one of Karachi’s top hotels, was heading the delegation

from Pakistan.

From New York we went on to Washington DC where we stayed at the Shoreham Hotel; Chicago

where we stayed in Palmer House; Brown Palace in Denver; Broadmoor in Colorado Springs; The

Dunes in Las Vegas (now the Bellagio); Coconut Grove in Los Angeles and The Fairmont in San

Francisco – the top luxury hotels of the time. I remember the carousel bar at The Fairmont – the first

time I saw a bar with people sitting in it that moved slowly around an axis and I was quite amazed at

the concept. In the early twentieth century, The Fairmont had been the social hub of San Francisco,

but entered a stage of ‘benign neglect’ on account of the Depression, until it was purchased by

Benjamin Swig.

In the years to come, kings, queens, presidents and all who visited would be awed by the surroundings.

Hotel guests and locals could dine, dance and enjoy entertainment in the hotel’s Venetian Room

by the most gifted performers of the time. These included Ella Fitzgerald, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Marlene

Dietrich, Tina Turner, and many more. The Venetian Room is most famous as the place in which Tony

Bennett first sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”. At the Brown Palace in Denver, we were given

a five-room presidential suite. It was a huge apartment which even had its own library and TV room!

It was an education for me to experience this kind of hospitality. It was also on this trip that I first

experienced the style and glamour of a casino, never dreaming that one day in the not-so-distant

future I would be instrumental in opening India’s first live gaming casino. Some years later, when I

“When I was only twenty-one, I was fortunate to represent my father on behalf of International Hotel Association (IHA) at a hotel convention conducted by American Hotel Motel Association (AHMA).”

facing page • With my parents and a prominent British hotelier, George Goring of the prestigious Goring Hotel adjoining Buckingham Palace, at the IHA Convention, London, 1954.


was only twenty-one, I was fortunate to represent my father

on behalf of International Hotel Association (IHA) at a hotel

convention conducted by American Hotel Motel Association

(AHMA) on the beachfront Condado Beach Hotel and Caribe

Hilton in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At this convention I met the

legendary Mr Horwath, founder of Horwath and Horwath the

leaders in Hotel Accounting.

My brothers come to Cornell While I was studying in the US, both my brothers came to

study at Cornell Hotel School. Venu arrived in Cornell in 1959

and went back home after completing a Bachelor’s degree

in Hotel Management. I would visit him at Cornell and he

came to spend time with me in my home in Philadelphia. I

also got to meet some of his friends who were studying at the

Hotel School with him. There was Lalit Nirula, whose family

ran popular restaurants in Delhi. Lalit would return to Delhi

after his education and become famous for launching the very

popular Nirula’s, which gave the people of Delhi their first

taste of American-style fast food. Then there was Ravi Ghai,

whose father Iqbal Ghai had created the Kwality brand as well

as the inimitable Gaylords in Bombay. And there was Ramesh

Khanna whose family managed the hotel Claridges in Delhi

and with whom, though we did not know it then, I would enter

into a painfully unsuccessful partnership in Bombay. Some

of them would come and stay in my bachelor pad, camping

down on sleeping bags on the floor.

When Haresh came, in 1967, I was living at the Watergate

Apartments. When he visited, he got to know my neighbours,

too, as they would invite us over to play bridge. Haresh, like

Venu, also studied hotel management at Cornell. Through

I was a student in London in 1955, when I attended anExecutive Council meeting of theInternational Hotels Associationin Paris on behalf of my father.I am seated second from theleft and you can see DavidFrench, Secretary General of theassociation on the extreme right.

My parents with Mrs Swig, owner of the Fairmont.


them I became acquainted with some of the deans of the

Cornell Hotel School. In 2007, as a hotelier myself, I attended

the Professional Development Program at the school – a

student who was older than not just the other students, but

most of the teachers too! I learnt Hotel Asset Management

taught by Professor Jan de Roos. I didn’t stop there but went

on to take a course in Leadership at Nanyang University,

Singapore in 2007, taught by Cornell professors. Some of the

students found it odd that a sixty-nine-year-old was trying to

keep learning!

Watergate to India Gate!It was only after some years of continuous pleas from my

father, who painted a bright picture of a life of success and

prosperity in India, that I decided to leave the US for India.

My father promised me that he would fund the business, and

at that time I had no reason to believe that he would not be

able to do so. I knew nothing about working life in India and

as my friend Sushilkumar Shinde recently told me, when we

were first introduced to each other in the early 1970s by Ajit

Kerkar he had asked Kerkar, “Arre yaar ye to American dikta

hai. And he talks like an American!” To which Kerkar replied,

“No, he is Indian, he must have spent some time in foreign

countries.” He was right. I was very Indian – but I didn’t look

it. And in my speech and in my thinking, I was all American. I

knew nothing about Bombay – except for the two miserable

years I had spent there as a child. In fact, I knew nobody in

India, except for a few relatives – and a few people whom I

had met in the US.

One of these whom I must mention is MM Sharma. Though our

encounter in the US was very brief, he played an important

role in my life! I was working in Washington DC when one day

I received a call from Henry Pohl. He told me that an Indian industrialist by the name of MM Sharma

had arrived in DC as part of an Indian delegation, and requested me to show him around. I did so

with pleasure, spending the day with Mr Sharma, in the course of which we visited my office and my

apartment in Watergate. Mr Sharma was impressed with my lifestyle, with the size of my office and to

see that I had a large team of Americans working under me. When I told him that my father was urging

me to move to India, he was encouraging, and said, “India needs people like you!” He promised to

help me sort out all the bureaucratic issues I was likely to face. Then he surprised me by adding, “And

I think I know the girl whom you may want to marry!” It was an odd thing to say to someone you were

meeting for the first time – but, as I would find out in good time, it was nothing but the truth.

I had in fact come very close to getting married just a few years before this, and it had been one of

the most difficult decisions I had to make in my personal life as a young man. I was a bachelor working

and living in Manhattan when one day I received a note from a young lady whom I knew from my

childhood in Karachi, the daughter of a family friend, one of the very few Hindus who had stayed

on in Sindh after Partition. She told me that she was in New York as part of the Pakistan Pavilion at

the New York World Fair. The fair opened in the summer of 1964, a global event for which millions of

dollars had been spent over several years to make it an outstanding success. I met the family friend

from Karachi, and visited the Indian Pavilion on and off to meet my friend Prem Chaddha who was

working at the Indian Consulate in New York. We also visited the Indian restaurant at the fair set

up by Gaylord’s, which was managed by the family of Ravi Ghai, Venu’s roommate at Cornell. The

atmosphere at the World Fair in the evenings was enchanting. I knew that my parents and her parents

would be delighted if we were to marry – and the thought of getting married at the World Fair, with the

press of the whole world in attendance, was appealing indeed. Somehow word got out that an Indian

and a Pakistani were going to celebrate their wedding at the World Fair, and the story became that

much bigger. The Kodak Pavilion offered to video photograph the entire ceremony without charge as

it would bring them publicity; Gaylord’s offered to provide food and a hotel in Hawaii offered a free

stay for the honeymoon. The Mayor of New York agreed to attend the ceremony which was scheduled

in the grand dome of the New York Pavilion – a globe which is still a landmark fifty years later when

top • Professional Development Program at the Cornell Hotel School. I am seated, third from right. This high-level course on Hotel Asset Management, taught by Professor Jan de Roos, was attended by hoteliers around the world. Ithaca, 2007above • On a bus tour in Tokyo, seated eighth from left. The last leg of my journey home to India for good February 6, 1969.

“Mr Sharma was impressed with my lifestyle, with the size of my office and to see that I had a large team of Americans working under me. When I told him that my father was urging me to move to India, he was encouraging, and said, “India needs people like you!”


one drives from JFK Airport to Manhattan! Of course the most important guests would be my parents and

eighty-year-old grandmother, who would fly ten thousand miles for it. They got the invitations printed, and

arrived in New York with all sorts of gifts for the occasion.

Two days before the wedding, I had the uneasy feeling that I was really doing this for the publicity and the

attention I was going to receive. I confided in my friend Prem Chaddha, who had worked very hard to make

the arrangements, that I felt embarrassed but wanted to call the whole thing off. To my surprise and relief,

he and his wife Tara both felt that if I was not sure and wanted to cancel the arrangements, they would take

care of the rest. The next few days were agonizing and I am glad that I found the courage to face all the

negative feelings that my decision gave rise to.

Jumping into the deep end (1969)

I landed at Delhi airport in February 1969, and was met by my eager father, accompanied by Hiro Sadarangani,

the real estate broker who was trying to make a deal for a plot of 10,000 square yards fronting Juhu beach

in Bombay. We went straight to the Oberoi InterContinental Hotel, where my father had reserved two

rooms. Arriving at midnight, we were informed that our rooms were not yet ready and were made to wait

in the lobby for more than six hours! We were eventually given beds in the health club of the hotel. It was

a clear indication, on my very first day in India, that the country had a severe shortage of hotel rooms

and demand far exceeded supply in the business I was embarking on! Luckily, Venu’s roommate Ramesh

Khanna arranged for a room in his family’s Claridges Hotel, and we moved there first thing in the morning.

Holiday Inns had confirmed to me that they would visit India, and Mr Sadarangani had convinced my father

that there was great potential for offering a foreign hotel chain tie-up to former Maharajas and other land

owners. We drove to Jaipur, where we met the Maharaja’s representative for the Rambagh Palace. In Jaipur,

I had the opportunity to meet the Minister of Tourism of the Government of India, son of the erstwhile

Maharaja of Kashmir, Dr Karan Singh, who was inaugurating the Annual Hotel Convention at Rambagh, as

well as other hoteliers and officials of the tourism ministry. We also met the representative of the Maharaja

of the Lake Palace in Udaipur and drove on to Dungarpur where the Maharaja himself showed us his

palace, which was off the existing tourist circuit though a beautiful place. I soon learnt that nobody had

heard of a US chain called Holiday Inn. And that, in any case, there were laws with strict controls on foreign

investment in hotels. It was almost twenty years later, when the Indian economy began to liberalize, that

these laws gradually changed. The owners of Rambagh Palace and the Lake Palace later signed up with

the Taj Group. Dungarpur, however, converted his palace into a spectacularly beautiful boutique museum

hotel which he and his son continue to run.

In 1947, as independence from British rule approached, it was not just Partition that complicated the

situation. The subcontinent had five-hundred-and-sixty-five princely states which had the status of

British Protectorates. The ruling rights of the Indian princes were withdrawn and they were granted

handsome Privy Purses and other privileges. In 1971, however, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi claimed

equal rights for all citizens of India and reduced the government’s revenue deficit by abolishing the

Privy Purses. Overnight, the palaces became a financial liability. Many princes began considering the

possibility of securing an income by converting the grand but crumbling edifices into hotels. Over the

next few years I had several meetings with the Maharaja of Baroda, SP Gaikwad, with Maharaja Baria

of Gujarat to discuss a hotel in Ahmedabad and with the Maharaja of Benares for Varanasi.

It was a six-hour drive from Dungarpur to Ahmedabad and we flew from there to Bombay. Mr

Sadarangani took me to meet Leon Allams, owner of the 10,000 square yard beach-front property in

Juhu. It stood adjacent to the Sun n Sand, the city’s only other five-star hotel besides the Taj.

We came to an agreement that Allams would contribute his land, and the finances for building and

managing the hotel would be brought by my family. In early 1969, our company was registered as

Allams Advanis Hotels Private Limited, 50 percent belonging to Allams and 50 percent to the Advani

family. With this, it certainly seemed as if I had got to an exceptionally good start to my new life in India!

There were two other major events that took place in the first few months after I arrived in India. One

was that my father and I got connected with someone with whom we would build a flight kitchen at

Bombay Airport, as well as India’s first airport hotel.

The second was that I went to see MM Sharma in his home in Maharani Bagh, one of the exclusive

residential estates of Delhi, and said to him, “Well, I’m here now. You were saying something about a

girl I was to marry …?”

So my first year in India was certainly one of the most intense and eventful of my life, a precursor

to the years ahead. Each of these three new threads created a separate story, each rich in itself. It’s

important to start with the story of my marriage because my wife Menaka, known to family and friends

as Meena, would play a strong part in all my business ventures, working along with me through thick

and thin and sharing all the many treacheries and disappointments that we were faced with and all the

successes that we created together in the years to come.

“My first year in India was certainly one of the most intense and eventful of my life, a precursor to the years ahead.”

A VERY GOOD YEAREVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS58 59

IT WAS

A VERY GOOD YEAR

~ Frank Sinatra ~

Love and marriage,

love and marriage

They go together like a horse and carriage

This I tell you, brother

You can’t have one without the other


Love and marriage (1969)

I have chosen this Frank Sinatra song title as the heading of this part of my life story because it is quite

appropriate for this phase of my life! When Meena and I got married, she had recently started working

at ICICI Limited. ICICI, which became a bank in the 1990s, was a development financial institution

offering project finance, and Meena’s role was to conduct economic feasibility appraisals of projects

which had applied for funding. She had earned a Master’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics

and interned with the prestigious Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) under RK Hazari. Meena was

born in the US, and grew up in Delhi. It so happened that her best friend was Kalpana, whose father

Bali Ram Bhagat, Minister of Commerce and a well-known freedom fighter, was a close friend of MM

Sharma.

In those days in India, it was parents who decided whom their children were going to marry. The

decisions were made through community connections and most of the Indian married couples of

my generation met for the very first time on their wedding day. We Amil Sindhis are generally more

educated and forward thinking, and my parents, as well as Meena’s, were quite liberal. As a result,

our courtship was unusually long – all of two weeks! We got married in Bombay, at the Taj Gateway

and Princess Rooms on September 21, 1969 and on September 22 boarded a flight to Delhi, to get

our paperwork in order.

In my first year as an adult in India, I met several royal families and visited their palaces. I obtained an Indian passport, got married, and took my wife on a round-the-world tour. We spent some weeks travelling across the US, and I started the process of bringing the first global hotel chain to India.

previous page • A loving moment for a beautiful bride.facing page • With Meena, on our wedding day


top left • Meena’s parents and my parents perform a ceremony to sanctify our marriage.top right • My father, my mother, Keith Allams (brother of Leon Allams), Meena’s mother, Mrs Keith Allams, Leon Allams, Mrs Leon Allams, Venu, Mrs Bhagwan Shahani.bottom right • After the wedding ceremony. Meena’s mother Hari, Meena’s aunt Sunder, Meena, aunt, another aunt, Meena’s father Manohar, Gurbaksh Uncle’s son, my father Gurdas Advani Bombay, 1969.bottom left • Meena exchanging grains of rice with my grandmother Popri, in a traditional ritual at our wedding ceremony.

The clock was ticking for me and there was no time to lose. It was already six months since I had left

the US and arrived in India and one of the requirements for me to retain my precious Green` Card was

that I should return to the US within the year. This was complicated by the fact that, although I was

born in India and have always had the strongest allegiance to India – at this time, being a victim of

history like many others of my community, the Partition of India had left me with a Pakistani passport.

So – for me to take my wife and go to the US to keep my Green Card alive, I had to get an Indian

passport and my wife had to get a US visa.

The visa officer noticed that Meena had been born in the US and informed her that if she wanted a

US visa, she would have to renounce her birthright of US citizenship. He advised her that, instead of

applying for a US visa – a lengthy process because her papers and passports would have to be sent

to the US, be reviewed and stamped there, and then sent back again – she should consider applying

for a US passport which she would get within 24 hours. While Meena was in two minds about what to

do, I realized that US citizenship would be more practical because if my endeavours in India did not

materialize, I would like to return to the US and we could make our home there.

As for my Indian passport – that was not so simple! Mr Sharma’s associates were very helpful and

I had access to the officials who would grant it, but it was still a long-drawn process. I visited the

Foreigners’ Registration Office every day. Weeks passed. Towards the end of October, I was told

that the offices would be closed for a long weekend and we took the opportunity to take a break in

Nainital.

For the first few weeks, we had lived in style at the Oberoi InterContinental Hotel. As the expense

mounted, and as it became clear that nobody could really predict when the passport would be issued,

we moved in to Meena’s mother’s home in Patel Nagar. Every morning, I left the house confident that

I would come home with everything done and we could leave. Every evening, Meena would wait with

bags packed and ready to fly out. On the day I finally received my passport, we rushed to the airport

and as we were checking in, realised with a shock that we had inadvertently left a bag – one of the

very popular Air India attaché cases of the time – on the front seat of the taxi. That bag contained

the jewellery Meena had been given by her parents at our wedding, a symbol of all their love, care,

“When Meena and I got married, she had recently started working at ICICI Limited. ICICI, which became a bank in the 1990s, was a development financial institution offering project finance, and Meena’s role was to conduct economic feasibility appraisals of projects which had applied for funding. She had earned a Master’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics and interned with the prestigious Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) under RK Hazari.”


Meena Advani:Though I was born in the US, my parents brought me to India

when I was two years old and I had absolutely no memory of

the US. The first time I visited was with Sunder, as newlyweds.

My father, Manoharlal Hingorani, was a plant pathologist

and he was posted in Dokri, in rural Sindh. My mother, Hari

was from a Motwani family which moved to Bombay in

1938 when her father Dr RC Motwani joined Grant Medical

College. Some years later he was appointed as Dean of the

college, a prestigious position for an Indian in British India. My

grandmother Lakshmi had to learn English, how to curtesy, and

the correct protocol for the seven-course meals which were

served when she and her husband were invited to official sit-

down dinners at the residence of the Governor of Bombay

Province. My grandfather engaged a governess for her, and

she practiced her English by writing a daily diary for almost

thirty years.

Sadly, my grandfather contracted neuralgia in his fifties and

retired prematurely. He took to studying the Vedic scriptures

and Upanishads and, of his seven children, selected my

mother to study along with him. My mother completed her

graduation at Wilson College and adapting to the heat, dust

and isolation of Dokri after she got married, couldn’t have

been easy for her. After all, she had not only been brought

up with colonial graces, she was an educated woman, had a

beautiful, elaborate trousseau and her thick and glossy hair

was so long that it reached her knees! There were a few

neighbours with whom she socialized. But it must have been

an exciting adventure when my father was awarded the first

Watumull scholarship and they left for the US. While my father

pursued his further studies in Minneapolois, she took courses

in nutrition. I was born on August 12, 1946.

Coming back to India with his PhD, my father was placed at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute at

Pusa Institute, Delhi and I grew up in one of the bungalows of its colony – naturally we all had beautiful

gardens! We were not rich, but our neighbours were well-educated and genteel, and it was a strong,

nurturing environment. My mother – exhausted from cooking meals for the thirty Indian students at

Minneapolis who were missing home food – now had a chance to express her innate creativity.

In the early 1960s, my father was picked up by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

under the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and spent the next fourteen years working to

develop crop yield and agriculture in developing countries: first Egypt, then Ethiopia and finally

Afghanistan. During these years, my parents rented a home in Patel Nagar, Delhi, so that my brother

and I could continue our education in India. When I completed my MA, I moved to Bombay and lived

with my grandparents at their home in Sadguru Sadan. When I applied for the ICICI job, the person

interviewing me, Mr HT Parekh, was impressed with my record of scholarships and the experience

with EPW. Still, he smiled and remarked, “You young girls have a way of leaving projects mid-way and

going off to get married!” I told him that I had no intention of getting married for at least two years.

Mr Parekh did give me the job – and I had to go back sheepishly, within a month of joining, with my

wonderful news. He kindly offered me an alternative – to take three months to settle into my new life

and then come back to let him know whether I could continue or not.

Those three months were a period of huge stress for Sunder – battling with a broker who turned out

to be a charlatan, and desperately racing around the country looking for funds to build his hotel. The

government regulations were another tremendous challenge. There was no one else he could turn to

for support and I knew I would have to do it. I went back and resigned from the job at ICICI, and that

was the end of that.

All these years, there has been so much going on that I never really had time to regret not having

the opportunity for personal fulfilment and economic independence that my own career might have

provided. In the mid-1970s, my parents returned to India and my mother was a tremendous source of

support in looking after our children.top • Meena and me, in Bombay, soon after we got married.bottom • On our honeymoon. Nanital, October 1969

“There was no one else he could turn to for support and I knew I would have to do it. I went back and resigned from the job at ICICI, and that was the end of that.”



sacrifices and blessings. The thought that it was all gone was traumatic. How could we ever expect

to get it back? We left the airport and stood outside, urgently seeking ways in which we could locate

the taxi, which I had hired that morning for the day. Somehow, it was the taxi driver, who must have

taken a liking to me – a poor but scrupulously honest man – who came back to the airport looking for

us and returned the bag with not a single piece missing.

World tourWith our new passports – mine Indian and Meena’s American – we set out for the US in December

1969. It was important for me to stay in touch with life there because, if things didn’t work out for me

in India, I knew I had a comfortable and fulfilling alternative waiting for me. Meena thoroughly enjoyed

the few days we spent in Watergate and the glimpse of my life in Washington DC.

We started packing, keeping aside the things we wanted to take back to India with us – including my

yellow Impala convertible. I gave up my apartment and was fortunate that my neighbors Irving and

Viviane Hall took it over and generously offered that I could stay there when I visited Washington DC,

which I did a number of times until around 1978.

The Watergate complex consisted of three uniquely designed apartment buildings, an office building

and the elegant Watergate Hotel. The building in the centre back is Watergate East, where I lived

on the sixth floor. The office building to the left is where the Democratic Party’s headquarters were

located, also on the sixth floor, where the historic break-in occurred in 1972. It was adjoining my

apartment and it so happened that I was staying there that night. It was only several months later

that I realized I had been at the scene of the crime that led to the resignation of a US President. It

“The Watergate complex consisted of three uniquely designed apartment buildings, an office building and the elegant Watergate Hotel. The building in the centre back is Watergate East, where I lived on the sixth floor. The office building to the left is where the Democratic Party’s headquarters were located, also on the sixth floor, where the historic break-in occurred in 1972. It was adjoining my apartment and it so happened that I was staying there that night. It was only several months later that I realized I had been at the scene of the crime that led to the resignation of a US President.”

top • Meena and I pose in front of Watergate Apartments.right • Meena in front of Watergate East Apartments where I lived. Washington DC, 1970.previous spread left • Meena at a reception for Pandit Nehru at the Indian Embassy in Cairo in 1962.previous spread right • Meena in Udaipur in 2016.


left top • With Meena and foreign delegates at a hotel convention. Next to Meena is a gentleman and after him sits Mrs Gay Para, who owned the Majestic Hotel in Beirut. Delhi, 1969left • At this shipboard dinner, I am seated second from left and next to me is Dipika Puri, whom Meena knew as she grew up because her parents were owners of a hotel in Connaught Place, Vinoo Ubhayakar, Rami Puri (head of Air India North America) and Meena. The lady and gentlemen at either end of the table are French husband-wife tour operators. PATA Convention, New Orleans, 1976.

right top • Dancing with one of the delegates on the cruise boat at a Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) convention. New Orleans, 1976.right • With other delegates from India at a PATA convention (I am second from left). We visited some of Mexico’s world-class resorts. Acapulco, 1970.

is another chain of events that made headlines for Watergate, as

one of its later occupants was no other than Monica Lewinsky who

became famous through her links to President Bill Clinton.

On that trip in December 1969, we bought USD99 Greyhound bus

tickets and set out on a tour of the US. Our first stop was Memphis,

Tennessee, the headquarters of Holiday Inns. I met with Jerry Sims

and he agreed to visit India soon after I returned, to plan our Holiday

Inn.

From Memphis, Meena and I went on to Las Vegas, a place we

both loved. It was an education to observe how the casinos

reached out to customers approaching by bus! We were handed

coupons offering free breakfast, free drinks, free casino chips and

other temptations to get us in and start spending. We were on a

shoestring budget and during our few hours in Las Vegas, we saw

some of its major casinos and hotels, including Caesar’s Palace,

the Las Vegas Hilton, the Sands, Riviera, Flamingo and Desert

Inn and enjoyed the free offers, before we caught our bus to San

Francisco. We thoroughly enjoyed the Golden Nugget Casino and

were impressed with the name. Twenty-three years later, we would

call our own casino, India’s very first, ‘Goa Nugget’.

In San Francisco, my cousin Suresh Shivdasani who lives there took

care of us and showed us around. Our next stop was Tokyo and

from there we went to Osaka and visited the Expo 70, a grand and

prestigious world exhibition. From Japan we flew to Hong Kong,

returning to Bombay a few days later.

From that day to this, our international jaunts have continued

without a break!

INDIA’S FIRST FRANCHISEEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS72 73

INDIA’SFIRST

FRANCHISE~ ABBA ~

I have a dream, a fantasy

To help me through reality

And my destination makes it worth the while

Pushing through the darkness still another mile


A million-dollar location (1969-1977)

Jerry Sims, head of Holiday Inns Real Estate Division and later Vice President Holiday Inns, arrived

in Delhi. He was disappointed to learn that it was not possible for any of the erstwhile Maharajas to

convert their palaces to Holiday Inns. My father told him that, having come all this way, he must visit

the Taj Mahal. Jerry was reluctant but my father somehow convinced him of the Indian wisdom that

anyone who comes to India and fails to visit the Taj stands the risk of having their love life doomed

forever. Jerry promptly changed his mind. We took him to Agra, and soon became good friends.

In Bombay, we held a lavish dinner for Jerry at a beach hotel in Juhu and invited some VIPs of our

acquaintance. The property on which we wanted to build our Holiday Inn had no proper access road.

On it stood twelve ramshackle huts which Allams rented out for weekends. We had to explain to Jerry

that in India people did not rent a car and drive themselves to hotels the way they did in the US, and

the unmarked lanes leading to the property were not a deterrent. After all, we had Sun-n-Sand, a

successful five-star hotel, right next door.

Jerry was charmed by the site and declared, “This is a million-dollar location!” He agreed that we could

get a franchise. Holiday Inn now required me to present my formal application with a list of promoters

whose total net worth exceeded the cost of building the hotel. This was an absolutely reasonable

After having bought land for a new hotel in Bombay, obtained a franchise from Holiday Inns Inc., got it approved by the government, constructed the building, and organized the public issue – I was summarily driven out by my partners when they no longer needed me.

previous page top left • With Kemmons Wilson, Founder and Chairman of Holiday Inns Inc. in his office in Memphis, Tennessee, 1970.previous page top right •

Advising the restaurant manager on improving guest satisfaction (extreme right) Holiday Inn Agra, 1975.previous page bottom left •

Our beautifully-decorated ship casino, MV Caravela, sailing down the Mandovi River.previous page top right • The architect’s rendering of Holiday Inn, Juhu.facing page • Sun n Sand hotel on Juhu Beach, with an empty space next to it, where Holiday Inn (renamed Novotel in 2009) now stands.


requirement – but I myself had no funds. I had earned well

in the US – and lived well. When I arrived in India, my total

savings amounted to less than USD5000. In any case, it was

my father who had promised to provide the funds. However,

my father was still a citizen of Pakistan and with the hostility

between our two countries, it was not possible at this point for

him to legally remit any money to India. We sat down to take

stock of all the wealthy people we knew. And before we could

even start, the first big blow struck.

Our broker, seeing that the property was likely to be approved

as a Holiday Inn franchise, decided to exploit the situation. He

convinced the owner of the land that he would be much safer

if he sold the land to us rather than entering into a joint venture

with an uncertain future. Allams liked the idea. He informed us that his land was worth INR2 million.

He demanded a down payment of INR200,000 and that if the rest of the money was not paid within

a month, I would lose the deposit. This was nothing but extortion, but what choice did I have? I had

INR300,000, the initial capital provided by my father, and I paid up. I also requested the broker to get

the deadline extended, which he did – for a fee.

I was now in the very stressful position of having to find investors of demonstrated wealth, as well as

to raise INR1.8 million in a hurry – failing which, my dream of building a Holiday Inn on the approved

site would turn to dust. These months were a period of intense anxiety and effort. I travelled between

Bombay, Delhi and other places to meet potential investors to whom I had been introduced. While

I did eventually succeed – to an extent – I must mention with gratitude the people who helped me

during this difficult phase for no reason except that they were helpful people.

One of these was DM Harish, a well-known Income Tax Consultant. He was introduced to me by Dr

TR Motwani, Meena’s mother’s brother, a very well-known personality. DM Harish and I remained

close friends right until the day he died, and the bond extended to our families. His son Anil Harish

was on our company’s board for many years and recently Anil’s son, Adhiraj Harish took his place,

consolidating the three-generation bond of our two families.

Another senior professional we came to rely on and formed a strong bond with was our lawyer

Vasantlal Mehta of Malvi Ranchoddas & Co. For many years we have also relied on his son Prakash.

With Prakash’s family, too, we share a very special family bond. By a coincidence, his wife Ela and my

wife Meena have been good friends since their young days in Delhi.

Then there was Lalchand Gehimal Mirchandani, a senior officer in the Government of India who

headed the Small Scale Industry Department in New Delhi, with whose son Gulu and grandsons Sasha

and Kawal, all three remarkable entrepreneurs, I have retained a close family friendship. Another was

the late HT Parekh, the ICICI Chairman. Ashok Advani, publisher of ‘Business India’, helped me and

continues to be a good friend. It was through their efforts that in the next few months I was able to

meet many wealthy Indians, industrialists, land owners and former royalty. These included the Jhawars Juhu beach as it was in 1969.

“These months were a period of intense anxiety and effort. I travelled between Bombay, Delhi and other places to meet potential investors to whom I had been introduced. While I did eventually succeed – to an extent – I must mention with gratitude the people who helped me during this difficult phase for no reason except that they were helpful people.”


of Usha Wire Ropes, members of the Birla family, members of the Kamani Group, construction tycoon

Pallonji Mistry, and others. None of them had heard of Holiday Inns. Vasantlal Mehta introduced me to

Vijaypat Singhania, Chairman of JK Organization, and he was the first to show interest in my project.

He made me an offer that he thought I could not refuse: he would own the company entirely, I would

relinquish my equity and be managing director of the chain of hotels he intended to build. I declined

Mr Singhania’s proposal because I had not come to India to be an employee. I had come here to be

my own boss.

At this point, I did get an offer and it appeared to be a wonderful lifesaver, almost like a miraculous

gift! Ramesh Khanna, Venu’s roommate at Cornell, suggested that we become partners and build the

Holiday Inn together. I accepted at once.

I was acquainted with Madhavrao Scindia, Maharaja of Gwalior, one of the richest men in India at

the time. He had just returned to India with a degree from Oxford. He agreed to invest INR300,000

in equity in our company, if he was nominated as a director on our board. We had met the Maharaja

of Jodhpur, Gaj Singh (affectionately known as Bapjee) – he too had recently returned to India

with a degree from Oxford. We convinced him to come on board too with an equity investment of

INR300,000. Ramesh also arranged for his three uncles, the joint owners of Claridges along with

his father, to invest in the company. I was chairman of Allams Advani Hotels. However, my actual

cash investment in the new concern was a paltry INR1,25,000 and the Khanna family were majority

shareholders. So Ramesh designated himself as Managing Director of the new company, which he

called Eastern International Hotels. The company issued me a five-year contract with a salary of

INR3000 per month and the designation of Executive Director.

In those days, Indians with assets above a certain level paid an annual wealth tax. When I submitted

the wealth tax returns of my investors, it was clear proof to Holiday Inns that I had access to sufficient

funds. This requirement met, Holiday Inns gave their stamp of approval – but my struggle was far

from over. I had yet to obtain permission from the Government of India to pay the USD10,000 fee

and the contracted royalty on room sales for ten years, that Holiday Inns expected from its franchise

applicants.

“At this point, I did get an offer and it appeared to be a wonderful lifesaver, almost like a miraculous gift!”

facing page • Foundation stone laying ceremony of Holiday Inn, Juhu, at the hands of his holiness Swami Muktananda, Me, Swamiji, Ramesh Khanna, Mrs Andre Khanna, Rajendra Marwah and Bholanath Khanna. Juhu Beach, Bombay, September 21, 1971


“During this period, I was taught the detailed requirements of an international hotel chain, from the size of rooms and beds, type of mattresses, blackout curtains, door locks, bathtubs, showerheads, wattage of bulbs to be used, and many other specifications to be considered in a top-class hotel. With this knowledge, I helped others to build internationally branded hotels in India and Sri Lanka.”

Swami Muktananda showers blessing on all gathered. Ramesh Khanna is at the mike, with RN Marwah standing next to him. The disciple kneeling is now a swami. I’m on the right, crouching with a mike in my hand.

I travelled to Delhi often, usually around twice a month, with my application. That was the life most

businessmen in India led in those days! When I met Dr IG Patel, Economic Adviser to the Ministry of

Finance (later, after a stint as Deputy Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme

he served five years as governor of Reserve Bank of India), he scoffed at the idea of a hotel franchise,

saying that it would be no better than allowing a cosmetic company to do business in India. I

explained to him that tourism was not about vanity or superficiality. In fact, foreign tourists were at

present our best source of much-needed foreign exchange. And they were more likely to visit India

if they were assured of a hotel which provided the standards of accommodation and bathrooms they

were accustomed to. I pointed out to him that the Holidex Reservation system and the training films

prepared by Holiday Inn University would help lay the base for a solid and growing hotel industry

in India.

Eventually, after many visits to a number of offices of the Government of India in Delhi, after much

waiting and continuous reasoning pleas, the collaboration was approved. It was a historic first – I

was the first person to have succeeded in obtaining permission to bring a hotel franchise to India.

The one exception was the New Delhi Oberoi InterContinental in 1965, when MS Oberoi, with

decades of hotel experience, had arranged a tie-up and use of InterContinental’s name to be eligible

for a USAID loan.

MiracleWhile the franchise was a major achievement, I could also say that the real struggle began now.

We had to start building a 140-room five-star hotel and that too in a country where ready access to

capital was limited to wealthy families who could fund their own projects. Even to get a bank loan,

the promoter had to put up not less than 33 percent of the project cost. Our project cost was INR400

million, which meant that we needed at least INR130 million to get a loan of INR270 million.

When I visited Holiday Inns to sign the contract, I met the organization’s official architect, Bill Bond

whose firm had designed many of the Holiday Inns. Mr Bond looked at my site plan and asked some

basic questions such as where the access road was, in which direction the beach lay, where future

development was likely to come up and so on. In a week, he prepared the basic layout for the hotel.

Another architect I met in Memphis refined the plan to allow for 140 rooms on ground plus four floors.

He also suggested we build a shell of two floors for further expansion – a new concept for India in

those days, but one which gave me a feeling that we were creating something with a solid future.

With these in hand, I approached National and Grindlays Bank and commissioned them to prepare

a project feasibility report which I could show to potential investors. It was also necessary to show

investors that construction was in progress. We were lucky to find an excellent civil contractor,

BE Billimoria and Co, who was also building Bombay’s Wankhede Cricket Stadium at around the

same time. I travelled every day from my home in Peddar Road all the way to Juhu to supervise the

construction. Ramesh visited once a month.


Raising the money was an arduous task though we were able

to garner support from people who mattered. The legendary

Sidney Pinto of Grindlays Bank took a personal interest in the

project. HT Parekh had faith in what I was trying to do and

recommended our project to the board for consideration. My

proposal to ICICI was simple: help me with the loan and I’ll take

out a public issue. What I didn’t say, but what everyone knew,

was that there had never been a hotel public issue in India

before this. Ours was going to be the first. I worked on the

public issue singlehandedly, with Ramesh visiting to preside

at our press conferences, and I’m proud to say that it was fully

subscribed.

Establishing international hotel standards across India In May 1971, Holiday Inns invited me to attend Holiday Inn

University, and Meena and I set out for Memphis again. Both of

us attended classes every day and we were instructed on the

methods of constructing and operating the Holiday Inn brand

of hotels, a requirement for anyone taking a senior position

in the group. After I completed the three-week General

Managers’ program at the Holiday Inn University, I was given

additional training. I learnt their detailed specifications, from

the size of rooms, the size of beds and type of mattresses

that needed to be provided, and the type of bathtubs, shower

heads and other equipment that needed to be installed to

qualify as a Holiday Inn. There was a prescribed number of

furniture pieces each room had to have. The heights of some

of the coffee tables was standard, as was the height of the

bathtub. Markings around the swimming pool had to be clearly

visible – no diving was allowed! The restaurants had to maintain specified hours. And every hotel

had to have bathrooms built in such a way that a handicapped person could use the toilet or take

a shower without assistance. I was trained on how to train the hotel staff, particularly the front line

staff who receive and check in guests, how to create empathy with a guest and how to manage

guest complaints. There was a lot of emphasis on housekeeping, with a very specific process on the

sequence of actions to clean a room and how to make a bed in less than three minutes.

Besides being taught the standards that needed to be followed for construction, interiors and

operations, I was also expected to serve as an inspector of Holiday Inns and had to be trained in

what to look for while inspecting hotels of Holiday Inn branded hotels. I was shown how they send

business to their 1600 hotels through their reservation system, the largest and most advanced of its

time. And I had to learn in detail how Holiday Inns markets its hotels.

Holiday Inns had an Institutional Mart at their headquarters and this huge complex was a wonderfully

innovative exhibition space with sample rooms decorated in different colour schemes with a final price

ranging from USD4000 to USD6000 per room. This included all the furniture, matching upholstery,

curtains and bedspreads. You could pick what you liked and it would be shipped to you in a container

to assemble in your new hotel. Every item that goes into a Holiday Inn was either available from them

or recommended suppliers. They even had a Pirates Bar on display; the whole bar could be shipped

to a new hotel!

Later, to get practical training on the job, I was assigned to understudy the Front Office Manager at the

Holiday Inn located on Miami Beach. I spent six weeks there, and then another six weeks observing

the pre-opening team at the new Holiday Inn in Charlotsville, Virginia, to see how a hotel about to

open is made ready for the Grand Opening. It is a complicated process with several thousand items

going into the hotel, and this is done in a carefully developed sequence which must be followed

to open a hotel quickly. This experience helped me tremendously when it came to equipping the

Holiday Inn, Bombay and the various other hotel projects I helped build for others and myself. In

left top • With Kemmons and my friend Ashok Advani, who accompanied me to Memphis the following year. left bottom • At Memphis again, in 1972, during the tennis tournament, with me wearing the Wimpleton jersey. With George E Falls, Senior Vice President, International Franchise Development.

“Besides being taught the standards that needed to be followed for construction, interiors and operations, I was also expected to serve as an inspector of Holiday Inns.”


later years, we even added and furnished a block of seventy-

four guest rooms at Ramada Renaissance Resort in just six

months. People still find it hard to believe that we were able

to accomplish this in Goa’s off-season period with heavy rains.

While in Memphis, I showed the site plan to the Chairman

and Founder of Holiday Inns, Mr Kemmons Wilson. Mr Wilson

and his family invited me and my wife to their home and we

became friends. They were extremely nice people. They had

created an empire – but their foremost priority remained their

family and they remained devoted to each other and their five

children.

As the story goes, Kemmons Wilson grew up in Memphis. His

father died when he was just nine months old. The child of a

single mother during a time of economic depression, Kemmons

Wilson’s entrepreneurial abilities were honed in childhood and

he grew to be a successful businessman. It was on a much-

needed holiday his wife Dorothy insisted he take, that the idea

of Holiday Inn was born. Driving from Memphis to Washington

DC, they were disappointed by the lack of consistency and

quality in the lodging available. Kemmons Wilson was outraged

that he had to pay extra for his kids who stayed in the same

room. He decided that he was going to build a chain of motels

on every major highway from one coast of the US to the other,

so that an American family could travel across the country and

stay at one of his motels each night. Each room would have

two king beds so that a family of four could share one room,

and children under twelve would stay for free. It was this vision

that led to the creation of Holiday Inns in 1952.

In our social interactions, we discovered a common interest

– tennis. Mr Wilson’s pet project was a club which he had

named ‘Wimpleton’. Wimpleton conducted an annual tennis

tournament in which owners of Holiday Inn Hotels would play

doubles matches against senior management of the hotels at

the annual franchise holders get-together. Mr Wilson was not a

great tennis player but he did not like to lose. When he learnt that I

had played as captain of my college tennis team in the US, he told

the Head of Franchising: “I want that Indian as my tennis partner”.

Together we won the Wimpleton tournament and it became our

annual meeting ground.

I admired Kemmons Wilson as much for his business vision

as for the simplicity of his lifestyle. In 1970 when I first met him,

I was impressed to see that he drove a Subaru, an inexpensive

Japanese car rather than a Cadillac as one might expect a captain

of American industry to drive. It’s hard to forget the time he drove

me to a Wimpleton tennis tournament and fell asleep at the wheel,

and I had to wake him up!

Some time in 1974, my partner Ramesh Khanna coolly informed me

that my services were no longer required by Eastern International

Hotels as his uncles had decided that the hotel in Bombay would be

run by the Khanna family and I had no place in it.

I was absolutely shocked as the whole business had been my

idea. I had done all the work, I had personally got the government

permission through my contacts and efforts, I had seen to every

aspect of the construction, I had liaised with the merchant bankers,

raised funds and managed the IPO myself. However, they were

majority shareholders and mine was a very small holding. When I

reminded Ramesh of all the work I had put in, and of the many times

he had complimented me on my patience and perseverance, he

replied: “Well, you couldn’t even have started any of this if it hadn’t

been for me.” Adding injury to insult, he now informed me that he

had no money to buy me out. Later I sold my shares to his cousin,

Bholanath Khanna’s son. My lawyer and family friend, Vasantbhai,

advised me to accept the salary for the balance period and resign

as Executive Director from the company I had founded. Receiving

the money was no compensation for the heartbreak, or for the

indignation at the sheer injustice of what had been done to me.

It was just as well that Ramesh broke off from me at that point.

I had done the work while he stayed in the forefront – and this

above • Introducing VP Holiday Inns Inc. Roger Rasmussen to HL Khanna, owner of Holiday Inn Agra and Veerappan (co-promoter of Holiday Inn Madras. Bombay, 1973top • Potential investors and bankers, invited to my home during the visit of Senior Vice President (Asia), Rudiger Koppen. Bombay, 1971

With Rudiger Koppen, Senior VP, Holiday Inns Asia, at my home to meet potential franchisees. Bombay, 1973


Evening session of the FHRAI convention in Mahabalipuram.I made a presentation aiding withHoliday Inns Inc. Vice President Asia Pacific, Bill Ingram, who flew in from Tokyo. I used a Kodak carousel projector and showed colour slides of Holiday Inns around the world – this was the latest technology of the time and new and impressive for an Indian audience!In the top photo are Bill Ingram, me, GM of Ashoka Hotel Delhi, Surinder Ghadoke, not recognized,Pushori Lamba, not recognized, owner of the hotel where the convention was held, VAP Mahajan, not recognized and Veerappan (copromoterof Holiday Inn, Madras).

arrangement would have continued as long as we were associated with each other. Ramesh and I

were temperamentally very different – he was the flamboyant, party-going type and I have always

been the kind of person who works all day and retires to sleep by 9.30. If the separation had come

later, when the business was running well, it may have been even more painful. And, when their family

squabbles – which have continued till this day – began, I would have been caught in the crossfire.

A major lesson I took with me was to never invest in a company unless one can control at least 25.1

percent of the equity.

One good thing that came of this catastrophe was that the Corporate Headquarters of Holiday Inns

Inc. was not interested in who owned Eastern International Hotels. They had trained me thoroughly

on the Holiday Inn standards, and their top management, with whom I was on excellent terms, trusted

me. To them, Ramesh Khanna and family were an unknown entity. They informed Ramesh that they

were appointing me as the official representative of Holiday Inns Inc. for India and that I would be

in charge of the construction, development and marketing of all Holiday Inns in India, including the

Holiday Inn at Juhu Beach. So – while I had been unceremoniously removed from the company –

they had not quite been able to get rid of me.

Another good thing that came out of this ill-fated venture was that we were introduced to Swami

Muktananada. He was the spiritual leader who laid the foundation stone of Holiday Inn, Bombay and

indirectly also laid the foundation of my family’s spiritual welfare and growth.

I now began my new role with a new routine. As a Master Franchisee of Holiday Inns, any new

developments for building Holiday Inns would need to go through my office – which functioned from

my residence in Bombay. I was given business cards and letterheads printed in the US on which I

was designated as Representative, India. These responsibilities were soon increased to include all of

South Asia. I began travelling across India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh looking for investors interested

in building new hotels with the Holiday Inn franchise brand name, or hoteliers who wished to convert

existing hotels of an equal standard to a Holiday Inn.

Holiday Inn was very strict about its compliance, and negotiating for a deviance for practical reasons

was difficult. It took me some years to convince Holiday Inns that, since in those days most Indian

“Another good thing that came out of this ill-fated venture was that we were introduced to Swami Muktananada. He was the spiritual leader who laid the foundation stone of Holiday Inn, Bombay and indirectly also laid the foundation of my family’s spiritual welfare and growth.”


travellers who could afford to pay for a hotel room in a Holiday Inn were travelling on business, two

king beds would be a waste of space and of the extra bed. Indian travellers were most unlikely to

require an ice machine or use it even if the hotel had one on each floor as the Holiday Inns standard

decreed – they would simply pick up the phone and demand ice through room service. I did succeed

in adapting some of these brand standards, bringing the Holiday Inn decision makers to understand

that capital items were expensive in India, if at all they were available, and with the shortage of

foreign exchange in those days, importing them was even more expensive. So when the standards

were not serving a purpose and were only adding to the cost of building a hotel, it would be better

to adapt them.

Between 1971 and 1977, I worked hard, providing technical assistance to owners to build Holiday

Inns to the required specifications. Today India is full of franchises from McDonalds and Dunkin

Doughnuts to Dominos, and brands in every area of business, but in the 1970s, franchising was a

radically new concept in India. Holiday Inn, Bombay, was the first hotel to be given permission to

operate as a franchise in India. The arrangement gave potential hotel owners independent control

of their property and they learnt how to build, operate and market a hotel with the help of a foreign

hotel chain for a small fee. My role was to assist them by evaluating the location being considered

and suggest architects, consultants and contractors. I had to help them to conform to the Holiday Inn

standards and guide them on models of equipment that they could import. In those days, India had

very few suppliers of the kind of sophisticated equipment an internationally branded hotel required.

The Holiday Inn standard required beds with a length of 80 inches and a width of 54 inches with spring

mattresses having a coil count of 180. No Indian manufacturer made ice cube machines. We would

also have to import the sophisticated door locks with a master-key arrangement for housekeeping

from Yale, which was represented in India by my friend HR Prasad (later President of Indo American

Chamber of Commerce). We also needed to import kitchen equipment, massage showerheads, air-

conditioning temperature controls and other equipment to meet the Holiday Inn standards. We would

have to contact Krishna Monie, Economic Advisor to the Commercial Attaché of the US Consulate in

Bombay, to help find alternate sources.

I also had to assist the franchisees to obtain financing, sit in on the selection of senior management,

help with promotion to travel agents in different countries and thorough inspections, in addition to

handholding them through the critical opening period.

Being associated with Holiday Inns was a prestigious matter in India. In 1971, I was invited by the

Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India to make a joint presentation of Holiday Inns

with the visiting Vice President Asia Pacific, Bill Ingram at their convention in Mahabalipuram. I was

elated to be received with just as much respect as was given to Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi.

The first Holiday Inn to come up in India was in 1975, in Agra, facing the Taj Mahal. Neither the

principal owner, HL Khanna, nor his partners, had knowledge of the hospitality industry. I helped them

find an experienced architect, Soumitro Bose; ensured that all construction standards of the chain

were followed, assisted in planning, equipping and furnishing the hotel, recruiting management staff;

and pre-selling the hotel after assisting in the design of publicity brochures. I got the distinctive green

Holiday Inn sign duplicated in India by my friend Lalit Soi of Bombay Neon. We were honoured when

the President of India, Dr Zakir Hussain, inaugurated the hotel for us.

Making a presentation to possible investors in the proposed Holiday Inn Hyderabad. Seated to my right is Bhupen Dalal (later a board member on our company); on his right the co-promoter of Holiday Inn Hyderabad, Ghevarchand Jain.

“I did succeed in adapting some of these brand standards, bringing the Holiday Inn decision makers to understand that capital items were expensive in India, if at all they were available, and with the shortage of foreign exchange in those days, importing them was even more expensive.”


India’s first Holiday Inn did extremely well as in those days there was just one other five-star hotel

in Agra, the Clark’s Shiraz. Sadly, HL Khanna met a premature death. His brother, RK Khanna, was

President of the All India Lawn Tennis Association and did not have any interest in hotels. He sold it

to an industrialist, Raunaq Singh. They were unable to manage and eventually the hotel was acquired

by the Taj Group which renamed the property Taj View and later The Gateway Hotel.

I did succeed in putting the Holiday Inn flag on a five-star hotel in Madras. The franchise was issued

to TT Vasu, scion of the TTK Group. Vasu had a good business foundation and entrepreneurial spirit.

One of his pioneering ventures was to set up a luxury hotel in Madras. We opened the Holiday

Inn, Adyar Park in 1976. Later that year the Holiday Inn on Juhu beach was launched and though

I no longer had a stake in it I am proud to have been instrumental in building what is even today

considered one of Mumbai’s best planned hotels.

Sadly, TT Vasu was unable to find investors. Obtaining trained staff turned out to be a problem

although the dynamic Pashi Ahuja did a good job in increasing the hotel’s banquet sales. TT Vasu

had to give up his shares and ultimately sold out to a distributor of ITC, who handed it over to ITC on a

management contract and the hotel was renamed Sheraton. Today, it is called the Crowne Plaza and

is one of the premier hotels in Chennai.

The fourth Holiday Inn which was planned during my tenure was in Banjara Hills in Hyderabad. Mr GV

Krishna Reddy and his partner, Ghevarchand Jain, were chosen to be franchisees and I helped them

to build the hotel. I also accompanied the promoters to meetings with financial institutions, to provide

the assurance that there was an international hotel chain providing technical services and assistance.

Before it could be commissioned, Mr Reddy opted out of the company. This hotel is now operated by

the Taj Group under the name Taj Banjara.

While these four properties were under construction, it was also my pleasant duty, as Representative,

Holiday Inns Inc., to conduct roadshows pre-selling them to international tour operators with slide

Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI)convention at which we also promotedthe Holiday Inns hotels. Jyoti Khanna,Managing Director, Yeti Travels, the largesttravel agency in Nepal. Third is Vinoo Ubhayakar (MD Tradewings), Adi Katgara (MD TCI), Uday Kotak (Partner TCI), me, Ravi Ghai (owner of the hotel, Rama International, where the convention was held.) Aurangabad, 1976

presentations held at Holiday Inn Hotels in Singapore, Tokyo, London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Milan,

New York, Chicago and other world capitals, inviting tour operators and travel agents whose

names were provided to me by the tourist offices of the Government of India in these cities.

In 1971, I had been approached by the now legendary Ajit Kerkar, to convince Holiday Inns to

collaborate with the Tatas. He offered that all the hotels that would be built by the Tatas in India,

with the single exception of the Taj in Bombay, would be called Holiday Inn. I sent the proposal to

the Chairman of Holiday Inns. Unfortunately, Holiday Inns had a policy which did not allow them

to tie up with companies owning other hotels, and rejected the proposal. Today Ajit Kerkar is

admired as the person responsible for turning a single loss-making property, the Taj Mahal Hotel

“Later that year the Holiday Inn on Juhu beach was launched and though I no longer had a stake in it I am proud to have been instrumental in building what is even today considered one of Mumbai’s best planned hotels.”


in Bombay, into a reputed international chain with palace hotels,

beach hotels and others. It’s amusing to think that all of these

would have been Holiday Inns if that first proposal had been

accepted!

Another encounter with a legend was with Prem Kapur, president

of ITC’s hotel division when Ajit Haksar was chairman. Prem and

I stayed in touch and recently connected again at a Wharton

alumni get-together at Taj Mahal Mumbai. At the time, ITC had

just purchased their first hotel in Madras and proposed a tie-up

with Holiday Inns if I could offer them exclusivity for all of India.

I explained that this would not be possible as the agreement for

Holiday Inn, Bombay, had already been signed. They later got

the exclusivity for India that they wanted from Sheraton, and this

lasted for three decades.

Converting a hotel was a challenge, as Holiday Inns had very

specific construction standards to which a hotel had to conform

from size of rooms to the furniture and equipment. In Calcutta I

met the owner of the Hindustan International, Mr L Jaiswal, and he

invited me to inspect his hotel in Calcutta, but it was not suitable

for conversion. Venturing into other countries in the region had its

own share of stories. In 1976, I had discussions with the owners

of the Annapurna Hotel in Kathmandu. They were relatives of the

royal family and wanted to convert their hotel into a Holiday Inn

but here too the conversion could not be recommended as it did

not meet the fire and life safety standards prescribed. Later they

made an arrangement with the Taj Group to manage the hotel.

Then there was the head of the Bangladesh Parjattan Corporation,

who wanted me to put up Holiday Inns in Dhaka, Chittagong

and Cox’s Bazaar, but wanted equity investment which was not

possible.

Most colourful of all was Sri Lanka – then still known as Ceylon

– where the Director General of Tourism arranged for me to be

driven to Kandy and Trincomalee in his personal car with a trusted

aide showing me sites for a possible Holiday Inn. Cyril Gardner,

French-born American actor who owned the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo, was keen to get a Holiday

Inn tie-up which I could not offer due to the hotel’s wooden floors.

There was in fact already a Holiday Inn in Colombo. However, the owner stoutly refused to rectify

the deficiencies pointed out by Rudiger Koppen, Senior Vice President of Holiday Inns and head of

the Asia Pacific region, based in Hong Kong. Mr Koppen wanted to withdraw the franchise. When he

visited Colombo, his baggage had been mishandled and he refused to make any further trips there.

Holiday Inns assigned me to take over the territory and find a way to fix the problem. It was hard

not to notice that, every time I inspected the property, I would be assigned room 617 and no other.

So it wasn’t surprising to discover that there was not a single other room in the hotel which had the

required blackout curtains, mattresses of the tensile strength specified by the Holiday Inn standard,

nonslip bathtubs and so on. There were also several deficiencies in the kitchen and other areas. I

met the owner, a prominent Sri Lankan politician, who asked for time to buy the items specified as

the country had limited foreign exchange for import for hotels. I explained to Memphis headquarters

that this gentleman was never going to allow anyone to take away the Holiday Inn ‘Great Sign’ on the

hotel and it would continue to be called a Holiday Inn even if the license was revoked and they would

also not receive franchise fees. They took my advice and the hotel continued as a Holiday Inn until

2010, when it converted into a ‘Ramada’ brand.

In 1974, Holiday Inns Inc. appointed me to the International Association of Holiday Inns (IAHI), and I

was provided a first class ticket from Bombay to Memphis every three months to attend its meetings.

This committee consisted of the largest licensees of Holiday Inns and corporate officers of Holiday

Inns Inc. One of the objectives was to jointly decide how funds collected from the license holders

would be spent. I was able to put in a request that part of the funds collected from South Asia should

be spent on advertising and sales promotion within South Asia itself.

It was during this period that I saw a major change take place within Holiday Inns management.

Partly this happened because times were changing. There was more competition. Kemmons Wilson

was not a person who conducted surveys or market research. His business decisions were made on

instinct. A time came when this was no longer possible. Holiday Inns were setting standards – and

the franchisees were finding them impractical.

Holiday Inns had a large number of hotels but only a fraction of these were owned by the

corporation themselves. Most were owned by franchisees, and representatives were selected from

different regions. It was at this time that one of the larger owners of franchises, Roy Winegardner,

began opposing Kemmons Wilson’s policies and eventually became Chairman, Holiday Inns. Roy

Winegardner hired a Harvard lawyer, Michael D Rose, to protect his interests. I was designated

Managing Director, India and chosen to report to him. We got along well. Many years later, in 1997, Prakash Mehta and his wife Ela, myself and Meena, Vasantlal Mehta (Prakash’s father) atHotel Airport Plaza, December 1988.


he was President of Harrahs Casinos and I met him as he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame

in Las Vegas. He helped me in my discussions for a casino tie-up with Harrahs, and also agreed to

write a recommendation letter for my son’s admission to Cornell Hotel School. I was sad to hear that

he passed away in 2017 at age seventy-five.

They merged Holiday Inns with the UK beer giant Bass International. They hired Laurence Geller and

Eric Bernard to conduct a massive cost-cutting operation. And – one of the heads to roll was mine. In

February 1977, I received a call from Mr Geller, asking me to fly to London to meet him in his office at

the Holiday Inn just outside Heathrow. He informed me that he had just completed the one-thousand

room Forum Hotel at Earls Court in London. Barely pausing to take the next breath, he informed me

that Holiday Inns no longer required my services. With immediate effect. It was a terrible shock as I

had not been expecting it at all. I knew that people who were seen as Kemmons Wilson men were

being let go – but I also knew that Mike Rose had great confidence in me. They had been swayed by

Rudiger Koppen who had long been negotiating to rule India from his Hong Kong office.

When I tried to reason with Mr Geller he said, and these are words I have never been able to forget:

“I could not care less if you get run over by a bus as soon as you leave this office”. I was shattered.

This blow could not have come at a worse time, as my wife was expecting our second child in a few

months.

As the shock wore away and I started thinking about how I was going to support my family without

any income, I realized that there was in fact a wonderful silver lining that I had been neglecting all this

while. There was the second hotel project I had invested in when I first came to India, and which I had

left to others to run because I had been busy with building the Holiday Inn brand across South Asia.

It was now time to take stock, get involved and start growing my own business.

Hotels I have helped to build

in India and Sri Lanka

George FallsI think about Sunder every time I hear the word India. It was always great to see his smiling face come through the doors at Holiday

Inns, Inc. He got Holiday Inns off to a good, solid start in India. There were always obstacles, but he seemed to know how to make

things happen in a positive way. We had some memorable accomplishments and had a good time doing it, as I recall.

George E Falls is former Senior Vice President, International Franchise Development at Holiday Inns Inc. and presently runs a

boutique hotel, The River Inn, on the Mississippi.

Clockwise:top right: Ramada Renaissance, Colombo (now called Cinnamon Lake)Bottom left: Holiday Inn, Mumbai (now called Novotel)Bottom right: Holiday Inn, Agra (now called Taj Gateway)


Holiday Inn, Chennai (now Crowne Plaza)

Ramada, Hyderabad (now called The Manohar) Ramada Plaza Palm Grove, Mumbai Ramada, Chennai (now the Trident)

Holiday Inn, Hyderabad (now Taj Banjara)

Airport Plaza, Mumbai (now Orchid)

Holiday Inn, Colombo (now called Ramada) Caravela Beach Resort, Goa (called Ramada Renaissance)

ANOTHER FIRST IN INDIAEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS98 99

ANOTHERFIRST

~ Frank Sinatra ~

Come fly with me, we’ll fly, we’ll fly away

If you can use some exotic booze

There’s a bar in far Bombay

Come on fly with me, we’ll fly, we’ll fly away


previous page • Hotel Airport Plaza, with the flight kitchen seen in the rear. Passengers from the airport stepping out of our hotel coach (another innovation for the time) are seen entering the hotel.facing page • The Plaza Flight Kitchen building and van.

The airport hotel (1975-1988)

In 1969, soon after I moved to India from the US, one of the people our broker Hiro Sadarangani

introduced us to was Bhagwan Shahani, general manager of the popular Ambassador Hotel in

downtown Bombay. This hotel, which had an excellent reputation, was owned by a Greek, Jack

Voyantzis, and Shahani was his righthand man. In fact, Mr Voyantzis was the co-owner, along with RJ

Advani, of Sun n Sand, Bombay’s first five-star beach hotel, too.

In the late 1960s, Voyantzis had a heart attack on the way back to Bombay from Kathmandu, and

passed away. His son John took over and eventually, RJ bought out Sun-n-Sand from him. Shahani,

knowing that his days were numbered, began looking for other opportunities.

Shahani told us that he was looking for partners for a project he was working on. Ambassador Hotel

had been catering for flights of Trans World Airlines (TWA), one of the biggest airlines in those days,

and one of the only two that flew all the way to the US. The food was sent from the hotel kitchen in

Churchgate, to the airport in Santacruz, 26 kilometres away. With Bombay heat and traffic – in those

days India did not have refrigerated vans – this was not an ideal situation, for reasons of health and

hygiene even more than for the logistics involved. Shahani had managed to negotiate an agreement

with TWA to put up a loan of USD200,000 to build a hotel near the airport where the flight crew

could stay and where the food for the flights could be cooked. He was going to invest some of his

own money, and he was looking for a partner who would put up the rest. Shahani took me to see the

plot, 4000 square yards of road-facing land a five-minute walk from the airport building. Towards the

rear stood a photo album factory which the owners had shut down, and they now wished to sell the

plot. We climbed to the top of the two-storey building and the airport runway could be seen, almost

at our feet! It was a fantastic location for an airport hotel. With the international airlines operating their

flights out of Bombay late at night or in the early hours of morning, the potential for an airport hotel

was tremendous.

In the 1970s, when India was still seen as a land of infectious disease, and had just a few international flights from Santa Cruz airport, we started Bombay’s first airport flight kitchen and India’s first airport hotel. I had expected my father to fund my businesses but the entire sum of capital I ever received from him was INR600,000, negligible in relation to the size of projects I undertook.


Flight kitchens are highly specialized operations and things have to be done in the right sequence.top • A ramp is being used at the flight kitchen to load trolleys from the kitchen to the van, and will be used to load the aircraft. Later we purchased hi-lifts with a fork-lift mechanism which were used instead of the van. Trolleys that come off a flight have to be kept sequestered from fresh food prepared in another part of the kitchen. Temperatures have to be carefully controlled, and meat and marine products had to be strictly separated. Meat and dairy products can easily cause food poisoning and need to be handled with special care. We had a laboratory on the premises, and a microbiologist who would do random tests on raw materials, product being processed and finished products.above • The gantry feeding dishes into the dishwasher at our flight kitchen. I had learnt the conveyor belt technique in my days in Wilmington. We also used a conveyor belt to put items ( jam, butter, salt, pepper, croissant, cup, sugar and so on) on moving trays, which would be served to passengers.

1969 Plaza Flight Kitchen. Showing our dishwashing area to the President of International Hotel Association, Barak Hirschowitz, who came from Paris to the hotel convention in Delhi.

One of the first things I did during this time was to visit the Oberoi

flight kitchen in Delhi. I was impressed to see its state-of-the art

equipment and efficient operations. It was reassuring to know

that it was possible to have a flight kitchen in India. The foreign

exchange shortage meant that imports were prohibited. We found

that a US company, Bechtel, had completed an atomic power station

project in Bombay and were closing their canteen and selling the

kitchen equipment. When I tried to bid for the equipment, I learnt

that TWA had signed an agreement for the flight kitchen – but not

with Shahani. The agreement had been signed with Ambassador

Hotel. The hotel had changed hands, and it was the new owners,

the Narang family, who would be allowed to buy the equipment. I

realised that TWA would not be buying from us – they would buy

from Ambassador.

Shahani, having lost his job with Ambassador, had taken a position

as general manager of a new hotel, President, which our partners,

the Nagpal brothers, were building at Cuffe Parade in South Bombay.

Once again, I was in the minority – with only 40 percent to their joint

60, it was they who would be controlling all major decisions.

I was stunned – but what could I do? And the fact is, Shahani seemed

quite complacent. He went ahead and purchased dishwashers,

ovens and other equipment for the flight kitchen from Natsteel, an

Indian manufacturer. Despite the early disappointment, we were

able to get quite a few customers of our own and began providing

catering services to all flights of Czechoslovakia Airlines, Kuwait

Airways, Gulf Air, Alitalia, Aeroflot, Garuda Indonesian and Indian

Airlines. However, the margins were low due to competition.

While I was involved in acquiring new customers for our flight

kitchen, and making sure that we maintained hygiene standards, I

was busy with Holiday Inns and the operations of the flight kitchen

were left to Mr Shahani. The business was growing – but we were

barely covering costs. It was essential to move on to the next phase,

which held much greater promise: constructing our airport hotel. In

1972, we started planning Airport Plaza, a centrally air-conditioned

four-star hotel, in a ground-plus-three storey building with a coffee

Today it is hard to think back to this time – when there was no airport hotel

anywhere in India. I am proud to say that we were the first. And, at the time, I

was absolutely sure that we just could not go wrong with this. We would start

by converting the photo album factory into a flight kitchen. Most foreign airlines

carried frozen food, but were conscious of the need for proper on-board meals.

With Shahani’s team of superlative chefs from East Bengal, and TWA as our first

client, the business could only grow and grow. Once we got the flight kitchen

running, it would be a short step to putting up our airport hotel and once that

came up – never-ending prosperity would be ours! With a sense of strong

confidence, I put up INR300,000 to become a 40 percent shareholder of a new

company, Plaza Hotels Private Limited. Shahani contributed 20 percent, and

brought another investor on board. These were the Nagpal brothers, Lalchand

and Rajkumar, from a very respectable family of Shikarpur, Sindh. The remaining

40 percent was given to them.


shop, a bar, a multi-purpose shop and fifty-four guest rooms with attached bathrooms. We also

planned to have an unfinished shell with provision for another twenty-seven such guest rooms in the

next phase. I ensured that our architect designed Airport Plaza Hotel according to global construction

standards, and was confident that we could build the hotel at an optimum INR25,000 per room.

Hurdles As we geared up for construction, a series of completely unexpected obstacles reared themselves,

one more ugly and challenging than the next. The first was the rejection of our loan application. We

had been confident of receiving the loan – without which we could not proceed, as none of us had

funds to invest. GL Raheja, an adviser to the Maharashtra State Finance Corporation (MSFC) had

inspected the site and the detailed plan. He had approved the project and assured us that there was

no reason why the loan of INR750,000 would not be granted. It was a shock when it was rejected (a

reduced loan was granted later, in the mid-1970s).

I tried my best but was unable to find a bank willing to finance a project to build a hotel in what was

then seen as a backward and undeveloped area of our city. Once again, Shahani worked his magic.

He introduced Mr Bachubhai, a contractor who offered that for a lumpsum of INR1,350,000 he would

take the responsibility of completing the hotel to our specifications on a turnkey basis, with centralized

air-conditioning, lifts, plumbing, electrical fittings and furniture and fixtures. I believe that this was the

first hotel built on a turnkey basis in India. We engaged the reputable structural engineering company

Hadker Prabhu & Associates to carry out the necessary soil testing for the pile foundations. I gave

Bachubhai our requirements, and left it to Shahani to see that they were met.

above • Reception of Hotel Airport Plazatop • The lobby and entrance to the coffee shop of Hotel Airport Plaza. 1977

“When the contractor handed over possession of the hotel, we were horrified to find inferior quality in every aspect.”

Our problems were far from over. Out of the blue, an official letter

arrived from the Ministry of Civil Aviation of India, informing us that

our property would need to be requisitioned for expansion of the

airport. The letter also stated that our hotel would be a hazard

for approaching airplanes as it was in the aircraft funnel zone, a

controlled airspace around every airport, where high-rise buildings

are banned. We flew into a panic and discussed the possibilities

endlessly.

Leslie Timmins, Airport Director of Bombay Airport at the time,

confirmed that our proposed hotel was not in the funnel to be a

hazard for approaching aircrafts. He suggested that we request for

a survey team to conduct a theodolite test at our site to verify his

opinion. I consulted my uncle, Gurbux ‘George’ Hingorani, Chief

Engineer in the Central Public Works Department and who had

been responsible for building many of the airports in India. Bhagwan

Gidwani, Director General of Civil Aviation in New Delhi, sent a

team with a theodolite specialist to Bombay, and they certified that

a building with a maximum height of 50 feet would not pose any

hazard, and our project was cleared. We modified the construction

as required, and the acquisition notice was removed. However, our

problems were still far from over!

When the contractor handed over possession of the hotel, we

were horrified to find inferior quality in every aspect. Having left the

inspections to Shahani, it never occurred to me that a specification

for a mirror in every bathroom would be interpreted as one 1’x1’

in size! There were hot and cold water taps in every basin – but

no mixer! Each room had two small cots instead of proper beds –

unacceptable! I insisted on mattresses with coil springs – and he

said we would have to pay extra for that. The list went on and on.

The expense to rectify these inadequacies was considerable. He

did not provide items of furniture required in a transit type of hotel.

He made a bill of extra items, which included an unreasonably large

amount to provide much needed double-glazed windows – two

separate frames of thicker glass with a gap of 6 inches between

them – to prevent aircraft noise from disturbing the guests.


above • Lights beneath and strobes on the ceiling as you dance – the most swinging technology of the time!top • The entrance to our discotheque, Take Off. Though we were an airport hotel, our take-offs symbolized rockets, as you can see on the door!

Shahani, who had been entrusted with the task of ensuring

that Bachubai met our specifications, stayed away from these

discussions. We had no choice but to arrange money to pay

for the new demands that went far beyond our budget. I wrote

to my father asking him for funds without which we would

not be able to complete the hotel. My father responded by

sending us Sachanand Lakhwani, a young man who along with

his father Gagumal had recently migrated to Bombay, and was

looking for a business to invest in. After some discussion, they

decided to invest in our company, along with a Mrs Tourani,

(whose daughter Sachanand was to marry). Lakhwani, a canny

businessman with an eye for minor detail, soon noticed certain

things which disturbed him and began to take action as he

thought fit.

Our four-star Hotel Airport Plaza eventually opened its doors in

1975, with fifty-four rooms, and a room rate of INR77 plus taxes.

Rooms began to fill fast, right from the word ‘go’. Demand was

huge – but now a new problem arose. The Nagpal brothers

began suggesting that we give our flight kitchen and hotel to

the Taj Group on a management contract. Some time before

this, the Nagpals had lost confidence in Shahani. They had

entered the hotel business with every intention of controlling

their own hotels but were now negotiating with the Taj to take

over the management of their other venture, President Hotel.

It was clear they did not wish to invest any more capital in the

business. In 1975, they filed a suit against Plaza Hotels Private

Limited for mismanagement because we continued to refuse

to agree to their proposal.

In 1979, the Bombay High Court ruled that there was no

mismanagement whatsoever. The ruling included the

suggestion that if the Nagpal brothers wished to exit the

company, they could sell their shares to the other partners,

which they did.

We had struggled a lot during the years after I left Holiday

Inns and for quite a while it felt that we were on the verge of

bankruptcy. 1979 onwards gave us a small window of prosperity,

as business at Hotel Airport Plaza boomed. The international

airports of Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai and Hyderabad were still

several years in the future and the entire traffic of Indian workmen

contributing to building the countries around the Persian Gulf were

flying out of Bombay. A large number arrived in Bombay in transit

and we provided accommodation for a few hours to each of these

passengers and the same room was often used more than once

in a day. We had an extremely competent airport representative,

Meera Advani. She developed a good relationship with the airline

managers and kept in touch with them several times a day, and

if at any point she found there was a flight delay, she would see

that the transit passengers were brought to our hotel for a meal. I

also negotiated successfully to host airline crews, and this was also

a lucrative business. Meera’s skills were extraordinary – and even

today, she continues to be our airport representative, facilitating

journeys for us and our important guests.

The demand for rooms was so high that we were able to achieve

annual occupancies of 125 percent and this continued even after

the additional twenty-seven rooms had been furnished. The flight

kitchen business was stable too. One of its side benefits was the

free tickets we were routinely issued by our airline customers to

European capitals, and these provided me and my family with some

memorable holidays during which I was also able to attend trade

fairs and do business too. I remember one year Aeroflot offered us

tickets to Moscow and I said, “No thank you, I don’t want to go to

Moscow, I want to go to London!” So they kindly routed my ticket

Bombay-Moscow, Moscow-London and back. Little did I know that

a time would come when I would travel to Moscow twice a year

to attend the trade fairs there – because the Russians were the

largest customers of our hotel in Goa!

One of the first things I did after the Holiday Inn separation was to

open a discotheque at Airport Plaza. We called it Take Off and hired

two youngsters, Andre Timmins and Viraf Sarkari as disc jockey

above • The classification committee of the Tourism Ministry inspecting the hotel swimming pool and jacuzzi. Our partner Lakhwani can be seen extreme left, with his hand in his pocket.top • The hotel’s swimming pool, with its open-air jacuzzi on the left. Ours may have been a transit hotel – but that didn’t stop us from providing our guests with luxury facilities! This was imported from Singapore and was so rare and unheard of in India at the time that the company sent a man to install and train us on maintenance. December 28, 1982


“I got a glass floor installed in our disco, modelled on the one in a superhit film that had just recently released, ‘Saturday Night Fever’. It was made of thick crinkled glass and all lit up with lights underneath which would change in intensity with the music – the dancers would go berserk!”

Honeymoon suite at Hotel Airport Plaza

Very soon they were wreaking havoc in Plaza Hotels Private Limited. Our labour consultant took me

to Shiv Sena Bhavan many times to try to resolve the matter.

My daily routine at this time resembles a horror story. There were many days on which I left home

at 4am to do spot checks and supervise loading of the trays with airline food. In this environment of

rioting labour, I was constantly fearful of deliberate contamination which could result in food poisoning.

Another big risk arose because the airline food trolleys were transported from the aircrafts to our

flight kitchen and could easily be misused by loading staff in connivance with cabin attendants, to

smuggle liquor, watches or other contraband items. There were cases of airline managers being

arrested on such charges and I had no wish to be implicated.

I was also trying to control the labour situation, refusing to let the union leaders dictate terms, and

this led them to frighten me with continuous threats. One day, the union president claimed to have

found a hair in the staff food and called for an all-out strike. I said, “It is your own union employee who

has made the food. If he put a hair in there, how is it the management’s fault?” I suspended the union

leaders, both president and vice president, and told them they were welcome to go to court because

I knew that we were in the right. This led to large-scale hooligan assaults on our hotel premises.

Right through this period, our hotel occupancy remained high. The locality was not developed and

people arriving in Bombay relied on local taxis to drive them from the airport to where they wanted

to go. On days when a ‘bandh’ or general strike had been called, our hotel was close enough for

passengers to walk to. The hotel buses which brought guests to and from the airport had to run with

wire guards fixed to all the windows and doors. Bombay’s inimitable police commissioner of the time,

Julio Ribeiro, had arranged for police security at the hotel. We also obtained a court injunction which

specified that the trouble makers were forbidden within 300 metres of the hotel. So on some days

they would be waiting at the 300-metre limit, and as the bus approached they would charge it with

aggressive chants and threats to attack it. They threatened to kidnap my children. Meena’s mother

went every day to drop the children at school and pick them up.

and night manager respectively. My cousin Hotu joined us as

manager. Andre was an artist who worked, at a time decades

before digital music, with two turntables so that there would

be no break in the music, and played the crowd to perfection.

In 1977, Bombay had just one other five-star discotheque –

Blow Up, at the Taj. I got a glass floor installed in our disco,

modelled on the one in a superhit film that had just recently

released, ‘Saturday Night Fever’. It was made of thick crinkled

glass and all lit up with lights underneath which would change

in intensity with the music – the dancers would go berserk!

Neil Armstrong had just landed on the moon and just because

we were close to the airport didn’t mean we were going to

restrict ourselves to ordinary aircraft! Our logo was designed

to resemble a moon rocket, and we got posters of the moon

landing from the USIS and displayed the transparencies in the

windows.

Take Off was inaugurated by the actress Sarika. The

discotheque did good business too. In 1980 we renovated it

and added the Red Baron bar which was separated from the

discotheque by a glass wall. This created the illusion of being

inside the disco, but conversation was possible as the glass

wall insulated the sound of the music. This was inaugurated by

the actress Simi Garewal. The discotheque was partly inspired

by my own passion for the latest music. I thoroughly enjoyed

creating the specialized additions, and had them engineered

using the most modern technology. The customer joy and

loyalty they brought were, of course, the ultimate reward.

Through the early 1980s, the hotel continued to make good

profits, but there was also big trouble brewing. It was a difficult

time for any business in Bombay which employed a large

workforce. Between our flight catering unit and the hotel, we

had more than three hundred employees. This formed a ripe

ground for labour unions and we had two. One, by the Bharati

Kamgar Sena was for employees of the flight kitchen, and the

other controlled by the Shiv Sena for our hotel employees.


Shahani in the meanwhile was orchestrating dissent between the partners and this became easier

because of the difficult situation we were facing. Mrs Tourani kept changing sides. When her son, a

businessman in Dubai, lost everything due to the Gulf War, she tried to co-opt him into the business.

My brother Haresh, too, left Dubai around the same time, and joined us in 1982. We introduced him as

Director, Plaza Hotels, in place of Meena. The other three directors were Lakhwani, Mrs Tourani, and

Shahani. I was designated Chairman & Managing Director and Mr Lakhwani was given the title of Joint

Managing Director to reduce Mr Shahani’s role. Haresh was a highly-educated hotel management

professional and he came with certain ideas and standards of how a good hotel should be run.

Lakhwani and Tourani were culturally very different. At our 1984 AGM, it was Haresh’s turn to retire

and be reappointed – but in an underhand move, he was voted out by our partners.

I had anticipated that things may not go smoothly and had invited our lawyer and family friend Vasantlal

Mehta to attend this AGM. When the meeting got over, Vasantbhai called for the shareholders’

agreement he had drafted for us at the start of the investment by Lakhwani and Tourani. While waiting

for Meena to send it to us, Vasantbhai called our secretary and started dictating. The High Court

petition he dictated that day from memory covered every single point of the agreement prepared a

few years previously! It was finalized and served by a court bailiff to the homes of each of our partners,

and on Monday morning we received a Stay Order. This eventually turned the tables in the litigation.

With all the civic strife compounded by the internal conflict, day-to-day management of the hotel

became a little lax. One day, Andre and Viraf, in the course of their duties, became inebriated and

threw some flowerpots into the swimming pool. Next day I was informed and had no choice but

to summarily dismiss them. These days, I occasionally bump into Andre and he will always thank

me for having let them go that day. If I hadn’t, he says to me with a smile, they would not never

“Vasantbhai called our secretary and started dictating. The High Court petition he dictated that day from memory covered every single point of the agreement prepared a few years previously!”

Prakash Mehta:Sunder, Meena and Haresh have given their lives to bring the hotel to where it is today, a debt-free company that is substantially

profitable. But it has always been a struggle, right from the start. I’ve seen Sunder facing enormous obstacles and the enormous

efforts he has made to ensure that things turn out the way he conceptualizes, doing everything that needs to be done and travelling

continuously when required. There are some entrepreneurs who work on a quid pro quo with the licensing authorities, but Sunder

is an ethical businessman and he believes in cultivating relationships and encouraging the authorities to follow the path of reason

and the greater good. In terms of the day-to-day running of the business, he will not let anything get past him. Whether he finds

something going wrong or whether he makes a decision to get something done – he will go to the nth degree of effort and conclude

it successfully.

have started their own company, Wizcraft. And Wizcraft would never

have gone on to become India’s first premium event management

and brand management company – as it did. Andre has kindly given

me complimentary front-row seats at his premium and very enjoyable

events more than once!

All through this time, I never changed my polite communication with

Mrs Tourani and continued to greet her and speak to her with the

respect I had always shown. Eventually, she realized that she was

being manipulated and understood who the culprits were. With her

and me controlling the company, our legal expenses were borne by

Plaza Hotels, while Shahani and Lakhwani had to pay their own. When

I said I wanted to sell out, they refused, claiming that they had invested

to build a base for their grandchildren and so on. By about 1986, we

had started getting offers – but by now none of us trusted the other!

And it was at this point that Vithal Kamat came on the scene.

In his autobiography, ‘Idli, Orchid and Willpower’, Vithal Kamat writes

that he heard from a senior official at the Reserve Bank of India that

our hotel was up for sale. This person apparently promised to see

that the RBI sanction, which was apparently necessary to make the

sale, was not issued to us until he had raised the funds to do so. To

my knowledge, there was no need of RBI permission whatsoever

Meena’s mother Hari and her father Manoharlal Hingorani, my father Gurdas and my mother Rukmani with my daughter Lalita sitting on a rock. Juhu beach, Bombay, 1987


– however, Vithal Kamat writes that, with this assurance given to him, he began his campaign to

purchase Airport Plaza.

Vithal Kamat began visiting each of us individually, and every Sunday morning, he would send us

hot idli, delicious and soft, with sambar and chutney. None of us knew that he was visiting the others

too, and each of us grew to like him. All of us confided in him. And he had the skill to take all

the disagreements and suspicions into account, and engineer an agreement that was favourable

to all. Being a distress sale, all we got in hand amounted to INR80 million to be shared between us.

Over time, Vithal Kamat pulled down the existing hotel and flight kitchen, and on the same premises

constructed the 250-room five-star Orchid Hotel which he refers to in his book as an ‘Ecotel’.

It was 1988 when we finally exited Plaza Hotels Private Limited, and we invested our share in our next

project, one of the earliest five-star hotels in Goa, the Ramada Renaissance Resort.

When I needed youThrough every financial crisis of my life, and there were quite a few, I would always regret that my

father was not providing the support I expected. When I was building the Holiday Inn in Juhu, funds

would have made things so much easier! Even at Airport Plaza, we would not have needed to take on

partners if we had access to funds.

My parents loved Bombay – it was the place of their dreams. When I did come to live in Bombay in

1969 and started putting down roots, I tried to convince them to leave Karachi but they stayed put.

When I needed money to invest in Holiday Inn, and later for the flight kitchen and Airport Plaza –

there was almost none forthcoming. The entire sum of capital I ever received from my father was

INR600,000. It amounted to very little indeed, almost nothing, in relation to the size of projects

I had undertaken. However, as my father aged, he did not want to leave his home or the wealth

and prestige he had built. I tried my best to convince him that it was a mistake to live in Karachi,

a place where there was no rule of law. In India, things often get murky but there is always recourse

to the law.

Meena, Afsana (Uncle Bhagwan Shivdasani’s granddaughter), Popri, Uncle Hira Shivdasani. My parents’ home in Juhu, c1987.

“It was 1988 when we finally exited Plaza Hotels Private Limited, and we invested our share in our next project, one of the earliest five-star hotels in Goa, the Ramada Renaissance Resort.”


It was 1986 when my parents finally moved to Bombay. By now

they had had no chance but to leave everything behind. At first

we bought a flat for them in Juhu but when my father’s health

began to deteriorate, Haresh and I rented a flat for them on

Altamount Road.

My father was constantly coming up with new ideas. His most

creative time was between 5 and 7 in the morning, and he

kept a writing pad at his bedside to note down his ideas. He

continued to enjoy a game of rummy, and would drive the car

himself even at the age of ninety, and take my mother for a spin

every evening. This was the person who, as he once told me

– had lain on a highway in Turkey in a road accident, thinking

that he would not make it back – but he did. The neighbours

loved him – our flat overlooked the ocean and he would sit

in the balcony and share pakodas with them every evening!

My son too visited them often and still fondly remembers the

stories his grandfather told him.

Proud parents of a baby girl, Lalita and a new baby on the way in May 1977.

Blessed with two lovely childrenOne of the greatest delights of my life has been my family. Ever

since I got married, my wife Meena has been the greatest support

in my work. She has shared every burden and never complained,

and we have fought all our battles together. Right from the very

beginning, we faced huge difficulties in our business and Meena

was always holding the fort in the background. I had to travel often

and she was always there to see to things.

Our daughter, Lalita, was born on April 5, 1974 and that was the most

special day of our lives. At work, I was dealing with the fact that the

my partner in our hotel in Juhu had suddenly pulled out, leaving me

with nothing. Like her, our son, Prahlad, was also born at the Breach

Candy Hospital. It was May 28, 1977, and my career was going

through an even rougher period. This was the time I was trying to

consolidate my position at the Airport Plaza Hotel and Plaza Flight

Kitchen. I was directly involved in the operations and working extra-

long hours under tremendous stress. All this while, Meena was also

focussed on work. The day-to-day upbringing of our children was

placed in the hands of Meena’s mother, Hari Hingorani. She was

devoted to them and they remained deeply attached to her right to

her last days.

My happiest memories during the children’s school years are the

times when we travelled together. Every summer holiday, they

would accompany us on our annual trips to the US, and we would

invariably celebrate Prahlad’s birthday ‘on the road’. We also toured

Europe together and we would stay at Holiday Inn hotels where I

was provided an employee rate whether in USA, Germany, Austria,

England, France, Belgium or Holland. I have always loved driving

and we used to drive extensively on these holidays in the US and

Europe. I have special memories of a trip when we drove to the

Black Forest in Germany in 1984. Another memorable holiday was

when the children accompanied us to Honolulu where we took

Meena Advani:One thing I always appreciated very much about my in-laws was that they never gossiped about anybody. There was never any

loose talk. When we sat together, we would be talking about how the business was doing and about new opportunities. Sunder’s

mother had brought him up to never be satisfied with just doing things the way everyone was doing them. She would always say, “Do

something new, do something different”, and I have seen that this was Sunder’s intrinsic way of doing things. He always did things

from scratch. All the hotels we ran were built from scratch. And his perseverance has been his strongest quality. Despite the huge

number of disappointments and obstructions he faced, he kept working hard and with enthusiasm.

Family members in my home at Woodlands. Prahlad on Meena’s lap; Jaggy’s wife Anita, Jaggy, my mother, her brother Bhagwan Shivdasani, Bhagwan and Radhika’s granddaughter Afsana, my aunt Radhika, Radhika’s daughter Rani with her baby, and my grandmother Popri. We are all proud of Bhagwan, one of India’s national bridge champions – and his son Jaggy who won the national title at age eighteen, a record that remains unbroken even today. Afsana’s brother, Aftab, is a well-known actor in Hindi films and another source of pride to our family! We were very close and Meena and I both especially remember my aunt Radhika’s kindness and generosity to us when we were first married and had no home of our own in Bombay.


them on a glass-bottom boat to see underwater marine life.

One year, I drove the family from San Francisco to Reno in

Nevada, where they saw snow for the first time and got into

a snowball fight. We also discovered the Cheesecake Factory

together and Prahlad affectionately told me that when he grew

up, he was going to buy a Cheesecake Factory for me. Today,

both the children get very nervous if I ever say “cheesecake”

as they are very concerned about my health!

Lalita and I share a common interest in dancing – she loves to

dance and when she was little, I remember playing some of my

favorite songs and her dancing to them. She also remembers

going to the spectacular dances on Broadway in New York

when we vacationed there. I taught her to play table tennis and

she still enjoys doing so with her husband Vinnie Badinehal,

who is a wonderful and caring person. Like me, Vinnie loves to

listen to Latin music and to dance, and we have seen many fun

jazz and Broadway shows together in New York. He and I also

share an alma mater – the Wharton School of the University of

Pennsylvania.

Lalita left for college after completing her schooling at

the Cathedral & John Connon School in Bombay and

completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees in

the US from Ithaca College and The Chicago Booth School

of Business respectively. She has found a way to make a

difference through her career in corporate philanthropy,

where she oversees grant-making and engages the firm’s

employees to give back to the community in a meaningful way.

She is also a long-term practitioner of yoga and meditation

and Meena and I are so proud of the way she helps others

to weave health and wellbeing practices into their lives.

With Prahlad, one of the striking early memories is of us

realising, with a shock, that he was petting Moti – the tiger in

the Delhi Zoo! As a toddler, we had to watch him very carefully

as he would fearlessly put his hands through the bars to

stroke the animals in their cages. His passion and deep love for animals grew and he spent time

learning about them and interacting with them. As he grew older, he began volunteering with various

animal welfare NGOs and personally rescued many injured animals of all types and nursed them

back to health. Today, he spends a significant part of his personal time and wealth in taking care of

abandoned dogs. Along with various NGOs, he has facilitated the sterilisation and vaccination of at

least two hundred animals over the years. In Goa, he arranges for all the stray dogs on the beach

to be neutered, vaccinated, bathed and fed from the waste in the hotel butchery and the staff

cafeteria dustbin.

top • On a sightseeing boat in Amsterdam, celebrating Prahlad’s birthday when he turned six.bottom • My family, just as we board a glass-bottomed boat and feast our eyes on the coral reefs. Honolulu, 1987

Our family in Honolulu, wearing the Hawaiian flower garland known as leis.


I remember our pet dog Snoopy, and later a pair called

Pinky and Kalu, whom Prahlad was deeply attached to. Their

unconditional love was a great strength to him and he nursed

them in their last years with utmost care and dedication. If

anyone is sick, Prahlad is the person you would want around,

as he will do everything to nurse them back to health!

Prahlad has been drawn to spirituality, philosophy and God ever

since he entered tenth grade and as he grew older, he studied

about Kashmir-Shaivism through the teachings and writings

of Bhagawan Nityananda, Swami Muktananda, and Gurumayi

Chidvilasananda. However, till Prahlad was fourteen, he was

very mischievous. He would imitate all the teachers perfectly

and was the clown of the class and was more interested in

extra-curricular activities than academics. I would counsel

him that if he focussed the same attention on his studies, he

would excel. Upto ninth grade, his teachers complained about

his lack of attention at the Parent Teachers Sessions. Meena

started sending me instead to see if it would have a better

impact on him – and it did!

Prahlad did very well in his tenth grade ICSE exam in 1993,

and wanted to choose Science rather than Commerce, as

he wanted to be a veterinarian and take care of homeless

animals. I was concerned as I felt that this career path might

leave him poor and homeless (in those days not many in India

had pets and vets did not earn much). I managed to convince

Prahlad to focus on business, so that he would be able to

donate to animal causes and help many more animals in the

long run. The higher goal of helping animals propelled him to

study hard.

In 1995, Prahlad was admitted to the Cornell University School

of Hotel Administration, and graduated with a Distinction and

a Concentration in Finance in May 1999. He did very well at

Cornell and was influenced by many of his professors who

helped shape his character and made him a better person.

top • Lalita with Bittu Sahgal at the office of his magazine, ‘Sanctuary’. Both Prahlad and Lalita love animals and the environment, and have been very fond of Bittu Sahgal since they were little. Bombay, c1990.above • Meena and Sunder in Rishikesh on the banks of the Ganges.

top • HBS ‘Negotiation Guru’, Deepak Malhotra with Prahlad at his graduation.bottom • Shahna & Prahlad on their wedding day.

Some of these are Dennis Ferguson, Richard & Kay Moore, Giuseppe

Pezzotti, Phil & Yasamin Miller, Jack Clark, Bruce Tracey, Steven

Carvell, Jan deRoos, Preston Clark, Mary Tabacchi, Gordon Potter,

Mark Talbert, Reneta Hartmanis, Abby Nash, John Corgel, Craig

Snow, James Eyster, Greg Norkus, Chekitan Dev, Patrick Cullen,

Dean David Dittman and his dear wife Maureen and his role model,

Eric Sinoway. Leaving them was a wrench and Prahlad always says

that his professors were the wind beneath his wings and a part of

his heart will always be with them. Prahlad was Teaching Assistant

for several of them and he really enjoyed teaching. In his senior

year, he was appointed Dean’s Assistant and worked with Dean

David Dittman and hosted all the senior industry personalities who

were invited to speak at the Cornell Hotel School.

Ever since he returned to India to take his place in our family

business in 2000, he has been a great asset to our company and a

great support to Meena and me.

From 2012 to 2014, the company supported Prahlad to attend the

Harvard Business School. His Professors at HBS, Felda Hardymon,

Forest Reinhardt, Deepak Malhotra, John Davis, David Yoffie, and

Josh Lerner were full of praise when I met them at graduation!

Prahlad has primarily been based in Goa. In 2014, Prahlad was

made a director in our company and this was helpful for all of us in

improving the operations.

In November 2012, Prahlad married Shahna, a talented graphic

designer who studied in the Pratt School of Design in New York

and founded her own company, DBar Inc. Ever since she became

part of our family, her design skills have given our company’s

annual reports a rather glamorous look. She has also designed my

business cards and has taken the initiative to improve the hotel

menus and website pro-bono. Shahna has good values and brings

people together. Their son Samir has spent his first four years in

Goa, and they have recently moved to live with us in Bombay.

Samir loves hearing my stories and adventures and comes to my

room each day to give me my vitamins!

PARADISE IN GOAEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS120 121

PARADISEIN GOA

~ Dean Martin ~

When marimba rhythms start to play

Dance with me, make me sway

Like a lazy ocean hugs the shore

Hold me close, sway me more


Too good to be true (1988-2018)

The first time I visited Goa was in 1974, on the invitation of Auduth Timblo. An industrialist from Goa,

he wanted to build a hotel in partnership with Holiday Inns, and Meena and I travelled to Goa to help

him pick a suitable site. He and his wife Anju showed us around and we had three enjoyable days

in the course of which we visited all the prominent beaches of Goa. Holiday Inns was not the right

option for Mr Timblo and some years later he and his wife built their own resort on Vainguinim Beach

not far from Panjim, the capital of Goa.

In 1974, Goa had just one well-known hotel – the modest Mandovi at Panjim. Two five-star hotels were

under construction: Bogmalo Beach Resort being built near the airport by Rajan Kilachand’s company

Tradewings (later sold to my good friend Shailendra Mittal and his family), to be managed by Oberois,

and the Taj Fort Aguada. It was clear that the potential to develop tourism here was tremendous. I felt

overwhelmed by the beautiful beaches of Goa, especially the powder white sands of Colva Beach

in South Goa versus the coarse brown sands of Calangute Beach in North Goa. They were unlike

beaches I had seen anywhere.

Picked by Ramada In 1983, while I was operating the Hotel Airport Plaza, I received an unexpected phone call from Jose

Torres in Phoenix, Arizona, a senior member of the Holiday Inns executive team whom I would meet

at the annual worldwide conferences at Memphis. Jose was of Mexican origin and with his accent

and sense of humour, was the life of these conventions. We had not been in touch for six years but

In this period, I fulfilled my dream of owning a luxury beach hotel with a golf course, and was able to run it successfully in competition against established Indian and international chains which had much greater resources. I also obtained the first casino license in India – still considered an impossible achievement by many – only to exit when our partners let us down and the stakes became murky.


he had obviously kept track of me, and was now calling to get my help to bring Ramada Inc. to India.

Jose was President, International Division of Ramada Worldwide, the second largest hotel chain in

the world, and was on his way to Bombay. When I explained that I was very busy running my own

business, Jose assured me that I would be free to continue doing so and could represent Ramada

as well.

This was not the first time I had been approached by an international brand. In 1977, soon after my

exit from Holiday Inns, Philippe Bourguignon, head of Asia Pacific of Accor Group, visited me with

the intention of developing their brands in India. Unfortunately Mr Bourguignon’s boss developed a

serious toothache and I took him to my dentist who solved his problem (after his initial shock that the

dentist was a woman). They cut their trip short, and I was later invited to their corporate headquarters

in Evry near Paris, France, to continue the discussions. However, I did not feel that their brands were

right for the Indian market at that time.

Jose arrived in Bombay along with a Swiss national by the name of Dan Mosczytz, who was in charge

of Ramada for Europe and Middle East, based in the Geneva office. Jose and I reminisced about our

days with Holiday Inns. As we talked about my doubles partnership with Kemmons Wilson and other

memories, it became clear that Dan knew exactly who I was and what I had achieved for Holiday Inns

in India. They made me a good offer and I appreciated their faith in me as they recognized the value

I had brought to Holiday Inns. Jose informed me that he was no longer the head of the International

Division and that I should visit Ramada’s corporate headquarters in Phoenix to meet his replacement,

Wilfred ‘Bill’ Grau. On this visit, I prepared for Ramada a template franchise agreement that could be

filled in and offered to prospective franchisees, weaving the requirements and limitations imposed

by the Government of India into the standard Ramada terms and conditions. Ramada International

naturally had no idea that the Indian government allowed repatriation of fees only within certain

guidelines. This document, over and above Jose Torres’s recommendation, gave Bill Grau confidence

that I was the right person for the job. My imported business cards and letterheads – at a time when

“As we talked about my doubles partnership with Kemmons Wilson and other memories, it became clear that Dan knew exactly who I was and what I had achieved for Holiday Inns in India.”

printing technology in India was still quite primitive – created quite

an impression when I handed them out. They carried my name with

the title ‘Representative – India of Ramada International’ and later

‘India’ was replaced by ‘South Asia’.

By the time Dan Mosczytz visited Bombay the following year, I

was ready with some good prospects. I introduced him to Peter

Coelho, the main promoter of the Palm Grove Hotel at Juhu Beach.

A substantial share of the hotel belonged to two of the four Raheja

brothers, Gopal and Chandru, among the largest private owners

and developers of land in India’s financial capital. Since they agreed

to carry out suggested modifications, the franchise agreement

for conversion to a Ramada was executed. Ramada Palm Grove

Bombay, inaugurated on April 1, 1986, was the first Ramada in India

and is doing well even today.

top • The opening ceremony of Hotel Ramada Palm Grove. Sushilkumar Shinde (Tourism Minister of Maharashtra), GL Raheja, Peter Coelho, Malcolm Coelho (son of Peter Coelho), Myself, Chandru Raheja. above • Speaking at the occasion. Malcolm Coelho, GL Raheja, Sushilkumar Shinde, Peter Coelho, Chandru Raheja. Bombay, 1986


Another success I had for Ramada was in Sri Lanka. I was familiar with the territory as I travelled there

regularly during my tenure with Holiday Inns from 1972 to 1977. After a gap of six years, I went back

to renew my old contacts and succeeded in obtaining a management contract for Ramada, for a

350-room hotel in Colombo owned by Transasia Corporation, an insurance company that belonged

to the Government of Sri Lanka. In those days, it was not easy for an Indian to get a visa to Sri Lanka!

I resumed my visits to the consulate in Bombay, explaining that I was representing an American

company and it was necessary for me to visit every two or three months to ensure that construction

was in line with Ramada standards and to coordinate with the consultants from UK and Singapore.

There were still no direct flights and you could only get to Colombo from Bombay via Madras or

Trivandrum.

The new Ramada Renaissance (now Hotel Cinnamon Lakeside) Colombo was inaugurated by the

President of Sri Lanka in a grand opening in 1986. I talked to Bill Grau, head of the international

division, about the possibilities for tourism and a successful hotel in Goa. This was the time when

Tamil insurgency against the Sri Lankan government had begun to take an ugly turn and he agreed

that Goa would offer a good alternative destination. The thought stayed in my mind.

In those days, hotel management contracts, an arrangement by which the owners of the hotel appoint

an international chain to manage it, were not permitted by the Indian government. (The first case of a

foreign chain being given management of an Indian hotel was Hyatt Regency, New Delhi in 1983. The

Asian Games were held in Delhi and hotels of international standards were required for the athletes

and visiting foreign heads. At the time, they designated their department heads as ‘consultants’. This

was gradually transformed into a management contract over time).

Unfortunately, besides Ramada Renaissance Goa, I did not have much success with other Ramada

hotels in India. The Ramada Madras started with great promise when L Ganesh Vice Chairman of the

Rane Group signed a franchise agreement for the hotel his company was contemplating at Madras

“In those days, people often tried to set up hotels without an adequate understanding of the capital and staying power required. I have seen quite a few people who owned property who tried to set up hotels on it, run into financial difficulties and then cut corners.”

Airport. I helped L Ganesh to receive technical know-how for building and equipping and furnishing

the Ramada in Madras according to the standards laid by Ramada Inc. I held monthly review meetings

with their project manager, Gherzi Eastern, their foreign General Manager selected by Ramada, as

well as with the foreign technical experts sent by Ramada, in Bombay and at the site in Madras.

The hotel was under construction and by 1989 was almost ready to open. A large hoarding stood in front

of the site, announcing that Ramada would be opening soon – and it was removed without informing

me. A month later the hotel was opened as Oberoi Trident. L Ganesh did not offer any explanation

but I was given to understand by others that he or perhaps his partners had lost confidence in the

project and decided to stop investing. He accepted Biki Oberoi’s offer of a management contract and

financial assistance. This was the start of the Oberoi Group’s Trident brand. It was a serious breach of

contract, but I advised Ramada International against taking legal action.

I also assisted DV Manohar, who had started building a hotel near Hyderabad’s Begumpet Airport,

to build a Ramada hotel and he agreed. After running it as a Ramada for some years, the two parted

ways.

In those days, people often tried to set up hotels without an adequate understanding of the capital

and staying power required. I have seen quite a few people who owned property who tried to set

up hotels on it, run into financial difficulties and then cut corners. For an international hotel chain this

was not going to work. Sometimes owners took a franchise and then stopped paying the fees. It took

several years before the industry matured.

In 1987, when Dan Mosczytz visited India, I convinced him to accompany me to Port Blair in the

Andaman Islands, and we flew out after inspecting the Ramada being built near Madras airport. My

friend Jehangir Katgara, co-owner of India’s largest travel company Travel Corporation of India, had

arranged for a guide to escort us around the Andamans. After showing us around the various hotels

“I resumed my visits to the consulate in Bombay, explaining that I was representing an American company and it was necessary for me to visit every two or three months to ensure that construction was in line with Ramada standards and to coordinate with the consultants from UK and Singapore.”


and beaches, the guide suggested that we visit the beautiful coral reefs. To do so, we had to climb

into a smaller boat, which floated at a gap of about 5 feet from the one which we were in. Dan did so

but I stumbled and fell into the water. Seeing this, the boatmen were careful to keep the two boats

apart so that I didn’t get smashed between them, and a courageous lad jumped in to rescue me. I say

courageous because I was told later that this river is infested with crocodiles. He helped pull me up

to the larger boat, in the process of which my arms were grazed by the barnacles on the sides of the

boat and bled profusely. Still, that was only a minor concern because if I had remained in the water

any longer, it is unlikely that I would have left the Andamans alive. I was rushed to the airport as there

was no medical aid available on the islands. The only flight out of Port Blair that day was to Calcutta,

and heavily overbooked, but the airport manager was compassionate enough to give me a seat on it.

I was treated in a hospital in Calcutta and flew on to Bombay next day.

Much better than HawaiiWe had a number of reasons for deciding to risk our hard-earned money in a new venture in Goa,

even though tourists were not flocking there by any means in those days. In 2018, with over seventy-

five daily arrivals, it is hard to remember a time when there was just one Indian Airlines flight which

operated on a route from Bombay to Goa and Cochin and back. Even the ship MV Akbar by Mogul

Lines that had run between Bombay and Goa had been discontinued. However, we knew that Goa

had tremendous potential.

During my time with Holiday Inns and then Ramada in Sri Lanka, I had seen a large population of

elderly European tourists spending the winter months on its beaches. Sadly, civil war broke out in the

beautiful island nation in late 1983. When I met Bill Grau in Colombo in 1986, I realised that he was

very positive about tourism in Goa and I knew that Ramada Renaissance would be a possibility for a

hotel in Goa. At the same time, Condor Airlines of Germany applied to the Ministry of Civil Aviation

of the Government of India for their chartered flights from Germany to land in Goa. In 1986, this

“With the possibility of tourists flying directly to Goa without first coming to Bombay or Delhi, where they might stay in a hotel chain like Taj or Oberoi which had hotels in Goa, it meant that Goa was the only place in India where a single property had a chance to succeed.”

permission was granted. With the possibility of tourists flying directly to Goa without first coming to

Bombay or Delhi, where they might stay in a hotel chain like Taj or Oberoi which had hotels in Goa, it

meant that Goa was the only place in India where a single property had a chance to succeed.

When I lived in the US, I felt that a holiday without the beach thrown in was not a holiday. On my

summer holidays I would stop in Honolulu and visit with the Watumulls on my way home to my

parents. Staying there, and at beautiful hotels in hotel conventions in Miami, Puerto Rico and other

places, it became my dream to build a hotel on the beach. This may have been partially realised

when I acquired the land on which I built the Holiday Inn on Juhu Beach. However, there was not

enough land to build a proper resort of the kind I had in mind, spread out over acres with water sports,

a golf course and other amenities. After my visit to Goa in 1974, I knew that a resort with all these

features could be built there. Goa was a dream destination in many ways. It was green, extremely

clean, and had a scenic beauty which I had not seen in all my travels through different parts of India.

It had many beaches which were superior to those I had seen in Bali, Pattaya, Sri Lanka, Florida,

Puerto Rico, Tobago, Barbados, the French Riviera and even Hawaii. It was not overcrowded, like

many other places in India, and so free of wrongdoers that people could leave the keys inside their

car without fear of them being stolen. In those days, Indian cities were full of beggars but Goa had

none. Its people spoke English, wore Western clothes, and music was in their blood. They sang

popular Western songs quite as beautifully as the original artists whether Engelbert Humperdinck,

Standing first row, fourth from left with other owners and general managers of Ramada Hotels from all over the world at a conference at the Ramada in Pudong, China c1999.


“Although tourism was by no means developed in Goa at the time, we decided to risk and invest, confident that we would have what in later years would be described as an ‘early mover advantage’.”

Bridge over troubled watersNorth Goa had a five-star hotel, Taj Fort Aguada. South Goa was not developed but had the advantage

of gentler beaches with soft, white, powdery sand. I began the process of searching for the perfect

location for our hotel. After seeing many vacant sites offered by real estate agents and heads of local

village councils, the Panchayats, I happened to walk one day on the southern part of Colva beach.

When I came to the village of Varca, marvelling at its powder white sand, I stopped to meet the head

of the local Panchayat to ask his help with procuring the land I had been shown when I visited with

the Timblo’s. He took me to meet the gentleman, Jerome Dias, who owned more than 95,000 square

meters of vacant land, of which 300 feet fronted the Arabian Sea.

Just a few days later, Goa’s Mandovi Bridge collapsed. It was a real tragedy. However, since it isolated

parts of Goa, being the only land route to North Goa from Dabolim Airport, guests of the Taj Fort

Aguada could no longer drive there from the airport and had to disembark at Panjim and board a

ferry to get to their hotel. Who knew how long it would be before the government built a new bridge?

I decided to get cracking right away. Our company would buy the land, build and be ready to offer

tourists a good alternative.

Mr Dias spoke no English, so my first requirement was for a lawyer proficient in Portuguese and

Konkani. Reliable sources in Bombay connected me to Uday Bhembre, a lawyer who also happened

to be a Member of the Goa Legislative Assembly for nearby Margao. Many meetings were held with

the landowner and we finally agreed on a price. My lawyer, whom the landowner had full faith in,

prepared an agreement by which I would buy 75,000 square metres of his estate.

It was December 17, 1987 when Mr Bhembre and I proceeded to sign the final sale deed for the land. I

must admit I had been tense all this while. It was a beautiful piece of land and I knew this would be the

Elvis Presley or Celine Dion. The music appealed to me particularly. It had a Portuguese rhythm which

reminded me of the wonderful Latin American music I had grown to love in the US. The food in the

restaurants was not spicy and there was plenty of shrimp, something I enjoy. People were always

happy and smiling. There was water visible everywhere and the roads were in a good condition. I

love to drive and enjoyed driving my own car in Goa – something I avoided in other Indian cities! So

– although tourism was by no means developed in Goa at the time, we decided to risk and invest,

confident that we would have what in later years would be described as an ‘early mover advantage’.

Showing Sushilkumar Shinde the land I was about to purchase. Goa, 1987


perfect place to create the perfect resort in Goa! However, the owner was ninety-two years old and

I was terrified that we might lose him before he signed on the dotted line. If that happened, the deal

would become complicated. Under Portuguese law (which still applies to the transfer of ancestral

land in Goa) we would require all his children to sign legal documents indicating their consent to the

sale if one of the parents died. And so, despite the fact that a civil protest had been declared in Goa

that day, and warnings had been issued, Mr Bhembre and I decided to take our chances.

Goa had been under Portuguese rule for more than four hundred years and annexed to the Indian

union only in 1961. Until then, the state language was Portuguese – while in fact the language of a

majority of the citizens of Goa was Konkani. After Goa became an Indian state, native speakers of

Konkani became aware of the danger of their mother tongue being colonized by Marathi, a language to

which it was similar, and which was spoken in the neighbouring state of Maharashtra. Local politicians

and rabble rousers began to raise protest marches. It so happened that on this particular day, one

of these language agitations was being conducted. Besides angry marches, every major road had

been blocked at regular intervals with trees and boulders. Mr Bhembre knew all the different roads

and shortcuts to reach the home of the landowner and we tried several routes that were blocked

before we found a road relatively free of chopped trees. Driving cautiously along, we were suddenly

accosted by a mob of thirty men wielding thick sticks marching aggressively towards us. Mr Bhembre

got out of the car alone and instructed the driver to reverse. The mob recognized Mr Bhembre’s car

and when they saw him, became less fierce. After about ten terrifying minutes – I assure you it felt like

much longer! – the leader of the agitation was alerted. He rode up to us on his motorcycle.

I would later learn that this colourful and often controversial gentleman was Churchill Alemao. It’s

interesting that at our very first encounter he rode me away to safety like a hero on his steed. Dressed

“I decided to get cracking right away. Our company would buy the land, build and be ready to offer tourists a good alternative.”

“We waded through the sea – luckily the beaches of South Goa have a long sand shelf – and climbed on. The trawler dropped us off in the ocean, 100 feet from the Bogmalo Beach Resort! By the time we reached the hotel, we were completely drenched.”

in my black suit, carrying my briefcase with its precious documents in it, I rode pillion behind Churchill

under the blazing December sun of Goa and he courteously took me back to the Majorda Hotel

where my family was waiting for me. Churchill strode in to the lobby and informed Meena that he

had saved me from being beaten up for breaking his bandh, and now that he had done so, she must

ensure that I never do such a foolish thing ever again.

Meena and I and our two children had no choice but to extend our stay at this hotel for another

six days. All this while, the roads leading to the airport were blocked by the agitation. Finally, the

manager of the hotel arranged for us to board a trawler that he called to a halt in the sea close to the

hotel. We waded through the sea – luckily the beaches of South Goa have a long sand shelf – and

climbed on. The trawler dropped us off in the ocean, 100 feet from the Bogmalo Beach Resort! By the

time we reached the hotel, we were completely drenched. The manager had made arrangements

with Churchill that our car from the Bogmalo to the airport, ten minutes away, would not be attacked.

We bought some beach clothes at the airport and changed into them for the flight back to Bombay.

The rocky road to constructionOne of the factors which gave Ramada the confidence that I was leading a successful project was

the architect I appointed to build my hotel. I had learnt that a large number of the world’s stunning

resorts had been designed by an American firm with headquarters in Honolulu, called Wimberley,

Allison, Tong and Goo (WATG), with offices in London, Singapore, Los Angeles and other cities.


WATG had never done a project in India and were apprehensive. I visited Honolulu and convinced

George Berean, the principal designer of the firm, to fly to Goa. He spent ten days there, I showed

him around, and he, too, fell in love with Goa, concluding, “You have better beaches here in Goa

than we have in Hawaii!” George loved the architecture of Goa, especially the churches. One of

WATG’s specialties is to bring a local flavour to their projects, and he decided to build the lobby of

our hotel on the lines of a cathedral. He studied the construction bye-laws of Goa carefully and began

planning our resort. Soon after he returned to Honolulu, he sent us schematic drawings of what our

128-room resort would look like when completed. Seeing these, Ramada Inc. became enthusiastic

and their board of directors approved a joint venture in August 1987, agreeing to invest 10 percent,

which amounted to USD600,000. In those days, it was a huge success to have an international hotel

company taking equity in an Indian company. An even bigger compliment to us was that the hotel

was given to us as a franchise operation. Hotel companies do not invest in their franchises, because

they do not have control over them. For them to have invested showed huge confidence in us. I was

handed over management of the newly-formed company, Ramada Hotels and Resorts (India) Ltd.

Ramada Inc. appointed me as Chairman and Managing Director and my younger brother, Haresh, as

Executive Director, with two directors from the senior management of Ramada Inc. based in Frankfurt,

Erwin Rieck and Nihal Samarasinha. We arranged for 26 percent equity from our family and further

equity from friends and associates. And we were the first hotel in Goa to appoint expatriate general

managers of different nationalities.

The rendering of the proposed hotel made by the Hawaiian architect, coupled with the equity

from Ramada Inc., helped me to obtain a sizeable long-term loan for our company from Industrial

Development Bank of India (IDBI), the major lender for large projects in India in 1988. Once IDBI had

given its approval, ICICI and IFCI also agreed to give long-term loans. Bank of Baroda and Bank of

India, as a consortium, agreed to provide working capital loans. We also issued preference shares

equivalent to INR3 million to associates of one of the contractors shortlisted to build our hotel.

“One of the factors which gave Ramada the confidence that I was leading a successful project was the architect I appointed to build my hotel. I had learnt that a large number of the world’s stunning resorts had been designed by an American firm in Hawaii called Wimberley, Allison, Tong and Goo.”

The rendering of our hotel prepared by our architects, WATG, Hawaii, which helped us to find investors.


Alongside our efforts to raise funds, we began the process of obtaining approval from the Goa

Government for our project. Chief Minister of Goa at the time, Pratapsingh Rane, was delighted to see

the contribution we were making to Goa and personally steered the approvals. We got along well.

Like me, he had studied business management in the US. And he was dead against corruption. He

had told me, “If you have any problem, come to me. I don’t want you paying anyone anything under

the table.”

Planting a tree at the tree-planting ceremony at the site of our proposed Ramada Renaissance, Goa. 22 Oct 1987

Our land was in the Orchard Zone and this had to be converted to a Commercial Zone before

construction of a hotel could be permitted. The Goa Government Economic Development Council

headed by the Chief Minister approved our project, and the Environment Ministry also approved

it after examining The Environment Impact Assessment Report. We appointed a local architect to

produce plans based on schematic drawings from WATG, and submitted them to the Town Planning

Department and received their sanction in January 1988. In April 1988, we received Central

Government approval to build a five-star hotel.

Besides our high-end project managers, Gherzi Eastern, we appointed specialist consultants for

electrical, plumbing, air-conditioning and kitchen. We had the good fortune to be assisted by a Swiss

gentleman, Ralf Guss, who was Corporate Head of Engineering, Ramada Inc. He insisted that the

air-conditioning fan coil units placed in each guest rooms must be noiseless, with a decibel rating of

less than 43, which could only be guaranteed by a supplier in Ahmedabad. The dome-shaped crown

of the building, similar in look to that of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, required 180 tons of concrete

and had to be cast all at once, else it would collapse. Our project engineer, Eric Pereira, supervised

the entire project and also supervised the Gherzi Consultants’ site engineers.Hotel under construction 1988 Goa


Ramada’s international experts helped in designing the laundry, kitchen, room and bathroom layouts

and in selecting imported equipment. WATG had included a golf course in the plan – this would be

the very first golf course in an Indian hotel. We selected Belt Collins International and their Singapore

office as the landscape architect for our project, and requested that they detail the golf course as well.

Prakash Mankar was appointed as interior designer and we took him to Bali to see other international

resorts and get a feel for the kind of look we wanted to create. I remember how particular Prakash

was, that he wanted nothing artificial in that lobby. When we decided to cover the concrete ceiling

with wood cladding which would have been very expensive, and alternatives like wood-coloured

wallpaper were considered, he refused, coming up instead with a specialised painter who painted

the grains of wood and created a natural wood effect.

Here too, one of the major tasks before launching the project was government approvals. I obtained

the necessary approval from the Ministry of Tourism of the Government of India in New Delhi. I also

obtained approval of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) for the foreign investment and

payment of royalty fees to Ramada Inc.

In 1989, we issued a prospectus for our public issue. To raise NRI equity, I also placed an advertisement

in a newspaper read by Indians in the New York area. Seeing that Ramada Inc. had invested 10

percent in the project, I was able to convince three of the respondents to invest even before we went

public. Through the help of a prominent Indian banker, I managed to find an NRI investor in London

as well. The NRI investors appointed Bhupen Dalal as their nominee on our board of directors. Our

public issue on the Bombay Stock Exchange in 1989, managed by ICICI, was fully subscribed.

WATG, an internationally reputed firm of architects, were naturally very particular about working

within the framework of the law and adhered to every point specified by the Government of Goa as

well as the Ministry of Environment, Government of India. Well aware that our land was within 500

metres of the high-tide line, there were additional rules which had to be observed. I must specifically

mention two of the conditions we met based on the restrictions imposed by local authorities. First,

“Ramada’s international experts helped in designing the laundry, kitchen, room and bathroom layouts and in selecting imported equipment. WATG had included a golf course in the plan – this would be the very first golf course in an Indian hotel.”


construction would start at a distance of more than 200 metres from the high-tide line. Second, no

building in our complex was designed to be built higher than 9 metres up to the eaves (the point

on the wall where the sloping roof rises to meet the ridge). Our approval from the town planning

authorities was given because we had adhered to these and other requirements. So in June, when

we received a notice that a Public Interest Litigation had been filed against our construction (which

by then was more than half complete), we assumed that it was a small matter and appeared in court

with a local lawyer. The PIL had been filed by Dr Claude Alvares on behalf of the Jagruti Goencha

Fouz (JGF), on the accusation that we had built within 200 metres from the high-tide line and some

of the buildings were higher than 9 metres. The stay was obtained based on photographs submitted

by the plaintiff.

JGF also circulated leaflets accusing us of ‘criminal destruction’ and of exploiting ‘the poor migrant

labour to construct it’ and having ‘severely destroyed the delicate coastal ecosystem’. They appealed

to investors, “Don’t invest in the Ramada Hotel, your money will be blood money, cursed because the

future of Goa’s children has been sacrificed on the altar of luxury tourism.”

When we began construction in April 1988, it was only after obtaining all the various approvals from

the Government of Goa and the Government of India. Now, the shell of the main building was almost

complete. Construction came to a halt. We had taken huge loans to fund this project and not only

would the interest costs continue to mount but the fate of the hotel was now in jeopardy, even though

we had not violated any local laws. Bankruptcy was staring me in the face. Everyone warned me that it

takes a long time to remove a Stay Order. I had no choice but to incur further expenses by engaging a

battery of the top lawyers of India. To argue the case in Goa High Court, Malvi Ranchoddas appointed

Iqbal Chagla and Aspi Chinoy as well as Ashok Desai who was soon after this appointed Solicitor

General of India, and subsequently Attorney General of India.

The court appointed a committee of experts to investigate. The team who made the measurements

first claimed that our construction encroached on the 200 metre line! However, the only thing in

the 200 metre line, it was soon clear to all, were temporary shacks put up by the contractor for

the construction labour. Since the Ministry of Environment was listed as one of the defendants, a

representative of the Ministry had to make a statement to the court. Fortunately, his affidavit stated

that when the law now quoted by the litigant had been introduced, our hotel was already under

construction. A senior scientist of the Ministry of Environment, Mr Biswas, who had been involved in

formulating the Environment Protection Act, to evaluate the situation, made an affidavit confirming

that we had done nothing objectionable. It was reported by the expert committee that our construction

started 232 metres from the high-tide line, well within the approved limit. However, the committee

submitted that the height of the tallest building was stated as 23 metres. WATG had ensured that the

building laws of Goa were complied with and our legal team prepared a paper model which showed

the court that a structure that was 9 metres to the eaves had resulted in a roof whose tip stood 23

metres above the ground.

After we won the case, the Ministry of Environment and Forests amended the law to specify, “The

overall height of construction upto highest ridge of the roof, shall not exceed 9 metres,” and hotels

“Construction came to a halt. We had taken huge loans to fund this project. Bankruptcy was staring me in the face.”

Ramada Hotels (India) Ltd AGM, Bombay, 1991. Seated to my left is Erwin Rieck, MD Europe, Middle East and Asia of Ramada Worldwide. He and Nihal Samarasinha would fly in to attend our AGM every year. Nihal was head of the Ramada Finance Department in Frankfurt, and originally from Sri Lanka. We became close friends and still meet quite often. He owns and manages four hotels in Frankfurt and is presently Ambassador Tourism of Sri Lanka in Germany.


that came up near the beach thereafter had to be built with this restriction. While this gives us a

distinct competitive advantage today, at the time, the legal issues brought us close to ruin. Justice

Pendse’s sixty-two page judgement listed every possible point and the proof that we were legally in

the right.

Our own environment, however, was not so discerning. I had lived and done business in India long

enough to know that, despite all my good intentions of creating a high-quality tourist infrastructure

to attract foreign tourists to India, I was unlikely to get credit for my contributions. The sad truth is

that, in my own country, there is a deep prejudice against businessmen. We are seen, one and all,

as crooks, always looking for shortcuts, always wanting to exploit, always trying to cheat the system,

always contributing to corruption. Even though this has never been my way and even after our project

had been cleared by the High Court, I continued to be undeservedly labelled as a wrongdoer! Claude

Alvares filed a Special Leave Petition to be heard in an appeal to the Supreme Court. For this case,

I requested Fali Nariman to represent us. With Justice Pendse’s extensive judgement, the Supreme

Court hearing lasted just a few minutes. The judges pronounced that “no further cases would be

entertained against Ramada”. Weary but grateful for this salve to our haemorrhaging pockets, we

returned to construction after a gap of more than four months.

Got to get up The first shock we received was from our building

contractor. Since our work had been stopped by

the court, and everyone knew that Indian courts

were notoriously slow to issue their decrees, the

construction teams had been deployed to other

projects. The contractor informed us that rates

would now vary significantly from what had earlier

been quoted. Did we have a choice?

In 1990, as our resort came up and I was getting

water pipes and electric lines laid in the locality,

I also worked hard to connect it to the outside

world with telephones. Sam Pitroda, Chairman of

India’s Telecom Commission at the time, whom I

repeatedly petitioned, offered to provide me with

a Ultra High Frequency (UHF) telephone exchange

if I provided the land and a building for it. UHF

was essential because telephone connections

with an overhead wire would never survive the

Goa monsoon. We bought extra land and built a

suitable building, and the exchange was set up

and inaugurated with due ceremony.

Of course it wasn’t just our hotel but the entire

village which now benefitted, with access to

telephone lines. However, when I requested

that the exchange be shifted and our building

returned, I was given one excuse after the other.

The government eventually returned the building

in 2016, after using it at a rent of INR1 per month

for twenty-six years, and only because we took

the time and effort to follow up continuously.

Pratapsingh Rane:I first met Sunder Advani when I was Chief Minister of Goa, in the early 1980s. I received him because he had a background in hotel

management and we wanted to promote tourism in our state, very conscious of the fact that money spent by a tourist percolates to

the lowest in the state and boosts the economy. South Goa has a long coastline with silver sands and at that time there were almost

no hotels. Sunder built a beautiful hotel and when he came up with the idea of a riverboat casino, we supported him and cleared his

files. Sunder studied in America and understands advanced concepts of upper-class tourism very well. He has been a leader in the

industry and has made a significant contribution to the economic development of Goa. We need more people like Sunder Advani.

Mrs Vijayadevi Rane

We have known and been fond of Meena and Sunder for many years and I must say they are not fair weather friends but true friends

who have stood by us in difficult times. I will never forget Meena being with me in hospital waiting rooms, providing moral support,

carrying sandwiches, a strong presence that I could rely on.

top • Inauguration of the prestigious electronic exchange and UHF Link at Varca by Goa Chief Minister Luis Proto Barbosa. General Manager of the Telephone Department is on the left and on the right is Churchill Alemao.above • The ‘Indian Open’ tennis tournament held at our hotel. We had Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati participating along with other tennis professionals from across the country. In those days, getting an event live-telecast to Bombay was unique! It was arranged by Procam. Goa, 1991


Ups and downs as usualWhen people saw that we had built a large hotel in Goa in less than two-and-a-half years, with a law

suit in between, they could not believe it. And that too it wasn’t a cookie-cutter hotel but a stylish

resort consisting of several buildings, each with a unique roof and each a work of art! We were

working within the ambit of the law and because of Mr Rane’s support, our clearances came soon

and we were able to complete quickly. In later years, the Government of Goa became highly unstable.

Ministers jumped from government to opposition and back, changing sides without scruples.

Despite all the hitches we faced and the overrun in the project cost, Ramada Renaissance Goa had

a soft opening in April 1990. Because of the hiccups in the construction, when our board of directors

landed at Goa airport, we were informed that the hotel air-conditioning was not reaching the rooms.

We later learnt that during the period when the construction was halted, cement had got into the pipes

and air-conditioning ducts and created havoc. But it was hot and humid, and we had to make quick

top left • Goa Chief Minister Dr Luis Proto Barbosa cuts a cake built on the model of the hotel at the grand opening of Ramada Renaissance Resort. PV Jaykrishnan, hotel staff, myself, CM Barbosa, Ramada Inc. Senior Vice President Heinz Volland.bottom left • At the grand opening celebrations of our Ramada Renaissance, Goa. Dr Ram Tarneja, DM Harish, Captain Krishnan Nair. Goa, Dec 4, 1990.

DM Harish and his family enjoying a drink of fresh coconut water at the opening of our hotel in Goa in April 1990.

top right • Official inauguration ofRamada Renaissance Goa. Chief Secretary,Government of Goa, PV Jayakrishnan, myself, Chief Minister of Goa, Dr Luis Proto Barbosa; Ramada Inc. Senior Vice President Heinz Volland.bottom right • Long-serving secretary general of WTO, Francesco Frangialli at the mike, at the council meeting held at our hotel.


decisions. Oberoi Bogmalo was close by and we got rooms for our

directors there. As for our family and friends – we took them to our

hotel and said, “Here we are! This is it!” Very sportingly, everyone

took pool beds and we spent the night outdoors around the pool.

By morning, the air-conditioning problem had been fixed and we

could carry on with the plans we had made. The priests of the

Shantadurga Temple organized a three-day pooja and we also

had a Catholic Mass in our cathedral-like lobby. Our staff sang the

hymns and the acoustics made it a truly emotional experience.

The ceremonies went off beautifully – but, when the hotel opened,

there was no water.

As part of the court order and based on environmental concerns

that hotels and resorts were going to consume water leaving the

citizens of Goa without any, we had had to seal the bore wells on

our property. So for several months our hotel had no water and had

to be serviced by water tankers which we paid very high rates for.

When we officially opened the Ramada Renaissance Resort on

December 4, 1990, it was as hosts for the World Tourism Organization

(WTO) Council Meeting attended by ministers and heads of tourism

of twenty-four countries at our hotel. We had translation equipment

installed for them, on loan from Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.

Goa had never before seen a hotel where every single room had

private balconies, bathtubs, colour TVs, minibars, hairdryers and

smoke detectors. The highlight was our nine-hole golf course and

free-form overflow pool (the largest in India with one million litres

of water, a swim-up island bar and a separate children’s pool). Our

cathedral lobby drew gasps of admiration from the delegates as

did the enormous banquet hall unimpeded by a single column!

The event was a huge success and India was selected to be the

Chairman of the WTO. Some of the delegates commented that they

could not believe such a hotel existed in India.

Still, it must be said that this was when our struggle began to peak.

We lost the lucrative Christmas and New Year business as our

facing page left • In conversation with Sanjay Srivastava, Development Commissioner of Goa (now Secretary to Cabinet Secretary), at Rashtrapati Bhavan and Jaykrishnan, Chief Secretary of Goa, at the TAAI party for VIPs hosted by Lufthansa.facing page right • In conversation with Air Marshall SS Ramdas, Chairman, Indian Airlines, the only airline that flew into Goa in those days.top • Travel Agents’ Association of India held its annual convention at our resort. Our German GM arranged haystacks at the entrance to give a feeling of Goa. Delegates are seen entering the lobby for the kick-off party. Goa, 1991above • With General Managers of Marriott Hotels Worldwide at a strategy meeting. Ed Fuller, CEO of Marriott Worldwide is fourth from left. Bangkok, 2003

Eric Pereira:I first met Sunder and Haresh in May 1988, and have worked with them since then. I was attracted to the project, having worked

with Ramada in Dubai and when I visited the property – fell in love. However, it was an uphill task, first with the court order and

then when the consultants and contractors tried to swindle them. Materials were also a problem – we had to use laterite instead

of bricks and that made things very difficult. I carried out the process of project management with their full support; they never

questioned my authority and were excellent clients indeed!

To accompany the early hitches were the lack of basic materials, the poor logistics, to say nothing of the basic sossegado culture

of Goa with the compulsory siesta from 12.30 to 4pm every day. Despite all this, we were ready to start by the end of 1989. Water

pipes were laid and the villagers got water but due to supply issues we had to survive on tanker water for nearly fifteen years.

When we opened, there was no electricity and we were running on diesel generator! The staff was new and inexperienced and

could barely understand what you told them. There were no phone connections and no communication with the outside world. As

more and more hotels came up on the stretch, we met competition by following planned upgradations.

We have been super conscious of the environment and started a nursery with 2000 plants. We also transplanted 250 palm trees,

some from the agriculture demonstration farm, to the property. To nurture these in our sandy environment would not have been

possible and we had to arrange for soil and manure – strictly no chemicals. We were the first in Goa to have a sewage treatment

plant, with technology from experts in the field Dorr-Oliver, and that water is utilized even today for all the landscaping. In 2006 we

converted the hotel entirely to LED when the technology was still quite new. We also undertook a major overhaul of our back-of-

the-house, replacing the old energy-guzzling chillers with state-of-the-art modern screw chillers that took less than 50 percent of

the energy input and upgraded all other interrelated systems of pumping and cooling towers. Our electrical incoming substation

was replaced with state-of-the-art switchgear to improve safety, and energy-efficient generators with full-capacity backup.


little dreaming that, one day I would own India’s first casino, and

even be invited to be a speaker at gaming conferences and

tourism meets in Las Vegas, Singapore and Macau! In India,

casinos were taboo. In the Mahabharata, gambling is seen as a

natural and intrinsic part of life in India. On the other hand, the

Indian government may have felt obliged to protect families from

being ruined by the gambling addiction of the earning member.

One of the things I discovered is that many state government

officials who were in charge of making decisions had never

actually experienced a casino for themselves. They appeared to

be under the misconception that a casino is nothing but a den of

sleaze and vice.

Madhavrao Scindia was Minister of Tourism of India and we knew

each other well; he had been a director on our board when I was

the Executive Director of the Bombay Holiday Inn. It so happened

that, on one of his official visits to Goa, we met at a party held

for him by the Chief Minister of Goa on the boat Santa Monica.

I requested Mr Scindia to put in a word to the Chief Minister,

Pratapsingh Rane, and Goa’s Minister of Tourism, Dr Wilfred

D’Souza, to consider allowing a casino in Goa to enhance the

tourist appeal of Goa, and he did. When Mr Rane and Dr D’Souza

visited Europe to attend tourism fairs, I invited them to accompany

me to casinos in Europe, and they did. In time, they realised that

casinos were not evil hell-holes but rather well-appointed places

where discerning people could spend an elegant evening.

This resulted in Mr Rane directing Law Secretary BS Subanna to

amend the Gambling Act of Goa. The amendment allowed slot

machines and electronic games, only in five-star hotels in Goa.

There would be no live gaming with cards. A maximum of ten

licenses would be allowed. It was not much – but it was a start!

project was delayed. Then the Gulf War broke out and the charters stopped coming. Our costs

were rising and our financial position was precarious. We were ripe for a takeover, and one of

our board members orchestrated a coup. Even when our company stock started rising steadily,

almost every week, I still only felt that we were getting the appreciation that we deserved from

the market. Once we realized what was happening, we found ourselves in the classic situation

of rushing around trying to buy up our own shares from anyone who was willing to sell and bring

our equity from 26 to 38 percent. With difficulty, we managed to garner sufficient funds to keep

going on our own resources. After that we continued to raise our holding in the company until we

reached 48 percent some years later.

The roll of the diceIt took time, but gradually the number of tourists began to grow. There was a cycle to Goa’s

seasons and we soon learnt what to anticipate and planned accordingly. Winter meant full house,

with Europeans looking for a comfortable vacation and good service away in a tropical climate.

Between April and October, rooms lay vacant. I began thinking about ways in which to increase

tourism during this ‘off-season’ time and decided to try and introduce a casino into Goa. I had

first seen a casino in Las Vegas in 1957 and over the years, observed casinos all over the world,

Anil Harish:Not even Taj or Oberoi thought of setting up India’s first casino – it was Sunder, with his single-hotel company, who did so.

I’ve seen that Sunder has always set out to do things which are new and unique. His hotel in Goa has an international flavour

because he chose a beautiful location on an excellent beach and got an architect from Hawaii to design it. Sunder has faced many

obstacles and I have observed his strategies for tackling them. He has a forward-looking manner and the ability to reach out to the

correct people to help get things done. He is also highly conscientious, with a lot of attention to detail, excellent people skills and

the tendency to get to the root of the problem and react quickly.

At his company’s AGMs I observe him listening carefully to all the questions put to him and answering each one in detail, supplying

facts and figures as required. If the question is asked in Hindi – he will reply in Hindi!

top • Group photo of officials of Ministry of Tourism at the World Tourism Expo in Seville, Spain, in 1995. Next to the turbaned gentleman is Director General of Tourism, Bilu Goswami; Minister of Tourism, Madhavrao Scindia; me; Prashant Mehta, Officer on Special Duty to the minister of tourism and an unidentified gentleman.above • At the same event in 1996, with Minister of Tourism, Madhavrao Scindia, at the India Pavilion. Our hotel in Goa was the only hotel from India that was selected for the pavilion, and it can be seen in the poster we are standing in front of.


Wheel of fortuneIn India, casinos and gambling are subject to laws of the State

Governments and not in the domain of the Central Government.

Any state could have decided to allow casinos – but the lead was

taken by Goa. While the act was amended and the road paved for

the introduction of a casino into Goa by Chief Minister Pratapsingh

Rane, he was replaced by another chief minister, Ravi Naik, before

any casino could be set up. I brought the new Chief Minister to my

home in Bombay to show him videos of how casinos in other countries

operate. Realising that they would give tourists a good reason to visit

Goa during the monsoon, he promised to assist in my efforts.

I had been following the passage of the Gambling Act bated breath.

First thing in the morning of the day application forms were issued by

the Government of Goa, I put in an application for a casino license

for our five-star deluxe hotel. To my utmost surprise, I was informed

that our application for a casino license was listed as the eleventh

application to be received!

I was subsequently informed that the Chief Minister had issued

approval letters to ten of his well-wishers. As it happened, one of these

ten well-wishers suddenly died and our wait-listed application became

eligible for a casino license. I had to quickly make arrangements for the

slot machines and electronic games before anything else went wrong.

I had been in touch with suppliers of slot machines in Las Vegas but

to get permission to buy these, then order them, and then wait for

delivery, would mean a significant loss of time. What if yet another

chief minister was appointed in Goa in that time?

As we brainstormed solutions for this pressing problem, an unexpected

source came our way. Eric Pereira, who had also worked on projects in

Gujarat, told us that there were wayside game rooms on the highway

which had slot machines. On investigating, we found that they were

being supplied by a dealer in Bombay.

I made arrangements to rent Bally and other slot machines for a

period of six months, an excellent and low-cost arrangement with their

engineer on standby in case anything went wrong, by which time the Las Vegas slot machines would

have arrived. And this is how we started Goa Nugget, India’s very first casino, in June 1993! The name

was inspired by the Golden Nugget Casino of Las Vegas – but we were not allowed to use the word

‘casino’ because it directly related to gambling, a very controversial subject in India.

It was touch and go because the Goa government – then, as now – was unstable. We had to have

our opening before the Chief Minister was replaced so we had the pooja and published a newspaper

notice that we were in business. And just in time – because soon thereafter, we had a new chief

minister.

I cannot close this story without mentioning that the nine well-wishers of the outgoing chief minister,

Ravi Naik, who had been issued casino licenses, and who had intended to sell their licenses to other

hoteliers at high profit, were unable to do so. We remained the only casino in Goa for quite a while.

One of the glamorous events we were proud to host was the Miss India Beauty Pageant in 1994. This

was the first time this annual event, in those days one of the most sought-after events of the Indian

fashion world, had ever been held outside Bombay. In fact, this particular pageant turned out to be an

unforgettable historic event – because that was the year when winner Sushmita Sen and runner-up

Aishwarya Rai went on to win international pageants and Sushmita Sen became Miss Universe and

Aishwarya Rai became Miss World.

The interiors of Goa Nugget, created by LasVegas designer Yates Silverman. The name of our casino was woven into the carpet.

The Golden Nugget casino in downtown Las Vegas which was the inspiration for the name of our Goa casino.


Our resort had been selected by the organizers, Femina of

the Times of India Group, as it was the best hotel in Goa and

even had a casino. One of the prizes our hotel gave was to one

of the twenty-four beautiful contestants who accumulated the

largest number of Goa Nugget tokens from the slot machines.

This event was the luckiest for our hotel as Aishwarya Rai

agreed to be our brand ambassador for a year. Miss India 1994,

Sushmita Sen, danced with me at the party after the event. It

was a time long before instant twitter and whatsapp messages.

She told me that she wanted to inform her mother that she had

won. We went to my office so that she could use the telephone

to do so. While she was excitedly sharing the news with her

delighted parents, there was a knock on my door. It was my

7-foot tall South African casino manager who wanted to have

a photograph with the new Miss India! I reminded Sushmita

about this recently when she invited me to her office for my

advice on how to start a casino.

The following year, 1995, we opened ‘Saturdays’, our hotel

discotheque. When we realized that people were staying away

on other days of the week assuming it would be closed, we put

up a sign under the name clarifying that it was open every day!

I love music‘I love music’ is the title of the song my favourite Indian vocalist

Usha Uthup begins her performances. She sang at our

Caravela Hotel and also on the Caravela Casino Ship, where I

got on the mike to introduce her to the audience.

I have been passionately fond of music ever since I was very

young and even now I sleep at night with my headphones on,

listening to Kenny G, Julio Iglesias and others. I love to sing too

– but generally just in the shower! One time, my closest friend,

Prem Rupani who lives in Chicago decided to celebrate his

sixtieth birthday at our hotel and brought sixty people to join

the celebrations, on the condition that I sing ‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra, and I did. That was the first

time I sang in public! After that, I sang again at the annual celebration we have at Woodlands, after

the Mumbai Marathon. Our tradition is that once the band retires for the evening, we members put

up our own entertainment. That year people were coming up to me saying, “Wow! We thought Frank

Sinatra was no more!” At my son’s engagement party, I was taken by surprise when the MC called me

to the stage with the request for a Frank Sinatra number. I sang ‘Strangers in the Night’ impromptu

and couldn’t have put on a great show because I didn’t know all the words. My wife bought me a

karaoke kit and that’s in my bedroom so now I have the words of all the songs I might want to sing

and one of these days I’m going to start practicing! I love shopping for music and enjoy recordings

Miss India (World), Aishwarya Rai, crowned at the Miss India beauty pageant held at our hotel in 1995. After this event, Aishwarya Rai became the brand ambassador of our Goa Nugget casino.

top • Me with the Miss India Contestants at our hotel.above • Femina Miss India contestants staying at our hotel being welcomed by me. Aishwarya Rai standing fifth from left, and Sushmita Sen standing seventh from left.


of live performances, whether of Barbra Streisand, Abba, the

BeeGees or any of my favourite singers.

A favourite in my early visits to New York was Radio City Music

Hall which featured the Rockettes, a group of beautiful ladies

who performed an energetic dance called the Can-Can. I

loved the Broadway musicals, too, especially if they featured

a well-known singer. I remember seeing ‘West Side Story’ with

Chita Rivera, and ‘Mr Wonderful’ with Sammy Davis Junior. In

later years, plays like ‘The Jersey Boys’, ‘Beautiful’ and ‘The

Donna Summer Show’ brought back memories of the music I

loved. My favourite venues in New York in the 1960s were the

Palladium and Roseland where I enjoyed Latin dancing and

these days I enjoy going to Birdland which features a Latin

band every Sunday. Another favourite was the Blue Note in

the Village where I met one of my favourites, Tito Puente, after

his performance. I was driven to start a discotheque in Bombay

after witnessing the light shows at the Electric Circus in New

York and the In Out Disco at Zurich Airport. Here I met the DJs

who mixed oils of a variety of colours to create mind-blowing

designs on huge screens in the discotheque in tune with the

music. I bought these oils and projectors back to introduce the

concept in Bombay.

The elaborate productions at each hotel such as O, Jubilee,

Splash, Beatle Mania and others displayed the most spectacular

shows and the audience was left wondering how they could

possibly create such changes on the stage in such a short

time. Years later, in 2008, I witnessed Englebert Humperdinck

at the Orleans in Las Vegas. I went up to him and invited him

to come to India – not knowing that he had in fact been born

in India. When he visited India three years later, he performed

at the NCPA and it was then that the press was full of stories

of Engelbert being a Madras boy! Las Vegas was and is the

best place in the world for seeing the best entertainment at

reasonable prices. I used to time my visits to Vegas to see

the performers I really liked as they came for short periods.

top • Escorting Mr and Mrs Heinz Steele on arrival at our hotel. Nihal Samarasinha is on the extreme right.above • Senior Vice President & MD for EMEA & India and Sri Lanka of Ramada Inc. Heinz Steeleand his team breaking ground as we beginconstruction of our new seventy-four roomextension. Nihal Simarasinha is crouched onthe right, breaking a coconut for the ceremony.Goa, Nov 1994.

above • The unforgettable evening when Toni Braxton sang, posing for a photo in my lap! Las Vegas, 2014top • Caught by surprise, called to the mike to sing Strangers in the Night at Prahlad’s engagement. Janpath Hotel, New Delhi, 2011.

I was fortunate to hear Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at

Caesars Palace in the 1970s when the shows cost only USD35

including dinner. I was also fortunate to view live the Eagles,

Toni Bennett, Santana, Celine Dion, Tom Jones, Gloria Estefan,

Natalie Cole, Paul Anka, The Drifters, Toni Braxton as well as

Barbara Streisand in Chicago and Elton John in London.

Having enjoyed the best entertainment in Las Vegas, I

naturally wanted to provide something as good at our hotel!

Since we could not afford the best entertainers, the next best

option was a discotheque, and that was something I knew a

little about. When we started our discotheque, Saturdays, I

asked Andre to arrange the launch. He flew down thirty of the

top Bollywood stars and fashion models of the day including

Salman Khan, Zeenat Aman, Suchitra Krishnamurthy and many

others. Chunkey Pandey stood at the bar, mixing drinks for us!

I also arranged for Bally Sagoo to fly down from Birmingham,

UK, to inaugurate the disco.


Opening night of discotheque Saturdays at our hotel in Goa, September 9, 1995 clockwise:• Romesh Bhandari, Governor of Goa,

cutting the ribbon to inaugurate Saturdays along with Bally Sagoo and Goa Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane. Andre Timmins is seen behind Governor Bhandari.

• Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane being greeted by artist Mario Miranda

• Dancing to celebrate!

• Filmstar Salman Khan dancing with one of the models who attended the event;

• Filmstar Zeenat Aman;

• Our former DJ Andre Timmins with filmstar Chunkey Pandey;

• Bally Sagoo signing an autograph for industrialist Dattaraj Salgaonkar while I watch.


India’s first full-fledged casinoSome years after Goa Nugget came up in our hotel in 1993, other hotels, initially the Cidade, followed

by the Leela and then others, started slot-machine casinos on their premises. I approached the state

government for a license to operate a full-fledged live gaming casino. A live casino with tables for

poker, blackjack and other casino games was illegal, and the first concession from the government

was a legislation to allow live gaming on ships docked off shore. To prevent small river craft being

used to house gambling dens, the license would only be issued to ships which were certified as

ocean-worthy by the Mercantile Marine Department of the Government of India.

I had learnt about ship casinos at casino exhibitions in Las Vegas, and eagerly considered operating

a ship between Goa and Mumbai with casino gambling on board while at sea. There were places in A glimpse inside our live casino, with décor designed by Yates Silverman.

the world where this was done and I travelled to observe and learn. One operation was in Eilaat which

offers the best casino boats in Israel; another was the ship from Hong Kong to the New Territories

where you can cruise without going anywhere and just gamble. However, I learnt that even the

presence of equipment used for gambling on any ship in Indian waters was a legal offense, even if it

was never used. So that was the end of the Goa-Mumbai casino boat idea, but I continued thinking

about how I could have a casino on a ship in Goa. I found a shipyard in Florida, which had built the

Empress casino ship which I had visited in Chicago. I was shown various types of low-draft ships they

could build ranging from USD7 to 10 million. The ship that appealed most to me was one which I was

told would stand any degree of turbulence in the monsoon months. It was priced at USD14 million

and I was unable to raise the finances. I now considered acquiring one of the second-hand casino

ships advertised by ship brokers and travelled to inspect a ship casino in Clearwater, Florida, a bigger

ship casino in Burlington, Iowa, an excellent ship casino in Newark, New Jersey (which was much

too expensive) and a dilapidated one in Florida. An acquaintance from the Las Vegas Gaming Show,

Clive Tilly, had started a cruise to nowhere from Brooklyn, New York, and I inspected this operation.

One of the people who helped me in my quest was Larry Wolf, who had just built the 5000-room

MGM Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. I was invited by the Cornell Hotel School to attend a talk by

him in the Distinguished Lecture Series that was fondly called ‘Donuts with Dittman’, which Prahlad

helped arrange, and was introduced to him after the talk. Later, Larry advised me on concepts and

costs and this helped me build our casino in Goa.

“The ship that appealed most to me was one which I was told would stand any degree of turbulence in the monsoon months. It was priced at USD14 million and I was unable to raise the finances.”


The impossible dreamAt the same time that this was going on, I had also been looking for the right partner to provide

technical and financial assistance. I knew, with our experience of running the small Goa Nugget

electronic casino in our hotel and attending casino conferences in Las Vegas, that operating a full-

fledged casino required a tremendous amount of specialised expertise. In those days, our hotel’s

foreign collaborators and joint venture partners, Ramada, owned and operated the Tropicana Casino

and Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Bill Grau, Executive Vice President of Ramada Inc., arranged for

me to study casino operations by visiting its back areas, including the surveillance room, a room so

restricted that even the casino manager does not have access to it. Above the huge atrium, this room

had multiple cameras focussed on each transaction where money or chips were involved whether for

roulette, blackjack, poker, dice, baccarat or other games. These recordings were preserved for one

month in case any guest claimed that the winnings received were less than what was due. Since large

amounts of cash were involved in each spin or card game, there was the risk of collusion between

the guest and a casino employee.

In my search for a partner, I contacted many large US casino operators. I met Steve Wynn in Las

Vegas, but he said he was too heavily involved in his Bellagio Casino. When I found myself seated

next to the Chairman of MGM, Terry Lanni, at the Las Vegas Gaming Expo in 1999 and asked him if

MGM would be interested in a casino in India, he invited me to his office to discuss the proposal.

He told me, “Sunder, I can take this proposal to the board if you wanted us to invest USD50 million,

otherwise it is too small a project for us to consider.” Then, one day, I was introduced to Radha

Chanderraj, a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission which controls all the Casinos in Las

Vegas, a lady originally from India. She told me that no US casino company would invest in a country

where there was no gaming commission. Since Goa did not have such a regulatory body, the risk of

losing their casino license in the US, if the Indian partner was ever caught in a law-breaking activity,

was too high. So I started looking for a partner in Europe.

That year, at the exhibition ‘ICE London!’ an annual B2B gaming conference in London, a smaller

version of the Las Vegas Gaming Expo where suppliers of various casino equipment and services to

the casino industry congregate, I saw that Casinos Austria was the largest casino operator in Europe.

I travelled to Vienna to meet Mr Bernkop, the person who handled their international developments.

They were interested, and I timed my next trip to Vienna to be there at the same time that the Chief

Minister of Goa, Pratapsingh Rane, was visiting Vienna. I took him to see one of the casinos operated

by Casinos Austria in Baden, thirty miles away. He could see that there was nothing illegal or sleazy

going on and assured me that if this was what I wanted to start in Goa then there should be no

problem. I was under the impression that, Casinos Austria being partly owned by the Government of

Austria, was a straightforward company and that appealed to me. They agreed to invest 49 percent

equity with the balance 51 percent being held by Advani Hotels & Resorts India Limited. I formed

“One day, I was introduced to Radha Chanderraj, a member of the Nevada Gaming Commission which controls all the casinos in Las Vegas. She told me that no US casino company would invest in a country where there was no gaming commission.”

Dealers, supervisors and managers of our casino, on board the Caravela.


a subsidiary called Advani Pleasure Cruise Company Private Limited

(APCCPL), which consisted of me as the chairman and three directors

who were my brother Haresh and two senior representatives of

Casinos Austria. Narinder Punj was an employee of Casinos Austria,

and he had escorted me around their casino in Jericho near Jerusalem.

He would eventually became the general manager of our casino ship

in Goa.

That, however, would happen quite a while later – we still had to

obtain approval from the Government of India for this venture and that

was going to be tricky. First of all, we had to get approval for a foreign

company to invest equity and manage our casino. We would be paying

them dividends and a management fee – and a percentage of the net

profits on top. For this we would need central government permission.

Second – it was the state government which was responsible for

issuing the casino license, keeping in mind that the very concept of

a casino gave rise to strong negative feelings from various quarters.

With the help of a consultant in Delhi who was accustomed to

government liaison, I prepared an application on similar grounds

as for sending royalty fees to the several hotel projects of Holiday

Inns and Ramada Hotels which I had done for two decades. To my

utmost surprise, the Government of India’s Foreign Investment

Promotion Board cleared our proposal in January 2000. Thereafter

the government banned direct foreign investment or management

agreements in casinos and ours would be the only one to receive such

permission until 2008.

Meanwhile, I had been looking for a reasonably-priced second-hand

casino ship and had located one in the USA. Now it was necessary to

get permission from the Ministry of Shipping to allow us to import it. We

appointed a nautical expert to check the depths of the water outside

our hotel, as the imported casino ships available with the lowest draft

still needed a minimum of 2 metres of water to stay afloat. The expert

from the Goa Government’s Marine Department was able a find a

location for the ship where there was adequate depth even in the

low tides. A jetty would have to be built to anchor the proposed ship.

top • Briefing reporters on the intricacies of Blackjack.middle • Leo Wallner, Casinos Austria Chairman, participates enthusiastically in the pooja ceremony, feeding me prasad.above • Cutting the ribbon along with our partner, Chairman of Casinos Austria, Dr Leo Wallner.

top • Chairman Casinos Austria Dr Waller, GM Narinder Punj and me on the casino floor.bottom • Receiving ex-Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane and Mrs Vijayadevi Rane.

During the time of uncertainty when I tried to obtain permission

to build a jetty, an old memory surfaced in my mind: the

amphibious boat on which I had sailed the Potomac as a young

man in Washington. Narendra Punj and I travelled to Singapore

to evaluate the Duck Boat as an option for transporting guests

from the beach of our hotel to the casino ship. We found that

the cost of a second hand vehicle was about USD300,000, but

it was unsuitable for the beach as it needed a solid approach

road to carry the heavy weight.

I obtained clearance from the Naval authorities and received

permission to build a jetty at Varca beach facing our hotel.

However, our partners from Austria felt that our location was

too isolated and would not bring enough customers to the

casino. They preferred Panjim as being more central, and we

had to find another location.

Before the Shipping Ministry could give its approval to buy a

ship, I stumbled upon an opportunity to lease a ship close to

Goa itself. An ex-merchant marine officer settled in Goa, Captain

Trehon, approached me to ask if our hotel would be interested

in a joint venture with him. He was building a ship with cabins

which would provide river cruises to tourists.

His shipyard was in the Zuari River near the Goa airport. I

decided to take our project engineer and local architect to look

at the ship, which was still just a shell. Captain Trehon did not

have funds to complete it and the state government agency,

EDC, which had given him a loan, was demanding arrears of

interest which he was unable to pay.

On December 4, 1999, we executed an agreement with Captain

Trehon by which our company was given the ship on a fixed

five-year lease with an option to buy or renew the lease for a

further five years. The agreement specified that our company

would be given delivery of the ship, which he had named Pride

of Goa, after all the detailed alterations to the ship which our

architect and project team had asked for had been made.


top left • Sharon Prabhakar belting it out on the opening nighttop right • Ranjit Malkani, Santosh Bahl, Bal Mundkur, Anjal Malkani cashing their routlette winnings from the coupier on the Caravela Casino.facing page • A roulette table at our casino. Guests can bet either on odd or even in the row closest to them and double their money if luck favours them!

As it happened, the legislation to allow full-fledged casinos on ships was passed on the very same

day, December 4, 1999. Captain Trehon realised that this legislation had raised the value of his ship

and when it was ready for delivery with our interiors and equipment, he tried to breach our agreement

and sell it at a higher price to one of our competitors. We eventually took delivery of the ship in Panaji

in early 2000. Pratapsingh Rane, ex-Chief Minister of Goa, suggested the name Caravela, the name

of the type of ships on which the Portuguese made their early exploratory voyages. There was a

feeling of adventure and exoticism in the name, and a link to the history of Goa, and we agreed at

once, rechristening it Caravela.

The 49 percent contribution from Casinos Austria helped pay for the various imported casino

equipment, furniture and chandeliers, as well as the flame-retardant carpets, curtains and fabrics.

We also purchased sophisticated cameras and other high-technology equipment required for

surveillance and casino operations. I was able to get Charles Silverman of Yates Silverman, who

has done the interiors of Trump Taj Mahal and Las Vegas casinos such as Paris, Luxor and others, to

design the Caravela Casino Goa, its restaurant, the guest rooms and the lobby, and to curate the art

work. I took our interior designer, Prakash Mankar, to Las Vegas. He had also worked with Charles

Silverman and his daughter Margot on the Goa Nugget Casino and this exposure gave him additional

inputs to implement the interiors.

While this was going on, I had to get the ship certified by the Ministry of Shipping Mercantile Marine

Department in Mumbai before the Government of Goa would consider issuing us a casino license.



By the time we received the certificates from the Ministry of Shipping, however, the Goa government

had fallen. The Congress party lost its majority and the Congress Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro was

asked to hand over charge. I pleaded with Mr Faleiro to issue the license before he resigned. He said

that even if he did so, the new government was sure to cancel it. I told him that I was prepared to take

that chance. He said I was a fool but he signed it.

My next step was to convince the incoming BJP Government headed by Francisco Sardinha to not

cancel the casino license as everything was done as per the laws in force. He issued the final license.

He even agreed that the government would lease our company a jetty in the heart of the capital,

Panaji so that the MV Caravela would have a place to conduct business. We later became good

friends. One of my enduring memories is of Francisco and Colomba dancing by the poolside at my

birthday celebrations in Goa.

It was a period of high stress as every step was fraught with risk and we did not know how things

would eventually turn out. India’s first full-fledged riverboat casino, Caravela, opened its doors on

February 17, 2001. This 215-foot cruise ship, which was certified to carry three hundred people, was

the first luxury ship built in India. Its rich interiors were written about in many publications, one of

which referred to the Caravela as a Dream Boat. The official opening ceremony could only be held

in April as the Chairman of Casinos Austria, Dr Leo Wallner, wanted to be present on the occasion.

Dr Wallner arrived in Mumbai on the date of the inauguration but his baggage was misplaced. I had

to rush him to a Santa Cruz department store to buy a readymade Indian sherwani for the occasion

before his connecting flight to Goa, which was only three hours later.

The inauguration was a big success. Sharon Prabhakar, a star performer of the time, sang on the top

deck of the ship and the invitees danced on an impromptu dance floor – where the swimming pool

was planned. These included Goa’s industrialists, the Salgaocars and Chogules as well as senior

government officials including Pratapsingh Rane. Manohar Parrikar, later Chief Minister of Goa,

declined our invitation, having warned me that he was against casinos and if I had not had a legal

casino license, he would have closed down the MV Caravela.

An evening spent on the Caravela Casino was an extremely enjoyable experience. After entering

via a gangway directly from the jetty, you would be greeted by elegantly-dressed receptionists. The

black designer carpet, which had been especially created for us in Las Vegas, gave the feeling of

being in Vegas. The casino was filled with well-dressed domestic patrons. However, we knew that

foreigners in Goa were on holiday and would prefer to dress casually, and we had not enforced a

strict dress code to ensure that we did not lose their custom. The dealers were immaculately dressed.

They professionally dealt the cards and paid the winners with smiles at the four tables of American

Roulette, six tables of Blackjack, a table of Paplu (as Rummy is called in Indian vernaculars) and eight

electronic slot machines, besides private gaming rooms. Two lady crooners belted out lively hits

accompanied by a musician at the far corner of the casino. During their breaks there were Russian

lady performers who did three different acts wearing striking costumes. The Caravela sailed twice

daily all the way up to the Marriott Hotel. It was my firm belief that Goa could attract tourists who

would contribute to the local economy more than the backpackers who flocked to it. We did see the

start of a new market segment entering Goa. Some of the high rollers engaged special jets and flew

in from Mumbai. Other regulars like my friend, the late Bal Mundkar who founded Ulka Advertising,

were picked up and dropped from their homes nearby. The hotels in Panjim, which had relatively low

occupancy until we opened the Caravela Casino, started to flourish. The Marriott in Panjim benefitted

the most.

“An evening spent on the Caravela Casino was an extremely enjoyable experience. After entering via a gangway directly from the jetty, you would be greeted by elegantly-dressed receptionists. The black designer carpet, which had been especially created for us in Las Vegas, gave the feeling of being in Vegas.”

Our casino ship cruising in the Mandovi River.


Sunny side upWe reached our peak in 2006 as we were the only live casino in India. We never advertised or tried

to promote ourselves, but always had many prominent guests by word of mouth. There were strong

rumours that the Goa Government was going to issue five additional offshore casino licenses and

that one of our regular customers, Jaydev Mody, would receive one of them. At our board meeting,

Casinos Austria argued that it would be better to have him as a partner than as a competitor. We

however felt it unwise to reduce our company’s holdings from 51 to 33 percent. As an alternative, they

suggested that we find a buyer for the entire company, or someone who would buy their shareholding,

as Casinos Austria were not willing to provide the additional investment required to face the strong

new competition.

The lease on the Caravela was running out and we were entitled to buy it but Casinos Austria refused

to invest. I began looking for a casino operator who would buy them out at international gaming

conferences in Macau and Las Vegas, at which I was often invited to speak, being the owner of

India’s only casino. I reacquainted myself with Pansy Ho, to whom I had been introduced by Steve

Bollenback, then CEO of Hilton, at the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) Summit at the

Mayflower Hotel in Washington in 2006. She was the daughter of the legendary Stanley Ho who

until recently owned all the casinos in Macau. She observed with interest that our hotel architecture

reminded her of her Westin Hotel in Macau, but she was occupied in building the massive MGM

Hotel and Casino in Macau and suggested I meet her brother Oliver instead. He was a partner of the

Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, and was too occupied in building a large casino opposite the

upcoming Venetian in Macau to do so. I met them again at the opening of the MGM in Macau, which

Pansy invited me to.

When Bill Widener, President of the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, learnt that my wife and I

had been invited by Jack Pratt, Chairman of the Committee of the International Association of Holiday

Inns, to the opening of his Holiday Inn in Dallas in 1976, he invited me to his office in Las Vegas. After

studying the proposal he arranged for me to meet Sheldon Adelson, fourth richest man in the world

at the time. I asked Mr Adelson why he would consider being my partner in India and he replied, “I am

told you are an honest person and you are the only one who I can deal with if I want to enter India”.

Mr Adelson invited me to Macau for dinner and had Mr Widener show me the Cotai Strip where he

was building the Venetian Macau and creating a master plan for a consortium of other casino hotels.

He was keen to create something similar to the Cotai strip in India. I told him it would be very difficult

but he did send his lawyers to meet my lawyers in Bombay to explore a partnership for my casino.

Unfortunately his lawyers convinced him to turn down the proposal.

Back in Mumbai, I learnt that Amit Goenka (whose father Subhas Chandra founded Zee TV) was

looking for an entry into the casino business. He accompanied me to Vienna, along with my lawyer

Suresh Talwar, to negotiate a possible transaction. We had detailed meetings with the CEO of Casinos

Austria, Paul Herzfeld, but two days of talks with their senior management resulted in no decision.

The only other serious interest was shown by Gary Loveman, Chairman of Harrah’s which owned

Caesar’s Palace. Mr Loveman flew in on his private jet on a visit to our hotel in Goa along with his

Vice Chairman and his Asia Head, Michael Chen. They came for the day and were taken to visit the

Caravela ship and the casino ship of one of our competitors. I flew back to Mumbai with them on their

private jet and had them meet with our lawyers at the JW Marriott before they returned to the United

States. The meeting was inconclusive but on a later visit to Las Vegas, Michael Chen made an offer

which was not viable. I understand that they were also negotiating with Vijay Mallya, during their visit

to Goa but he never did get a license.

I must also mention here that one of the potential partners I considered was Donald Trump, knowing

that he had built the Trump Taj Mahal Casino and Hotel. At an event in Las Vegas I learnt that he was

very close to Phil Rufkin, the owner of the popular Treasure Island Casino on the Las Vegas strip, and

Mr Rufkin assured me that my proposal would be sent to his friend Donald. Sadly, the timing was too

short.

While Donald Trump as US President has been a controversial subject right from the start, I must

confess that I laid a wager on his victory six months before the elections, when Trump was still only

one of sixteen candidates. After the results of the US Presidential Elections were declared, my cousin

Suresh Jagtiani sent me a one-rupee coin in a wooden frame and a note that said, “You deserve this.”

I sent a letter of congratulations to President Donald Trump.

“I asked Mr Adelson, the world’s fourth-richest man at the time, why he would consider being my partner in India. He replied, ‘I am told you are an honest person and you are the only one whom I can deal with if I want to enter India’.”

“Meanwhile, time was running out and we had no option but to buy a replacement casino ship. The best price I could get was for one in Miami which was available for USD1.3 million.”


of Goa hiked the annual recurring license fee from INR25 million to INR50 million. Casinos Austria

refused to share the burden, despite having received substantial dividends over the years. Our best

option was to accept Jaydev’s offer to purchase 51 percent shareholding in APCCPL which owned

the Caravela Casino.

His company took over all the liabilities of APCCPL, including the loan taken to buy MV Majesty. They

paid the increased casino license fees and were able to convince the owner of the MV Caravela, who

had been threatening to seize it, along with all the casino equipment on board, to renew the lease.

Today, we have excellent relations with Jaydev Mody and he fully supports all the resolutions at the

Annual General Meetings as a significant shareholder of Advani Hotels.

The colourful life of a casino ownerThe Goa Government’s revenues were largely obtained from mining and tourism, of which the larger

component of tourism income derived from casinos. As time passed, it was realised that mining was

depleting Goa’s environment and bans were enforced. Casinos became a cash cow for the state

government.

In 2004, the Commissioner in Goa received instructions that every casino winner had to pay tax

on whatever they had won. I had met P Chidambaram, Finance Minister of the Indian government,

when he hosted the President of the World Bank at our hotel in Goa after delivering his Dream

Budget in 1997. I now paid a call on him to explain the implications of this requirement. To calculate

exactly how much any client won or lost in the course of a visit to a casino was impossible because

when chips were issued, they did not carry any identification and were freely exchanged at each

table. If, for example, it had be determined how much each player had won when the roulette wheel

stopped before spinning the ball for the next bet, it would cause a delay that no player would be

willing to tolerate. He and a junior who was present at the meeting were able to understand the

complexities and the order was never implemented. However, the Goa government kept increasing

“I was not interested in raising the stakes and putting myself and my guests at risk, and regretfully brought a graceful end to what had been a very interesting chapter in my life.”

Meanwhile, time was running out and we had no option but to buy a replacement casino ship. The

best price I could get was for one in Miami which was available for USD1.3 million. The 150-foot

long MV Majesty was being used as a casino, sailing between Miami and the Bahamas, and had a

hundred and fifty slot machines and roulette tables on board. I took our project engineer, Eric Pereira,

and Haresh’s brother-in-law Dilip Jhanghiani, who had captained huge tankers, to inspect the ship

along with a US firm of ship surveyors. They concluded that the hull was perfect. A Casinos Austria

marine engineer based in Miami also approved the ship. We had a sale deed prepared and took

delivery. I had arranged for the ship to be floated onto a larger mother boat as the Majesty could

not travel across the Atlantic Ocean with its limited fuel tanks. The Dutch shipper whom I visited in

Rotterdam would not budge below USD3.3 million to transport the ship to Mumbai. Our company’s

bankers, Bank of Baroda, gave our joint venture company Advani Pleasure Cruise Company Private

Limited (APCCPL) a dollar loan equivalent to about USD4 million. Our joint venture had a clause that

both partners would share all liabilities equally, but the Austrians refused to contribute their share of

the loan.

Customs authorities claimed duty which the Shipping Ministry had indicated as not payable. We

decided to provide a bank guarantee for the full duty on the ship and casino equipment, as sailing

the ship to Goa with the monsoon approaching would not have been permitted. MV Majesty reached

the shipyard in Goa where it was to be renovated to Indian safety standards for approval by the

Mercantile Marine Department.

As we battled to repay our debt and interest, the revenues of the Caravela Casino declined radically.

The Austrian partners gave our general manager, Narinder Punj, permission to resign and join a

ship casino started by my friend Jaydev Mody. Gradually, our major customers and trained staff also

gravitated there. Our casino subsidiary, Advani Pleasure Cruise Company Private Limited, could

no longer afford the government rent for use of the jetty or the interest on the loan taken to buy

MV Majesty.

Our parent company, Advani Hotels and Resorts, came under tremendous pressure because we

also had to pay MV Caravela’s bank dues to retain our own banking facilities. Then, the Government

“I can say with pride that we were put under every kind of scrutiny and came out clean every single time.”


the annual casino license fee until it became unviable for us. My idea of running a casino had been to

introduce good-quality novel entertainment to Goa. By increasing casino license fees to this extent,

the Goa government was pointedly attracting a clientele which had ill-gotten money to burn. I was

not interested in raising the stakes and putting the company at risk. The license was in my name and

I could also be in danger. So I regretfully brought a graceful end to what had been a very interesting

chapter in my life.

Despite this, owning and operating a casino had also made me an unpopular person because

casinos were looked upon as a place where illegal and dastardly acts were committed, which was

quite different to our reality. I faced criticism from many, including Goa’s redoubtable singer Remo

Fernandes. I was targeted by women’s groups. We did have wives coming to our casino looking for

their husbands. And we were issued government orders to move our casino ship out of the river

because it was obstructing the movement of other boats and polluting the river with its effluent (it

was not). One day Manohar Parrikar, (Chief Minister of Goa as I write this and at the time leader of the

opposition), led a protest into the reception of the jetty of the MV Caravela.

I can say with pride that we were put under every kind of scrutiny and came out clean every single time.

In 2004, a tax raid was carried out on the Caravela Casino. A team of experts from the Department

scrutinised all our books and transactions over a period of two days and found neither unaccounted

cash nor a single irregularity of any nature.

However, it is equally true that running a casino certainly put us into all kinds of colourful situations!

With the staff handling large amounts of cash all the time, there was always the possibility of

underhand deals between them and big gamblers and the manager had to be always alert and the

security cameras continuously supervised.

One time, we were instructed by the state government to prevent a certain gentleman from entering

our casino. It was a tough decision for us, because he had contributed close to INR25 million to

the casino coffers! But he happened to be a government official. Another problem arose when our

casino managers decided to show their patriotism on Independence Day and gave all the dealers

new uniforms in colours of the Indian flag and had them dealing cards in the casino wearing white

khadi caps. I received a police summons in my name to appear at the police station under the charge

of abusing the national flag of India. I had to engage a prominent lawyer to represent me and avoid

police action.

Another time, we were approached by a group of people representing India’s liquor baron, Vijay

Mallya, to set up a mock casino in Bangalore at Mr Mallya’s annual party where he would be inviting

over a thousand friends to celebrate during the Derby horse racing event. We explained that we

could do so provided actual money was not used, as our casino license permitted gambling only on

our ship off the coast of Goa and not on land. They confirmed that actual money would not be used.

I went along with Narinder Punj, our general manager, and a team of dealers. We flew the required

casino equipment to Bangalore to set up the mock casino for Mr Mallya’s friends. The party began

with guests arriving at 8.30pm as per the invitation. A short while later, we received a telephone call

“A short while later, we received a telephone call that he was insisting that his guests be allowed to wager money instead of dummy chips. We refused to allow this and continued to do so despite continuous and insistent demands.”

At Mayor Goodman’s office when she invited me to discuss a sister city tie up between Las Vegas and Goa. On the extreme right next to me is Radha Chanderraj. Next to Mayor Goodman is Rita Vaswani. Las Vegas, 2014.


that Mr Mallya was insisting that his guests be allowed to wager money instead of dummy chips. We

refused to allow this and continued to do so despite continuous and insistent demands. I started to

leave the venue at 1.15am and met Mr Mallya at the exit gate. He was just arriving at his own party. It

was the first and last time I met him.

And then there was the day that I received a phone call from the head of police one day to say that

the then Home Minister, L K Advani, and his daughter were on a cruise of the Mandovi River and

noticed MV Caravela berthed at its jetty. The police officer calling told me that they had wanted to go

on board to see the ship but later decided against it. Perhaps they did so when they were told it was

a casino and belonged to an Advani!

The other AdvaniHaving Advani as a family name sometimes turns out to be a problem. By and large, Advani is one

of the more common Sindhi surnames and, since we are of the Amil community which holds great

store by education, most Advanis are well-respected members of society. However, when I received

my license for a full-fledged casino at the end of 1999, the BJP government had just assumed power.

The BJP as a political party had always taken the stand that casinos were dens of vice and should

be condemned and outlawed. Fingers were pointed and I was accused of having been granted the

license because I was a relative of LK Advani, one of the senior-most leaders of the BJP – which I am

most certainly not. I had in fact met Mr LK Advani once, when I first came to India in 1969 and had to

spend a lot of time in Delhi, trying to obtain an Indian Passport. He was Municipal Councillor in New

Delhi at the time. I had come with my uncle Hiro Shivdasani, who was a senior government officer

from an illustrious family of Sindh, and LK signed the form barely acknowledging my presence.

In 2002, when he was the Home Minister of India, I went to see him once again in his huge office in

North Block next to Parliament. Our company, Advani Hotels, had borrowed about INR140 million in

1995 from Tourism Finance Corporation of India when we built seventy-four additional guest rooms

to our resort hotel in Goa, the flight kitchen at Goa airport and the casino on the MV Caravela.

We also had to repay the loan taken earlier from a bank in Holland. With loans from Indian banks,

repayment starts quickly giving no time for the business to build capacity to repay. In the year 2000,

the millennium scare led to a sharp drop in our regular Christmas business. All these factors led to

frequent lapses in our repayment schedule. As the pressure rose, we were able to quickly arrange

for a loan from another bank to entirely repay TFCI. However, at this point TFCI refused to accept the

money, insisting that we were too late and by law our hotel would be foreclosed.

With TFCI threatening to foreclose even though I was trying to return the entire loan amount, I visited

LK Advani once again, tried to establish a bond not just with our common surname but also as alumni

of the same school, St Patrick’s Karachi. All to no avail. LK Advani has a reputation for never raising a

finger to help anyone, especially no one of his own community.

As I left his office, I noticed the nameplate ‘Ajay Prasad’ on an office two doors away. I recognized the

name as I had interacted with him at the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) retreat held at Taj

Exotica, Goa, just a few months before. He had observed from our interaction that I knew what I was

doing and that I was committed to promoting good-quality tourism in India. When he heard about the

problem I was now facing, he picked up the phone and made a call to help me sort things out. The

problem was still not over. I had to plead with VP Singh, chairman of IFCI, who was also chairman

Ramnath Kurade (Rama):I started working at Mr Sunder Advani’s hotel in 1990. After completing 9th standard at St Mary’s School at the 310-year-old Varca

Cathedral, I drove a bus for a few years and then joined Mr Advani as his family driver.

I was not the only one to get a job at the hotel – Mr Advani brought a lot of employment for my village. When he started building his

hotel, there was no electricity in my village and no running water. Because of the hotel, we got a good access road, all the homes got

electricity and the streets are well lit at night. We started getting water from taps – before that we had managed with brackish well water.

Besides opportunities to work in the hotel, we also have forty men from my village who run taxis and do very good business offering

a taxi service at lucrative rates to the hotel guests. This includes airport drop and pickup as well as sightseeing tours.

Mr Prahlad was studying in the US and then joined the hotel. He has now been working here for fifteen years and has brought a lot

of improvements with many modern utilities including more than two hundred closed circuit security cameras.

I am very happy with my job role and earn a good salary – more than twenty times what I started with eighteen years ago!

“He had observed from our interaction that I knew what I was doing and that I was committed to promoting good-quality tourism in India. When he heard about the problem I was now facing, he picked up the phone and made a call to help me sort things out.”


to Frankfurt. As the charters increased, flight catering was

not just increased revenue but also a way to secure our

business with the charter companies. We purchased a plot of

land 2 kilometres from the airport and approached CaterAir,

a company in Paris belonging to Marriott Corporation, to

provide kitchen consultancy. We opened our flight kitchen

and called it Airport Plaza, the name our airline clients from

Bombay were familiar with. When Indian Airlines, still the

only domestic carrier in those days, signed up with us, the

kitchen was occupied during the May to October off-season

time when charters did not operate to Goa. The flight kitchen

was designed so that the restaurant and bar on the upper

floor could be used by airline passengers in case a flight

was delayed, which happened frequently in the monsoons.

There were no restaurants at Goa airport and we installed an

intercom near the Indian Airlines counter so that they could

call us to have passengers picked up, given hospitality at

our flight kitchen restaurant, and returned to the airport in

time for the rescheduled flight. Over time, we added NovAir

Airline from Scandinavia, Aeroflot from Russia, Austrian

Airlines, BalAir from Switzerland, FinnAir, Air India and others

to our clientele. We even provided meals to the casino on

the MV Caravela. The quality of meals we created at the

flight kitchen twenty years ago was outstanding.

Given the success of our kitchen, the Taj Group decided to

build a flight kitchen opposite our unit. They secured a tie up

with Singapore Airlines for this. We decided that there would

be serious competition and undercutting prices would lead

to loss of quality which we were not at all interested in doing.

In 2009, we sold the unit at a good value to Gate Gourmet,

the world leader in flight catering. I’m happy to say that they

retained all of our staff. As time went by, charters to Goa

started to reduce and the unit in Goa was closed. We were

lucky to exit when we did.

of TFCI. Amitabh Kant who was then Joint Secretary, Ministry

of Tourism, also put in a word. Eventually TFCI accepted our

repayment.

My casino story has ended, but people I meet on my travels

continue to ask how I had possibly managed to get a casino

license in India. One time, after I concluded a speech at the

Annual Casino Convention in Macau, a Chinese tycoon walked

up to me and asked, “Did you have a direct connection to God?”

He insisted I come to his office in Hong Kong just to shake hands

with his colleagues. He said I would be richer than Mr Ambani

someday and wanted to be my partner. I explained to him that I

had been lucky but, as every casino owner knows, luck doesn’t

last forever. Even Donald Trump had to close his casino Trump

Taj Mahal in Atlantic City!

I who had nothing When we first built our hotel in Goa, Condor Airlines of Germany

had recently started to operate a chartered flight once a week

to Goa and they became our early customers. Then Britannia

Airways (later known as Thomson Fly) introduced charter flights.

Many of the passengers who came on these 150-seat flights

stayed at our hotel. Having the Ramada Renaissance brand was

useful because it enabled us to also accommodate the flight

crew and they would stay for a week till the next flight arrived,

giving us guaranteed business of twenty rooms. Those were

happy days – not just for us but for the crew too, staying as they

did at the best hotel in Goa!

In 1995, until we started the flight kitchen in Goa, most of these

flights stopped in the Middle East to pick up food. When the

Condor manager in Goa, Mr Da’Costa, learnt that I had experience

in running a flight kitchen in Bombay, the airline began buying

meals from our hotel kitchen in Varca for direct return flights

above • An airline meal tray prepared at Plaza flight kitchen, without any imports.top facing • Prahlad graduated from Cornell University Hotel School in May 1999, and he clearly left his mark. During his last semester at Cornell, Dean Dittman had selected our Renaissance Goa Resort as the site for the Annual Alumni Reunion of Cornell Hotel Society’s Asia Chapter, a big feather in our cap.Dean Dittman told me, “I like Prahlad taking charge of my class of five hundred students because he has an iron hand in a velvetglove.” Prahlad always admired Dean Dittman and learnt a lot by observing his leadership.In this photo, I am at the top left, with Dinesh Khanna next to me and our hotel’s GM Mr Schallig behind us. Meena stands in front, with Maureen Dittman next to her, wearing a sari. Behind her is Timothy Hinkin. I am at the top left corner and Deepak Nirula stands in front of me. At the other end of the row is Phil Miller.middle facing • Dean Ditman of Cornel Hotel School awarding a hospitality leadership book for having hosted the alumni conference.bottom facing • Cornell alumni meet at our Renaissance Goa Resort, 1999


A rising sonAfter graduating from Cornell, Prahlad spent a year in America. He worked briefly for the oldest

investment bank in America called Bankers Trust Alex Brown. When Prahlad returned to India in

2000, he joined the family business as Asset Manager at a fraction of his previous salary, and didn’t

get a pay raise for the first five years.

On a professional level, Prahlad’s strengths are his focus, attention to detail and an amazing memory.

If you ever want a project to be properly planned in detail and executed with an eye for perfection, he

is your man. He likes going into a mess and slowly but steadily turning things around.

At first he helped me fit-out the Caravela cruise ship so that we could start the first and only live-

gaming casino in India. When he joined, we were facing financial issues due to the delay in the

opening of our casino venture and then the unfortunate tragedy of nine-eleven. Haresh and I were

more involved in domestic and international marketing respectively, so he focussed on the back of

the house and administrative departments. I was happy to have him back as he could help me in

sorting out the various financial problems we were facing at the Renaissance Goa Resort, with project

cost overruns and bank loans at 19 percent interest!

Prahlad refinanced our high-cost debt in 2003 by coming up with a scheme to escrow and securitize

our receivables. Through his banking experience he made a detailed financing memorandum and

obtained an External-Commercial-Borrowing in USD at only 4.75% interest versus the 19.0% high-cost

debt we were saddled with! Prahlad used the hidden advantage that the company was self-hedged,

as the resort earned a majority of its income in US Dollars anyway. This refinancing from London was

one of the significant turning points in the company history and allowed Haresh and me to focus our

attention on the promising casino subsidiary.

I must give credit to Prahlad because it was his financial skills which helped us to prepare an

Information Memorandum, find a buyer, and sell our flight kitchen to Gate Gourmet (owned by the

Texas Pacific Group), at the right time, just before Lehman Brothers collapsed and the global financial

crisis started.Prahlad at the Union League Club of New York


Over the years, Prahlad improved the Purchasing, Engineering, Finance, Security, Landscaping, and

lastly the Digital Marketing and Revenue Management within the Company. My son is very process

driven. His perfectionist attitude drives contractors, vendors and all of us up the wall! In renovation

projects he is very focussed and one-track-minded and will work till 4am if required to personally

supervise the execution. His work is visible in the Engineering Plant Room in the hotel, with each

aspect done to perfection, with long-term annual maintenance contracts and strict schedules to

maintain efficiency. Similarly, the CCTV of the hotel and the beautiful landscaping of the resort are

visible results of his attention to detail and focus on continuous improvement.

When it comes to employees, Prahlad is always very considerate and generous with their needs and

increments.

The VulturesThere are two types of entrepreneurs. One who know what resources they have at their disposal and,

working within that limited framework, plan their product and venture accordingly. The other, of which

I happen to be one, are those who observe an un-met need and a customer segment willing to pay

for it, and design and make a product to fill this gap, irrespective of the resources required. I believe

that a good and viable project will eventually attract the right resources.

Unfortunately, capital is scarce in India and highly priced. Financial institutions demand high interest

rates, give loans with shorter periods of time than in the USA and also ask for personal guarantees

with strong recourse. When entrepreneurs without large reserves of personal funds encounter a

situation outside their control, such as the Gulf War, Nine-Eleven, or an unprecedented shift in the

supply-demand cycle, there are vultures in wait, who will attempt to swoop down and devour the

fruits of the entrepreneur’s hard-earned work. This happened to me, more than once and resulted in

making me more financially conservative.

One evening in 1992, a person whom I had known when he was associated with Arthur Andersen,

came to meet me at my residence. He informed me that his client owned more equity shares in

our Company than I did. I knew that there were several NRIs, our foreign collaborators and the

associates of our contractors who owned significant equity shares in our Company, and felt shocked

and unsettled to know that his client had perhaps made a deal to buy out some, or even all of them.

I looked him in the eye and told him that what he claimed was impossible because we had not

received any applications for transfer of shares.

I later learnt it was a large investor by the name of Pallav Seth who had been negotiating with some

of our shareholders and was on the verge of buying them out to take control of our Company. To my

good fortune, he was convicted of a major financial fraud and arrested by the authorities before his

malafide intentions against us could be carried out. This was the time when the notorious Harshad

Mehta and others were also found guilty of financial scams and also arrested.

There were other attempts at hostile takeover of our Company, but they fortunately did not succeed,

partly because of luck and partly because I and my brother had continued to increase our shareholding

by borrowing funds and purchasing shares from the open market at high prices to fend off acquisitions

until we owned 50.1 percent.

With my son’s help, these challenges taught me what all budding entrepreneurs should know: beyond

passion for growing revenues and creating value for the customer, it is also imperative to helicopter-up

with a robust financial strategy which entails the right capital structure, the right ownership structure,

a strong focus on cash-flow collection and management, an emergency line of credit (as bankers

may not give you money when you really need it), and a planned financial cushion for your company.

Without these in place, all you worked so hard to create can be hijacked from you!

“There were other attempts at hostile takeover of our Company, but they fortunately did not succeed, partly because of luck and partly because my brother and I had continued to increase our shareholding.”

I was present at a speech made by Bill Marriott at a gathering of all his hotel General Managers at the company’s headquarters

in Bethseda, Maryland. I remember him saying, “If you take care of your associates, they are sure to take care of your guests.”

He used the word ‘associates’ instead of ‘employees’ and the word ‘guests’ instead of ‘customers’, and that brought in a feeling

of enhanced hospitality.


A THOUSAND MOONSEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS186 187

A THOUSAND

MOONS~ Barbra Streisand ~

Memories light the corners of my mind

Misty water-colored memories of the way we were

Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind

Smiles we gave to one another for the way we were


My mother, Rukmani, also known as Papani, celebrated her hundredth birthday on December 14,

2014. She enjoyed the celebration with her characteristic enthusiasm and laughter, and we marveled

yet again at the social graces which have always been a dominant feature of her personality. She lived

to be a hundred-and-three. Her mother, Popri Jhamatmal Shivdasani, lived even longer, passing away

just one month short of her hundred-and-eighth birthday. My father, the late Gurdasmal Dharamdas

Advani, passed away in 2006 at the age of ninety-four. So you could say that I am descended from

a certain longevity.

In ancient times, it was uncommon for anyone to live to be a hundred. As people grew older,

celebrations and thanksgiving were held for religious and social bonding. Turning sixty was considered

an achievement – and eighty, much rarer, an even greater one. A person who lives to the age of

eighty has seen 29,200 days. Since a full moon occurs approximately every 29.2 days, a person who

lives to be eighty had seen one thousand full moons! In Sanskrit, this special distinction has the name

`Sahasra Chandra Darsanam’.

As I approach the age at which I will be leaving a thousand full moons behind me, I look around with

wonder at the changes I have seen in my life.

“In ancient times, it was uncommon for anyone to live to be a hundred. As people grew older, celebrations and thanksgiving were held for religious and social bonding. Turning sixty was considered an achievement – and eighty, much rarer, an even greater one.”

previous page • Seen here with a group of international tourism professionals who received awards at Internationale Tourismus-Börse (ITB) Berlin, the world’s largest tourism trade fair. Next to me is Joseph A McInerny, a stalwart of the international hotel industry and head of Sheraton corporation at the time. Renaissance Goa Resort received the Best Resort Award in 1999. The following year, I received the Hall of Fame Award at ITB Berlin, the only Indian to receive it. facing page • I led an IACC delegation to New York and Chicago in 2016. In New York, I was requested by the Consul General of India Riva Das Ganguly (seated centre) to present awards at the Indian consulate in New York City, to high-achieving US citizens and persons of Indian origin who excelled in USA. Left: Presenting an award to prominent New York lawyer Norman Solovay. Right: Presenting an award for fostering Indo US relations to Pesach Osina.

A thousand moons


Exceeding guest expectationsWhen I first started doing business in Goa, it was not at all the kind of tourist destination

it now is. What made it a pleasure working here in those days was the guarantee

of chartered planes filled with well-behaved tourists eager for a relaxing holiday

in a beautiful, luxurious resort – something we had specially created based on my

experience of similar places around the world.

Arriving in the clean, green environment of Goa brought a feeling of happiness. Its

beaches were more beautiful than beaches anywhere in the world. And Goa history was

exotic. It had remained under the rule of the oldest European power, the Portuguese, to

send adventurous explorers Eastwards as early as the fifteenth century.

Though the British gave India freedom in 1947, Portuguese rule continued in Goa until

1961 when Goa was liberated by Indian military action. The most noticeable evidence

of Portuguese rule in Goa is the architecture of its old buildings, and its beautiful

churches. Among the most famous of these is the Basilica de Bom Jesus, a Unesco World Heritage

Site. Goa became known internationally in the 1960s when the Beatles discovered it, and hippies

flocked there. For the foreign tourists, the fabulous beaches were a draw, and for Indian tourists –

it was different from any other part of India and a fun place to visit frequently. The people of Goa

are always smiling and there is always music and dancing wherever you go! One of the biggest

celebrations of Christmas in India takes place in Goa and people flock there to enjoy seafood, walk

barefoot on the beach during the day and party all night. One year in the 1990s, our hotel was

overbooked and I was fortunate to get shelter from Governor Bhanu Prakash Singh and spend New

Year’s Eve in Raj Bhavan.

Goa’s Raj Bhavan, the traditional residence of high authorities since the nineteenth century, was first

a chapel, then a fortress and subsequently a monastery, a convent, then the Cabo Palace, and now

the official residence of the Governor of Goa.

The first chartered planes to Goa came from Germany and as the annual routine stabilized, the flights

increased in number, bringing tourists from UK, Norway, Finland and other European countries too.

Our hotel remained full from November to April. For more than twenty-five years, I also travelled

during those months to trade fairs in London in November at the start of the cold season and then to

Berlin. The fairs were not just a place to get business – for us they were also an opportunity to learn

about how the tourism industry was developing, what new concepts were being introduced, and

what it was that our existing and potential clients were looking for.

As tourism grew in Goa, beach shacks came up offering inexpensive local cuisine. The bulk of

our charter guests were Germans and British. Germans were strict about hygiene and did not risk

frequenting these shacks, so we got their F&B business as well. They looked on our hotel as a

home away from home. Our British guests, more budget conscious, were satisfied with beer and only

occasionally ordered the fine wines many of our European clients were accustomed to.

As the German and British charters reduced, the Russian economy began to transform in the mid-

1990s, and we suddenly had a new and eager clientele. The Russians were a godsend for Goa tourism.

They kept to themselves, paid good money and the food and liquor bills were satisfyingly large. For

many, it was their first taste of luxury and they revelled in our events, special buffets, promotion of a

particular alcohol or happy hours – everyone was happy! We put up signs and printed menus in the

Russian language. And we hired two Russian interpreters, experienced women professionals who

lived in rented accommodation and rode in to work on their motorbikes every day. I began travelling

to Moscow twice a year so that our hotel would be well represented at the travel fairs there too.

By and large, the charter customers were a dream. They were easy to please and had uniform tastes.

They were generous spenders, bringing much-needed foreign exchange and were good for the local

top • The golf course at our hotel in Goa.above • Receiving an award for guest satisfaction from Thomas Cook UK manager Mandy Watson in 1993 in our hotel lobby.


economy too. Quite often, guests who stayed at our hotel would tell

us that they had just been to Jaipur. We began thinking about setting

up a hotel there – marketing would be simpler as tour operators

could send our Goa guests to our Jaipur hotel and vice versa.

Two beautiful destinations we lostI had visited Jaipur in the late 1970s on the invitation of MK Sanghi,

as his brother wanted to build a Holiday Inn on a piece of land in

Bani Park. It was a good site and they had selected a good architect,

Piloo Mody, but the hotel project never materialised. When I recently

reminded Mr Sanghi about this he said, “Kismat mein nahin thee”,

which means ‘it was not destined’. You could say the same of our

next attempt. When we visited Jaipur to attend Meena’s best friend

Kalpana’s daughter’s wedding at the Raj Bhavan there in May 1995

– Kalpana’s father Bali Ram Bhagat being Governor of Rajasthan at

the time – we considered building a hotel in Jaipur.

In the 1990s, Jaipur had a severe shortage of hotel rooms and our

idea was met with approval. Mr Bhagat arranged for me to meet

the Chief Secretary of Rajasthan and he suggested that we build

our hotel a little outside the city, overlooking the spectacular Amber

Fort. We drove on the highway leading to the fort and from one

vacant plot I saw elephants walking up the hill to the impressive

fort, carrying tourists in howdahs on their backs. After taking site

photos and confirming from the Planning Department that this site

was not in the Forest Zone, I went back to the office of the Chief

Secretary to check whether I would get permission to build since

the road to the site passed through a forested area. He confirmed

that permission would be given and that there were several other

small hotels within 2 kilometers further along the highway. With this

assurance, I located the owner of the plot living in Delhi, and made

an agreement to buy the land.

We now flew the WATG Hawaii architect George Berean, who had designed our hotel in Goa,

to Jaipur. He made an impressive plan for the new hotel, giving it chattris to blend with the local

architecture. Almost all the hotel rooms had a view of Amber Fort. Ensuring that all the Town Planning

Department parameters such as FSI, coverage ratios, height, setbacks, had been complied with,

we submitted the plan. It was a shock that, even after several visits to the Tourism Department in

Jaipur, our application was rejected and we were informed that the zoning of our plot (which had

been specifically recommended to us by the Chief Secretary) had been changed. Later we were

informed that this area was earmarked as a parking space for cars taking visitors to Amber Fort 2

kilometres away. When we tried to persist, we received a letter from the government threatening us

with prosecution if we ever tried to enter the area – and we had no option but to write off the losses

we had incurred.

This was not the first such loss we faced. In 1996, we had made plans to build a resort in the Maldives.

Tourism started developing in the Maldives in 1972 with three resorts. Each was built on its own island,

with the population consisting only of tourists and the resort’s workforce. When I went to Colombo for

Near the site of our proposed hotel. This and several other photos were shot by our architect, George Berean. Jaipur, 1995

The cover page of the master plan made by WATV for the development of Hudufushi Island in the Maldives.


“Since the bidder for each island was required to submit a bank guarantee equivalent to USD1 million, which I was able to obtain from Centurion Bank Mumbai, we could not afford to bid for more than one island. I sent the information to George Berean, and once he had studied it, Haresh, Meena and I chartered a sea plane and took him to inspect the islands and help us choose.”

Holiday Inns and then on behalf of Ramada Inc., I met people who spoke of the Maldives as a dream

destination with a shortage of rooms. When I visited, I was stunned by the beauty of the various

lagoons around the hotels where bungalows built for tourists extended over the water and one could

see marine life underneath. When the Government of Maldives announced its intention of auctioning

fourteen islands on thirty-year leases, Haresh and I made several visits there. We purchased the

tender documents and studied the distance of each island from the airport, its height above sea level,

their sizes and shapes, their distance from other resorts, the incidence of coral reefs (for which we

transported a specialist scuba diver from Singapore), and other relevant information that would help

us decide which one to bid for.

Since the bidder for each island was required to submit a bank guarantee equivalent to USD1 million,

which I was able to obtain from Centurion Bank Mumbai, we could not afford to bid for more than

one island. I sent the information to George Berean, and once he had studied it, Haresh, Meena and

I chartered a sea plane and took him to inspect the islands and help us choose. We landed on the

two which looked most interesting to him, and George then made a detailed plan to develop the

island we selected. This included the location of staff housing and praying facilities, the garbage

removal system, methods of preserving the environment and all the requirements listed in the

Maldives government tenders. We also hired KPMG Colombo to prepare a feasibility study to project

the profitability of the project, to convince ourselves and fellow investors, and help us decide our

how much we should offer as the annual rent we were willing to pay. We had to keep the name of

the island secret even from our consultants since our competitors were also employing them. The

final bids were opened in public and it was seen that the highest bid for Hudufushi, the island we had

selected, at USD1.3 million for the first year with some escalation for subsequent years, was ours.

Our delight that our resort in the Maldives would soon be a reality turned to dust when the Maldives

Minister of Tourism Mr Zaki explained that we would be issued the lease only on condition that a

cabinet minister of the government was made 50 percent owner of the hotel company, free of charge.

Neither we nor Ramada Inc. were agreeable to this arrangement, and our beautifully designed project

was aborted after an expense of USD100,000 to our company.

Welcome to Hotel IndiaThe Chairman and Managing Director of the government-owned India Tourism Development

Corporation (ITDC), which runs a number of hotels under the Ashoka brand, was a good friend. We

had visited ITB Berlin together and I showed him some Ramada hotels in Germany. He was impressed

with how Ramada could operate a hotel of over a hundred rooms in Frankfurt with only nineteen

employees. I suggested that Ramada could manage the four elite Ashoka hotels in Kovalam, Delhi

(the Qutub), Jaipur and Bangalore. We sent our project engineer to inspect these hotels, and his

report was positive. It was clear that each be converted into a Ramada with some upgradation.

In 1995, I arranged for Heinz Steele, Senior VP Ramada Inc, their French Head of Europe, and Nihal

Samarasinha, to meet the then Finance Minister and future Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan

Singh. Dr Singh asked me, “Mr Advani, why are we not able to get more foreign tourists to India when

we have everything, while a small country like Switzerland gets so many tourists?” I answered, “Sir,

Switzerland is so clean! And if you leave your wallet in a taxi, the driver will call the authorities to get

it back to you.” Our meeting went well and he listened intently to my ideas on how we could bring

more tourists to India.

It seemed that the Indian government was ready to make the investment required and hand over

the management of the four Ashoka hotels to Ramada. After the meeting, Mr Steele returned to

his Presidential Suite at the Ashoka in Delhi. He went to take a shower, and got a shock when the

showerhead flew off and hit him on the head. Meanwhile, his wife received a threatening call from

the lobby. Upset and alarmed, they checked out immediately and would have nothing to do with ITDC

ever again. It was clear that they had been hounded out by the hotel’s unionised employees.

Some lessons from my life as an international hotelier• Strive to always exceed the expectations of the guests

• In a prospective employee, look for the right attitude. Attitude is most important as as skills can always be taught

• An organization’s success is determined by its weakest link

• Always empathise with what a guest has been through even when you know that they have no basis for the complaint

• Always take the complainant to a separate area so that their outbursts are not heard by other guests.


India for tourists, tourism for IndiaIndia has a better chance of success in the services sector

than the manufacturing sector. China has excelled in maIndia

has a better chance of success in the services sector than the

manufacturing sector. China has excelled in manufacturing

through low cost of capital and higher productivity; while India

does not have these advantages, we do have a large number

of educated people who can communicate better in English.

Almost 60 percent of our GDP is derived from services.

Tourism, which accounts for one out of eleven jobs globally, has

great potential in our country. And India probably has more to

offer tourists than any other country in the world. Our ancient

monuments are unmatched. We have beautiful beaches,

majestic mountains, jungles and backwaters. Shopping is

inexpensive. Every region has delicious local variations of the

Indian food that is enjoyed all over the world. India also offers

a long tradition of spirituality to seekers.

However, our tourist infrastructure is poor. While we do have

a tourism department with ample resources, we have never

been as successful at marketing ourselves as many other

countries, some far smaller and with far less to offer. Perhaps

one reason for this is that in India, the post of Tourism Minister

is considered a lesser one, a stepping stone to something more

important. I believe that, to be effective, our tourism ministry

and the officials of our tourism department need to learn how

to market India differently. The ministry needs to be headed

by people who have travelled the world – and such people

are relatively rare in India. They need to understand how other

countries market themselves as tourist destinations. The same

applies to employees of the tourist offices Government of

India maintains in other countries. Our tourism ministry must

learn how to market the right attractions to the right people

to bring them to India. We have huge opportunities to offer the world such as yoga and Ayurveda;

Buddhism in its home country; other ‘golden triangles’ than the oversold Delhi-Agra-Jaipur; more

circuits of heritage tourism; opportunities for year-long tourism rather than just the winter months;

and medical tourism. Even the tourism department website until recently was neither appealing nor

offered easy navigation.

After appealing to the tourism ministry for many years, it is gratifying to find that they have gradually

begun to follow this approach. I saw this at a presentation made by the hardworking Suman Billa,

Joint Secretary of the of the Ministry to the members of WTTC of the ministry to the members of

WTTC (India Initiative), of which I was Chairman until December 11, 2018. At the AGM where the new

chairman took over, I met the current Tourism Minister, K J Alphons, and we had a long discussion

over lunch. He mentioned a few points which really impressed me.

Many countries, vying for tourists, offer visa on arrival. I campaigned for this for many years and

after much pressure from the WTTC (II), the Ministry of Tourism finally obtained permission from the

Home Ministry to accept applications for e-tourist visas online. The government also removed some

restrictions on tourists travelling to Goa on charter flights. These initiatives resulted in a substantial

increase in foreign tourists. “I also feel that our visa fees are unnecessarily high; far more British

tourists would visit India instead of the nearby destinations they are choosing if their visa fees did not

cut into their holiday budget.”

One of the major reasons tourists stay away from India is because India is perceived as an unsafe

destination. We need a specialized tourist police force at major tourist attractions. Our government

also needs to improve roads, airports, ports, bridges and other infrastructure. This will be better for

us as a nation as well as make tourists safer and more comfortable.

I do know that despite all my efforts towards promoting tourism in India, even recently when I

introduced myself to the new Governor of Goa, Mridula Sinha, the Chief Minister of Goa told her

top • In conversation at lunch with the Minister of Tourism, Mr K J Alphons, who is seated between Mr Rajeev Talwar and Priya Paul. Seated to her left is Navin Berry. New Delhi, December 11, 2018middle • Addressing members of WTTC (II). On my left side: Akshay Kulkarni (Vice President, Asia Pacific, Digivalet), Dipak Haksar (Chief Executive, ITC), Dinesh Khanna (Executive Director, EIH Limited), Gerald Lawless (Chairman, WTTC) Prahlad S. Advani (Whole Time Director, Advani Hotels & Resorts India Ltd) Kapil Chopra (Former President, The Oberoi Group). On my right side: Arjun Sharma (Chairman, Select Group) Abraham Alapatt (President & Group Head – Marketing, Service Quality, Innovation & Financial Services, Thomas Cook (India) Group) Sujit Banerjee (Secretary General, WTTCII) Vivek Bhalla (Regional Vice President of South West Asia, IHG) Rahul Salgia (Founder & CEO at DigiValet) bottom • A WTTC meeting I chaired. To my right is Secretary General, Mr. Sujit Banerjee – Secretary General, WTTC, Ms. Priya Paul – Chairperson, Park Hotels, Mr. Rajeev Talwar – Vice Chairman, WTTC & CEO of DLF Limited, Mrs. Radha Bhatia – Chairperson, Bird Group and Shilpy Gupta, AVP, Darashaw.

“I also feel that our visa fees are unnecessarily high; far more British tourists would visit India instead of the nearby destinations they are choosing if their visa fees did not cut into their holiday budget.”


that I was the one who had started the first casino in Goa and

was a cause of embarrassment to the BJP. This was a twist to

a quite different perspective, offered to me by the publisher

of a well-known hospitality magazine who told me, “The Goa

Government should give you a medal for bringing casinos to

Goa.” After all, today it is casino taxes that form the largest

component of revenues received by the Goa Government,

and these undoubtedly originate from my long and persistent

efforts to get the first casino license ever issued by Goa State

in 1993.

An economist in the Indian jungleIn college in the US in the late 1950s, we hero-worshipped

British economist John Maynard Keynes. His theories on

savings and investment leading to growth in GDP were

appreciated by all including the Presidents of the USA. Facing

the Great Depression in the 1930s, US President Franklin

Roosevelt used his policies extensively. He built Newark Airport

in New Jersey by offering USD1 per day to each labourer to

build the airport on marshy land, reducing unemployment and

creating infrastructure at the same time. President Lyndon B

Johnson created the Economic Development Agency (EDA)

to help the backward areas of the US in the mid-1960s, and

the consulting company for which I was working at the time,

EBS Management Consultants in Washington DC, was given a

contract to study depressed areas such as West Virginia. Our

project was to determine which economic activity could be

carried out relatively cheaper in the region, after studying its

raw materials, skills of the labour force, distance to the market,

and so on. Once a master plan was made and a Growth Centre

identified, EDA would provide the financial and other support

to help the region develop. I worked on a number of other

projects, providing data which helped influence US economic policy. Much of what I studied and

observed has remained firm in me and I have never missed an occasion to try and translate them

to guide and suggest simple solutions to benefit the Indian economy. For instance, when the ‘Make

In India’ campaign was launched a few years ago, I advised Amitabh Kant that, although everything

could be made in India, it would be much more effective to concentrate on those items which India

could produce at a lower cost, to get a competitive advantage in the international market.

Our high rates of taxation also drives tourists to other countries. When governments increase tax

rates beyond a limit, the total collections from taxes starts to decline. This is a simple principle of

economics, as the Laffer Curve demonstrates. Common sense tells us that more tourists with lower

tax rates would give greater monetary benefit to the economy than fewer tourists paying higher

taxes; and that high-spending tourists would best benefit the Indian economy. When the Government

of India announced GST in April 2017, hoteliers were required to charge 28 percent GST on rooms

with a declared tariff of over INR7500, and 18 percent GST on rooms with a declared tariff between

INR5000 and INR7500. Those of us with experience of the industry could see that with these rates,

foreign tourists would avoid coming to India. Even domestic tourists in our growing middle class would

choose to holiday in other countries which provide better value for money. I campaigned continuously

on behalf of WTCC, with follow-up notes and letters. My efforts have been appreciated in writing by

the Hotel Association of India and senior Indian hoteliers such as Biki Oberoi’s son Vikram, Joint

Managing Director, East India Hotels. The Tourism Ministry eventually issued a clarification that these

high GST rates would be charged only if the room was actually sold at these rates. We commend our

ministry for supporting our stand and have this clarification issued by the GST Council! However, it

must be noted that countries India competes with for tourism generally levy uniform taxation across

all hotel slabs and the rates are much lower: 6 percent in Malaysia, 7 percent in Singapore and

Thailand, 8 percent in Japan and 10 percent in Australia. At this moment, we await a positive decision

from our government to my request for a flat rate of 12 percent GST on hotel rooms.

“The publisher of a well-known hospitality magazine told me, ‘The Goa Government should give you a medal for bringing casinos to Goa.’ After all, today it is casino taxes that form the largest component of revenues received by the Goa Government, and these undoubtedly originate from my long and persistent efforts to get the first casino license ever issued by Goa State in 1993.”

top • How our GST is impacted by the Laffer Curve.above • Suman Billa (Joint Secretary, Ministry of Tourism) making a presentation in New Delhi to members of WTTC (II). Seated next to him is Rohit Khosla, (GM Taj Group), and Dipak Diva (CEO Sita Travels), New Delhi.

TAX REVENUE $

OPTIMUM RATE%

TAX RATE%

Laffer’s Version of the Laffer Curve


borrow more of their surplus liquidity, he replied, “Mr Advani, surely people like you would not change

your investment decision if the interest rate was reduced!” At another conference I attended at the

Taj in Bombay two decades ago when the lead speaker was Mr SH Khan, then Chairman of IDBI, I

asked him why banks had such a large spread between the interest rate they pay to depositors and

the interest rate they charge to borrowers. He diplomatically replied, “We have to take other factors

into account as well.”

In my view, the high rate is at least in part due to the inefficiency of the Indian banking system. It

would be far more beneficial to the economy if interest rates would take into account the prevailing

rate of inflation and are adjusted accordingly.

On a flight to Jaipur many years ago, I noticed Bimal Jalan, then Governor of the Reserve Bank,

sitting in the front row. I quickly made a handwritten note and handed it to him with a plea to try to

avoid large fluctuations in the value of the Indian rupee especially if India was interested in attracting

foreign investment. It is interesting to note that the rupee did not fluctuate for a long time thereafter.

In the 1990s, we were not allowed to borrow from overseas sources. It took several years of petitions

by me and my contemporaries at North Block before this policy was changed and hotel companies

were permitted to take foreign loans.

A debt-free company“Hotels take a long time to build, and even longer before

earnings stabilize. Once they come up, they have great

potential to contribute to the national economy. Every hotel

provides employment and also utilizes local resources for its

building materials, furnishings and artefacts. It promotes local

culture and handicrafts. Hotels also attract tourists who infuse

the local economy with funds. Considering this, hotels should

be classified as infrastructure and made eligible for loans

with a longer repayment scheme.” Vivek Nair has also been

campaigning for this for a long time.

As a nation, we need skilled and visionary entrepreneurs who

are willing to take risks – and those risks must be supported

to an extent by the Indian government. This is true for every

industry, but in the case of our capital-intensive hotel industry,

where every project has a long gestation, support from the

government is even more important.

Some time in the mid-2000s, I was requested by the Ministry of

Tourism to accommodate the Tourism Minister of China and his

entourage in our resort on their visit to Goa. After the minister

and his team had been shown around the hotel, he wanted to

know what rate of interest I had to pay to build it. When I replied

that much of it was at 19percent, I did not need the translator

to tell me that he was shocked to hear the figure. He told his

interpreter to tell me that I was wasting my time in India and that

if I was willing to come to China and create the same kind of

hotel there, he would arrange finance at 3percent!

High interest rates are a major dampener for the growth of

India’s economy. At one of the annual conferences of Indo-

American Chamber of Commerce (IACC), financial leaders such

as Chanda Kochar of ICICI, Chairman of Union Bank Arun Tiwari

and others addressed us. When I asked Mr Tiwari why banks

could not reduce interest rates if they wanted industrialists to

top • Official from Indian Embassy, Berlin, Joint Secretary Ministry of Tourism Suman Billa, me, Pankaj Srivastava Executive Director Air India at a presentation made to European tour operators by Mr Billa. Berlin, 2017above •With Rashmi Verma, Secretary Tourism Government of India. World Travel Mart (WTM) London, 2018

Arun TiwariThough I have been a banking professional for more than forty years and have a strong background of finance, I find that when it

comes to making decisions, my instincts are sometimes stronger and more valuable than the information conveyed in a balance

sheet. With Sunder, I found his aura mesmerizing. The feeling of ‘soul’ in his resort in Goa had its own impact on me. When I visited,

I found myself sitting in the lobby for hours at a time, mesmerized by its architecture.

I have also found Sunder to be a very outspoken person, asking important but difficult questions in public fora, and giving frank and

open answers when difficult questions are put to him. These are the tangible qualities of someone who began his journey nearly fifty

years ago and built what he has built step by step and with many difficulties along the way. Like all old-timers whose values remain

intact over a period of time, Sunder never bothers to be politically correct. He speaks up fearlessly about what he believes to be

right. And he is heard. He is doing this not for personal business gain but simply as his contribution to his industry, and to our country.

Today the Indian tourism and hospitality industry contributes nearly 10 percent to India’s GDP. It provides nearly 10 percent of jobs

across India. And I’m proud to count Sunder Advani, one of the founders and great icons of the Indian hospitality industry, as one of

my friends.


Fortunately we have not borrowed in US dollars in the last two

years – else with the rupee depreciating as it has, we would

have been severely impacted. Today I am proud to say that our

company is completely free of debt. A large part of this process

has been thanks to Prahlad, who restructured our financing,

arranged the sale of the flight kitchen at the right time and

enabled our company to pay off our debts.

I greatly appreciate the views of economist Surjeet Bhalla on

the subject of interest rates. We met at the Wharton Alumni

conference at the Taj in Mumbai in 2015, and then again recently

on the train between Washington and New York City. Economic

Times reported him as having said, “The only instrument you

have for both enhancing growth and decelerating growth

is interest rates. It is embarrassing to say interest rates don’t

matter,” at an event in Bangalore some months ago. We are

fortunate that Surjeet Bhalla is on the panel of advisers of the

present government. Lower Interest rates are crucial if India

wants entrepreneurs to play a larger role in enhancing our

Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

You should be dancingThe first travel association meeting I experienced was of FHRAI

(Federation of Hotels and Restaurants Association of India)

in Jaipur, soon after I arrived back in India in February 1969.

The speakers (including the then Minister of Tourism, Dr Karan

Singh) were worthy and interesting, and I joined FHRAI and

attended its annual conventions in different cities. The one held

in Mahabalipuram just south of Madras in 1971 was significant

as the then president, Ananda Rao, invited me to make a

presentation on Holiday Inns to the delegates.

Over time, more suppliers flocked to these conventions than

hoteliers. Very few travel agents, the ones we actually needed

to meet and sell our hotel to, attended. Office bearers began to use the association as a platform

for personal power. Seeing that the FHRAI was solely controlled by just one person, Ajit Kerkar, a

group including myself, Biki Oberoi, Habib Rahman of ITC, Anil Bhandari of the Ashoka Group and

two others, formed a parallel body, the Hotel Association of India in 1996. Biki Oberoi took great

interest in building up the association in the early days. Many large hoteliers joined and attended

our interesting programmes. On one occasion I spoke at the HAI delegation at a meeting with

representatives of SAARC countries at an event at the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai. I received many

compliments and Gautam Khanna, who had not been present at the occasion, later told me, “I believe

you made an outstanding speech.”

While we worked well together in this body, when it came to filling hotel rooms it was the Travel Agents

Association of India (TAAI) and the Pacific Area Travel Association (PATA) which were more useful and

could attract better speakers to their meetings. For some years, I was also an active member of the

SKAL Club as many airline managers would attend these luncheon meetings at the rooftop restaurant

of the Oberoi Hotel, Bombay. At the insistence of the previous Secretary of Tourism of India, Yogesh

Chandra, I joined the WTTC (II) of which he was also Secretary General, in 1998. It was also a privilege

Seated: Raymond Bickson (MD of Taj Group), Ashwini Kakkar (Mercury Travels), Abubaker (CEO of Qatar Airways), Naresh Goyal, Chairman of Jet Airways, Renuka Chowdhury (Minister of Tourism), President APJ Abdul Kalam, Secretary Tourism, Biki Oberoi, Lalit Suri, Captain C P Krishnan Nair, Vivek Nair. Standing: Ragini Chopra (Jet Airways), Nandini Verma, Nakul Anand (ITC), Myself, Sharma (Sahara Airlines), Priya Paul, Rathi Vinay Jha, Unknown, Anil Bhandari (ITDC), Berry (Taj Group), Arjun Sharma and Habib Rehman

top •Shaking hands with Amitabh Kant at the Indio US Economic Summit. Hyatt Regency, Delhi, September 2016middle • Meena, me, Manav Thadani, Rakesh Sarna (CMD of Indian Hotels Taj Group), Vikram Oberoi (Joint Managing Director East India Hotels), Sujit Banerjee (Secretary General WTTCII) at the Annual WTTC Summit in Bangkok, 2017, where Amitabh Kant was a lead speaker.above • Gautam Khanna (Biki Oberois brother-in-law) and I brief Tourism Minister Bhatia on the problems facing the industry, in his office in 1998.


to work with Lalit Suri and others in WTCC (II). WTTC has worked tirelessly to educate officials

of the Indian government on the importance of tourism to the GDP and for the number of jobs it

creates. WTTC is highly regarded by the Ministry of Tourism and Niti Aayog (formerly known as

Planning Commission), and I have learnt a lot and met worthy people while attending their summits

in Washington DC, Doha, New Delhi, Abu Dhabi and Bangkok. The new CEO is the dynamic Gloria

Guevara Manzo, former Minister of Tourism of Mexico who recently invited me to a seated dinner

in London where Ministers of Tourism of different countries were also present.

The man from AmericaWhen I joined the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) in 1969, it was primarily to retain

a connection with the US as I was negotiating a franchise with Holiday Inns. There was also my

affection for the US, where I had lived for many years. As the world’s most important democracies,

India and the US have much to learn and gain from each other, and the thought of being a conduit

was exhilarating.

IACC was in those days the only agency for bilateral trade and investment between India and the

US. The US Consul General in Bombay was David Bane, whose married daughter I had known

through my neighbor at the Watergate Apartments. When the US Ambassador to India visited

Bombay, he would invite me to meet him. I remember meeting Kenneth Keating and also the

renowned economist, Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith when he visited Bombay. The Who’s

Who of Indian industry flocked to IACCs lunches at the Taj and during my six years with IACC, I met

JRD Tata, Harish Mahindra, HP Nanda, Surendra Dempo and others.

It was many years later, in 2014, when Nanik Rupani, the president of IACC’s Western Region

at the time, requested me to join and help to bring the organization back to its former glory.

“When I joined the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC) in 1969, it was primarily to retain a connection with the US as I was negotiating a franchise with Holiday Inns. There was also my affection for the US, where I had lived for many years.”

Consul general of USA in Bombay David Bane, flanked by me and US Ambassador to India Kenneth Keating.

Being associated with an American company, I did join and participated in its activities, including as

president of the western region for two years. It was quite an intense period for relations between

our two countries and I feel privileged to have been part of many historical events during that time.

As a member of the IACC delegation to the Select USA convention organized by the US Department

of Commerce, where President Obama was the keynote speaker, I had a one-to-one interaction

with US Senator George Holding and US Congressman Henry Cuellar. Another time, in 2014, one


of the designated speakers at the US-India Economic Summit

on the Hospitality Industry did not show up and I was asked to

address the delegates. My fellow panelists were the US Minister

for Commercial Affairs at the US Embassy in Delhi, the Managing

Director of Abercrombie and Kent, an old friend, Ragini Chopra,

Vice President, Corporate Affairs & Public Relations, Jet Airways

and Navin Berry, creator of the International Trade and Tourism

organization SATTE. Since this was a subject close to my heart,

I was able to speak extempore for over half an hour without any

prior preparation.

On June 9, 2014, newly-elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra

Modi made a special address to industrialists in Goa just before

his visit to the US. I was able to meet him and invited him to visit

our beautiful resort on his next visit to Goa. My constant follow

up with USIBC yielded an invitation for the prestigious event

on Constitution Avenue where PM Modi was the chief guest.

The atmosphere at the huge hall on Constitution Avenue was

electrifying and invitees included heads of American companies

doing business in India, past senior US diplomats based in India,

and high-achieving Indians based in the US. The Prime Minister

was accompanied by the External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj

and India’s Ambassador to the USA. He spoke eloquently in Hindi

and there was thunderous applause at intervals as each invitee

had access to a translation device. He urged those who had not

yet invested in India to do so quickly before the queue became

too long. Our table had dignitaries of US Helicopter Company

Bell, several industrialists from Gujarat, officials of USIBC. I was

delighted to meet Harry Cahill, former consul general of the

US to Mumbai who had facilitated the signing of our Ramada

collaboration agreement in Mumbai twenty-five years before. He

was one of the few American diplomats who dressed in Indian

clothes and even wore Kolhapuri chappals.

During my tenure as regional president, I was also made Chairman

of the Forum on Travel and Tourism. IACC requested my financial

support for several events and I gladly provided it. I was a speaker at

the prestigious US India Economic Summit in Delhi in September 2016

where the US Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, was chief guest

and Amitabh Kant was the guest of honour. I was asked to make a

presentation on tourism between India and the US.

On June 25, 2017, I was present at the Ritz Carlton, Tysons Corner,

when the Indian Prime Minister addressed the Indian diaspora. I was

unable to meet PM Modi at the occasion, and sent him a letter which

was delivered to his room at the Willard Hotel the next day. In my letter

were a few suggestions to strengthen Indo-US ties, from an economist

who shares Wharton as an Alma Mater with Donald Trump and did

studies for the US Government before returning to India decades ago:

• China and Russia have linked up to challenge the US as a world

leader, and the US needs India as a counter to prevent this from

happening.

• India is the ideal partner for the US because both countries want to

eliminate terrorism.

• Both countries see China as a real threat.

• India cannot take away US jobs in Manufacturing. In fact, India has

a pool of highly-trained English-speaking engineers who can be

deputed to retrain Americans who lost jobs in Michigan, Wisconsin

and other areas when factories moved out of the USA, on new skills

which will get them new jobs.

top • With present Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, on my right and Nanik Rupani on my left.above • Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Managing Director of Mahindra Group addressing the audience; Ranjana Khanna (Secretary General, IACC), me, Pratyush Kumar (President, Boeing India & VP, Boeing International) Lakshmi Narayanan (Vice Chairman, Cognizant) Asoke Laha (National President, IACC), Suresh Prabhu (Railway Minister, Government of India), Thomas L Vajda (US Consul General, Mumbai).facing page top • With Gloria Guevara Manzo at a cocktail and sit-down dinner party hosted by WTTC for thirty international tourism ministers and VIPs at Chesterfield Hotel. I was the only Indian there, with the exception of Mrs Bhatia who moved from Wall Street to India a few years ago. WTM London, 2018facing page below •With Kelly Craig, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Travel and Tourism based in Washington, and Isabel Hill, Director, National Travel and Tourism Office, United States Department of Commerce who had come to India from Washington to speak at the forum on tourism I organized at the Economic Summit in Delhi.

Gloria Guevara ManzoSunder Advani has made a huge contribution to the development of India’s tourism industry over many years. His vision, tenacity

and indefatigable spirit have set him out as a true pioneer for the Indian hospitality industry. His personal dedication and passion to

create a sustainable product have helped transform the Indian hotel landscape raising standards and providing significant benefits to

local communities, helping provide jobs and alleviate poverty.

CEO WTTC and former Minister of Tourism of Mexico.


The next day, before PM Modi met Donald Trump, I was at the Willard Hotel lobby where PM

Narendra Modi was staying, and CNBC anchor Shereen Bhan interviewed me. I was able to

convey some of my suggestions through the interview, which was beamed live to listeners in India

and can be seen on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSZl1Lnciro.

Besides many other activities to promote trade and tourism between India and the US, I worked

very hard to keep IACC at the helm of US-India business affairs. When my name was proposed

for the post of Executive Vice President at the 2017 AGM, I won the election with a margin of 5 to

1. It was a shock when a group of members supported the candidate who had lost and declared

that the election had not been conducted properly! They formed a committee to look into the

matter, manipulated the report and informed me that I, as duly elected Executive Vice President,

was under Animated Suspension. I have never indulged in politics and, not wishing to do so now,

disassociated myself from the IACC.

I have since rejoined US India Business Council, which has become more active in India recently.

My commitment to improving Indo-American relations and promoting trade and tourism between

the two countries continues to grow.

Young at heartWhen I first arrived in Bombay, I was a stranger to India. I had no money, no political contacts, not

even a home. How could I hope to build a hotel or even dream of achieving what the Oberois had

established, or the cash-rich corporation ITC, or the Tatas with their funds and the iconic Taj Mahal

Hotel as their base, could?

Still, I have done my best to build my own business and also to contribute to the Indian economy

and to tourism to India, some of which are described in the previous paragraphs. After we built

“I was unable to meet PM Modi at the occasion, and sent him a letter next day with a few suggestions to strengthen Indo-US ties, from an economist who shares Wharton as an Alma Mater with Donald Trump and did studies for the US Government before returning to India decades ago.”

clockwise • Presenting an Award to Raj Mukherji, Legislator from Jersey City, NJ;Chairman, Indo US Strategic Partnership Forum, John Chambers invited me to a seated dinner prior to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad;Introducing myself to Finance Minister of India, Arun Jaitley, in 2015 when I was a speaker at the Indo US Economic Summit, New Delhi;I headed this delegation from India visiting New York and Chicago, and the Consul General of India in New York City honoured prominent Indian-American achievers with awards. Seen here with dignitaries at the award ceremony. India-born legislator from Jersey City, Mr Mukherjee, is standing third from left. New York, 2016;With a few others from India at a dinner hosted by USIBC after the historic meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Barrack Obama. Washington DC, June 2014;Thomas Vadja (US Consul General Mumbai), John Kerry (US Secretary of State), Dianne Farrell (US Department of Commerce Deputy Assistant Secretary Asia), Arun Kumar (Assistant Secretary US Department of Commerce Global), at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, which I attended. Ahmedabad, 2015;I led a delegation of IACC to Chicago arranged by the Consul General of India – 2016;Myself lighting the ceremonial lamp at the Consulate General of India in New York.


our hotel in Goa, I felt that promoting Goa needed a separate

marketing thrust as it offered the kind of holiday that international

tourists could come to for a relaxing break in a warm and beautiful

place. It was not really about India because the focus was on

Goa itself and I felt that we should have a separate Goa Pavilion,

instead of Goa having a small stand in the large India Pavilion at

WTM and ITB. It took many years and a great deal of persuasion.

Once the Goa Pavilion came up, our hotel was always a part of

it. International trade fairs are a good forum to interact with tour

operators and understand their concerns. These are also places

where we meet and interact with Indians from our own industry.

Over the years, I have established bonds with many stalwarts of

the Indian hospitality industry in the course of our work and it’s

always a pleasure bumping into them at industry events. Some

of these are Major Habib Rehman who headed ITC Hotels, Vivek

Nair of the Leela Group, the dynamic Amitabh Kant who created

the Incredible India campaign, Priya Paul, head of Park Hotel

Group, Jyotsna Suri, head of Lalit Group, Vikram Madhok, MD of

Abercrombie and Kent, Dipak Haksar, CEO of ITC Hotels, Vikram

Oberoi, son of Biki Oberoi and grandson of the illustrious Rai

Bahadur Oberoi, Dipak Deva head of Sita, Peter Kerkar, son of my

friend Ajit, who owns the large UK tour operator Cox and Kings,

and many others.

Goans for Dabolim onlyOne of the major obstacles to Goa tourism is that the Dabolim

airport is closed for navy exercises from 8.30 am to 1pm except

weekends and this gives a very narrow time slot for civilian aircraft

to land, causing congestion and discomfort. Many years ago, I

became acquainted with Pratap Singh Rudy, travelling between

Delhi and Goa when he was Civil Aviation minister. We got chatting

about the problems of Dabolim airport and he invited me to a

meeting he had arranged with heads of Goa airport and members

of the Airport Authority. I stayed up late that night, sketching a plan for him to park more aircraft at

Dabolim based on the wingspans of the aircrafts which landed there. I also recommended that they

arrange to bring a pushback truck from Bombay to Goa. I knew that a pushback truck would reduce

the radius the plane needed, and it would allow more parking bays resulting in a more efficient use

of space and reduced airplane turnaround time.

The professionals at the meeting next day were astonished that a hotelier would have this kind of

technical knowledge about aircraft. I travelled to Delhi to put pressure on the authorities to send a

pushback from Bombay to Goa. Other suggestions I made were also implemented when the new

terminal was built.

I had been involved with improvements to this airport in the mid-1990s too, with Madhavrao Scindia,

Minister of Civil Aviation at the time, continually suggesting to him that the workshop where planes

under repair were kept could be removed and a new terminal building be built in its place. It took

many years, but was eventually done.

Today too Goa airport needs to be expanded and that can easily be done at Dabolim itself with

simple additions such as a parallel runway, which is being presently undertaken. The old terminal

building has been demolished and a new terminal is being added with more aerobridges. The area

and facilities at Dabolim are adequate and well suited for expansion. In 2013, the Airports Authority of

India invested INR5000 million on building a new integrated terminal at Dabolim, in the third-largest

airport expansion carried out in India. Several aerobridges were installed and the runway extended

to a length even more than the runway of Mumbai’s CSM Airport.

Dabolim airport is located in 1600 acres of land which are controlled by the Indian Navy and if a part of

this is given to the AAI, all requirements for anticipated future traffic could be fulfilled. Unfortunately,

however, some years ago vested interests made a concerted move to build a new airport at Mopa

with a view to closing down Dabolim airport. Since Mopa is close to the Maharashtra border and a

“I had been involved with improvements to this airport in the mid-1990s too, with Madhavrao Scindia, Minister of Civil Aviation at the time, continually suggesting to him that the workshop where planes under repair were kept could be removed and a new terminal building be built in its place. It took many years, but was eventually done.”

left top • A team of representatives of the US Congress visited Bangalore at an event organized by the US India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF). I’m seen here with the head of the delegation, Mo Brooks. Rajmohan Gandhi is in the background. West End Hotel, Bangalore, 2017. left bottom• With Thomas Vajda (presently in charge of the India Desk at the State Department, Washington DC and former Consul General in Mumbai). As a young man living in Watergate, I would pass by the State Department quite often. I only got to enter a few months ago on the invitation of my friend Thom Vadja. Washington DC, 2017


long distance from South Goa, an airport there is likely to reduce traffic to our area and impact the

economy of South Goa.

As president of the South Goa Hotel & Restaurant Owners Association in 1998, I lobbied against the

Mopa airport. It was nice to have the redoubtable Churchill Alemao as my ally, with his ringing slogan,

“Goans for Dabolim Only”. He even said to me quite dramatically after we won one of the early

battles to prevent Dabolim airport being closed: “Some day Goa will remember who saved Dabolim!”

Despite objections from farmers and others, work has continued on Mopa Airport. Besides ignoring

the social and environmental impact it would have, an airport on Mopa, which is a plateau, evokes

fundamental questions of safety. Dabolim, on the other hand, has all the facilities and is centrally

located to serve all of Goa.

What’s in a nameIn 1983, the Indian government allowed a foreign chain to manage an Indian hotel, they Hyatt Regency,

in New Delhi. Foreign hotel companies entered India with lucrative management contracts with the

land developers, giant corporates or family businesses all of whom had deep pockets and owned

large parcels of land. They built hotels and left the day-to-day management of the hotels they built to

the foreign chains. Soon, India had Le Meridien, Sheraton, Accor and Hilton and lately Fairmont and

Mövenpick. Marriott also gained access into India when they bought the entire assets of the Ramada

and Renaissance chains worldwide in 1999 (which included a 10 percent equity in our company).

Today, Marriott is the largest hotel company in India.

Ramada Inc. had three distinct subcategories of brands in their stable. Ramada Inn was their budget

brand; Ramada Hotel was their mid-market brand; and Ramada Renaissance was their upscale brand.

Renaissance was meant for a luxury stay while the other two were city or highway hotels where

people would stay for one or two nights.

Edgard D KaganSunder has an incredibly strong connection to the US, even to the extent of having what I think of

as a New York accent! He is passionate about both India and the United States, and ever since he

came back to India from the US fifty years ago, he has worked to strengthen the ties between our

two countries.

In 1969, it wasn’t very popular to be a friend to the United States, but he stuck with the idea of

stronger ties through thick and thin, and he has seen his vision come to fruition in many ways over

the last eighteen years. It is no longer unique to stand up for stronger ties between the US and

India, and the importance of trade. But the historical perspective is important, and Sunder is one of

those who was doing that even when it wasn’t popular, and that’s something we value particularly,

even today when there are many who want to be our friends. He has been very steady and very

consistent and always willing to give generously of his time in various activities to do with the US-

India relationship. And he is not someone who is looking to get glory and pass the work off to other

people. He’s willing to do the work.

It’s not just time and effort but Sunder has put his money where his mouth is. He was instrumental

in bringing American hospitality brands to India at a time when there was a lot of baggage with

that, a time when it wasn’t politically very popular, and he stuck with the idea that there was a real

market here. From an Indian perspective, the idea for an American to come to India may have been

obvious, but back in the 1970s and early 1980s, for American companies, the idea of coming to India

wasn’t obvious. So the same way that it was very hard for him to persuade government and other

entities in India to agree to allow American companies in, it was also very hard on the American side

to convince people that it was worth coming to India. Now it’s a completely different world and it’s

easy to forget how hard it was at the time when Sunder and others were trying to do it. The fact that

he was able to be so persuasive at both ends I think is really important. Sunder had a vision about

bringing American brands to India and has helped developed a huge market for American brands.

I also see Sunder as a very kind person. Many people who are successful in business end up being

decisive but lacking in warmth and Sunder has both. He went into the hospitality business for a

reason, and he was successful for a reason and I think it’s that warmth.

My wife Cindy and I love being with Sunder and Meena. We met them soon after we arrived in

Mumbai and they were so warm and so thoughtful and charming, and it gave us a feel for what the

rest of our time here was going to be like. We have really enjoyed the time we spent with them here

in Bombay and in their wonderful resort in Goa.

Edgard D Kagan is Consul General of the United States of America in Mumbai.

top • With Edgard Kagan, US Consul General. Mumbai 2017 above• Discussing issues relating to India-US relations with US Ambassador, Kenneth Juster. US Embassy, New Delhi 2018

“The roof of our lobby was built to resemble a Goan cathedral. This was a familiar look to our many German and Swiss guests, who would gaze in wonder at the ceiling of the lobby and ask where we got such huge logs for it!”


When Ramada Inc. saw that I had selected WATG as our architect, and as the designs came up, it was

clear that we were going to have a unique resort, with rooms and venues that had character worthy

of the luxury Renaissance brand. We studied other resorts for ideas and also incorporated a number

of ideas acquired from Goa itself. The roof of our lobby was built to resemble a cathedral. This was a

familiar look to our many German and Swiss guests, who would gaze in wonder at the ceiling of the

lobby and ask where we got such huge logs for it! However, it was not wood but concrete painted to

resemble logs. Instead of a standard marble or granite flooring, we used traditional tiling painstakingly

created and kiln-fired by a Bombay artist. As for the walls, they are studded with pebbles of laterite

Digambar KamatI first met Sunder in the late 1980s. I was a member of the South Goa Planning and Development Authority which is responsible for giving

permissions for constructions in Goa. He came to us with his idea of building a resort in Goa and we visited the site. He had followed all the

specifications, there was no problem, and we gave the permissions required. Later, after he had started construction, he faced litigation,

delays and mounting expenses. After Sunder started building, other hotels started coming up too – and every hotel in the area faced

similar problems. Sunder persisted, completed and commissioned his hotel.

Having observed Sunder’s commitment and enthusiasm, and knowing his background of running successful hotels in the past, I knew

that he was going to contribute a lot towards tourism in Goa, and he has done so. However, even after the hotel started running, he faced

many problems from some people. When the hotel was built, the development charges paid by the promoter paid for electric cables,

phone lines and water pipes to the area, and the neighboring village got benefitted. Many villagers also got jobs. However, the wealth and

luxury associated with the hotel created resentment and this resulted in unreasonable demands for more employment to those who may

not have been suitable for the hospitality industry. When this happened, Sunder faced protests and the authorities had to intervene. Over

time, these reduced and the people became more mature.

I appreciate Sunder Advani because, despite all the difficulties he faced, he did not give up. He fought, completed, and commissioned the

hotel. Later he added capacity. Today his hotel is considered one of the best in the state.

Sunder, a true entrepreneur, also came up with the unique idea of a casino on a ship. I and my colleagues were invited to a small function

when the vessel was commissioned. It was very elegant and well run. For a few years it was the only vessel on the river. Seeing that

business was good, the government decided to call for applications and gave licenses for six more such ships. With the sudden rush of

opportunities to gamble, the quality of tourism changed. Flights to Goa were packed with people coming to visit the casinos, day and night.

We had developed Goa as a family destination but the new developments led to a different kind of customers and prostitution and drug

raids became common. Sunder exited the casino business because the situation was very different from what he had planned or wished

to be associated with.

Over the years I have seen his commitment not just to his own business but to the tourism industry. Every year he attends the international

travel fairs in London, Berlin and Moscow, as a representative of Goa. When the plans came up for Mopa Airport, his main concern was

the additional development which would be necessary, such as an expressway from Mopa to Panjim so that the belt of South Goa five-star

hotels, the best in the state, would not suffer.

Sunder has a very cordial nature and he maintains good relationships with all. He has remained low profile and avoids personal publicity,

but is well known in the tourism sector where he commands respect from government and industry officials. Though we met in an official

capacity, we soon became friends. My wife and I visit his hotel occasionally, and one of the annual events we always attend is his birthday

at Caravela every December. The hotel has a wonderful location with a wonderful view, and Sunder has continued to refurbish and

improve it. Sunder is the quintessential hotelier, a man from a fine family and he has excellent taste. These are well reflected in his hotel.

Digambar Kamat was Chief Minister of Goa 2007-2012. He was Power Minister in the Goa Government 2000-2007.

Celebrating my seventy-fifth birthday with Digambar Kamat (left) and Francisco Sardinha (right). Goa, 28 Dec 2013


mined in Goa. Each wing has rooms of individual character. The balconies, which have fabulous views

of the lawns extending to the sea, are semi-circular for privacy from neighbouring balconies and ideal

for candlelight dinners.

Our hotel started as a Ramada Renaissance, and was much more upmarket than, say, the Ramada

Inn Palm Grove. In 1993, Ramada went through a rebranding exercise, in which the prefix Ramada

was dropped and Renaissance Hotels, positioned to be ‘the Hyatt killer’, was given a separate brand

focus. Our hotel, always designed as a luxury hotel and not as an inn or built on a highway was

renamed as the “Renaissance Goa Resort”.

After the Marriott acquisition in 1999, I ceased to be the Licensor for Ramada and Renaissance brands

for South Asia but continued to be the Licensee of the Renaissance Goa Resort. In 2003, I was told

that if we wanted to keep the name Renaissance we would have to give them a management contract.

Since we had no intention of giving up the management of our hotel, we had no choice but to agree

to be called a Ramada. It did not do justice to our resort which was by no means a cookie-cutter block.

So in 2006, we decided to try and convert to Le Meridien. The Le Meridien letter of intent listed

numerous changes and we started working with the interior designer they recommended, Warren

Foster Brown, who was based in Singapore. He is excellent at his job and we got along very well.

We changed all the flooring in the corridors and ordered furniture to replace the furniture in all the

rooms of our deluxe north wing, and flew in six workmen from Singapore to install it. Sixty of the

sixty-two rooms were ready when Prakash, Warren and I were summoned urgently to New York

to meet Inga, Le Meridien’s new head of Brand. She rejected the changes we had made and said

that if we wanted the Le Meridien name, we would have to redo the entire hotel with the new Le

Meridien look, which was black-and-white Coco Chanel, round furniture and artwork, and so on. I

did try to explain that I could make changes to the rest of the hotel but not the sixty rooms which

had cost us more than INR100 million – but she insisted. So we unfortunately had to say goodbye

to Le Meridien. Head of the regional office of Le Meridien, so upset at what they had done to us,

said goodbye to them too and quit his job.Happy guests dancing to bring in the New Year with fireworks on the beach outside our hotel.

Anil Madhok Executive Chairman, Sarovar Hotels

Sunder has done remarkably well. His first initiative was to bring Holiday Inn to India. This was in the very early stages of the Indian

hotel industry. In those days, I was with Oberoi Hotel, Delhi and the demand was so high that it was impossible to get a room. Even

the restaurants would be all sold out. I was only a manager but when we wanted to see a ‘House Full’ movie, the cinema owner would

see that we were given complimentary tickets because that way, when they came to the hotel for a meal, we’d give them a table!

The whole social scene of Delhi happened around the Oberoi. India needed more hotels and Sunder’s timing was perfect. Getting

permissions was very tedious with all the rules and regulations but we had to do it.

Sunder has been a pioneer in other ways too. He started his flight kitchen and airport hotel in a part of Bombay which was like a

jungle. They did exceedingly well. And when he started his hotel in Goa, Goa had very little and very low-paying tourism, and a very

small season. He was one of those who went there and worked hard and today Goa’s hotels are full for at least ten months of the

year and the market has changed substantially.

Other things have changed too. Today we have to go out and sell, because there is a lot of competition. And Sunder has been very

successful at doing that too.


Marriott was still trying to insist that we should hand over management despite my explaining that they

were unlikely to be able to run a hotel in India better than we could! It was a very difficult phase for

us, having invested all that money and still being seen as just a Ramada. Then, the Marriott-Ramada

conglomerate kept the Renaissance brand and sold the Ramada brand hotels to the Wyndham Group

in the US, a name hardly known in India. To change brands takes a lot of money in advertising and

creating a new image for a hotel that has been in existence for so many years.

Through these changes, we continued with Ramada. During these years, the charters reduced and

became a small portion of our turnover. Neither our devoted British nor Russian guests could afford

high rates as their economies had diminished and by 2016, the majority of our clients were domestic.

I began to realise that with a run-of-the-mill brand like Ramada, we were not getting the cream of the

wedding business which a top-end hotel like ours certainly deserves. Prospective customers who

could be put off by a name which indicates a lower category of hotels, only have to visit once to be

bowled over by the extensive property, the fabulous landscape and ocean views, and the exclusive

rooms and spaces. And so, with effect from January 31, 2017, we took the major decision not to

extend our association with Ramada, and we changed our name to Caravela Beach Resort, Goa.

Of course it was a risk. There was some uncertainty about whether removing the foreign brand would

lose us occupancy and revenues. As it turned out, these grew – as have our room rates and gross

profits. We are very fortunate that this decision worked in our favour.

I believe: thoughts on marketing strategy

At Wharton in the 1960s, Marketing was developing as a new subject

important to business management. In those days, there were only

three Ps (these days I believe six or even seven have been coined).

Our Ps were Product, Price and Promotion. When I started developing

the fledgling hotel industry in India, it was with the knowledge that, in

any business, product has to be continuously improved after carefully

studying the competition as well as the needs and demographics of

the consumer. As hoteliers, we well understood that a fourth P, Place,

or “location, location, location” was the most important element for a

successful hotel.

In the early days of the hotel industry in India, five-star hotels were built

primarily for foreign tourists. Traditionally, when Indians travelled, we

would stay with family or in ashrams and dharamshalas in places of

pilgrimage. Over the years, the type of foreign tourist has changed from

the affluent round-the- world traveller to the less affluent holiday seeker

who is interested in India itself. Domestic travel has also increased

tremendously, with better air connectivity within India and the growing

prosperity of many of our population of 1.3 billion.

By about 2010, domestic tourists to Goa had increased tremendously.

As the Indian economy has grown, North Indian families looking for a

beach luxury holiday added a new element to the tourist demographic

of Goa. Our charter-flight European customers would wake early and

spend the day on the beach and by the pool. As the Indian economy

improved, from 66 percent foreign tourists, today we have only 25

percent or less occupied by foreign tourists. As the reducing price

of oil kept Russians away, we had to switch our strategy to meet the

times. Today it is Indians who have more money – and we have to

negotiate with hard bargainers! Luckily, when it comes to a wedding,

they are happy to spend more if they feel they are getting good value,

and we see that they get it. We have made many changes to our hotel

specifically for the comfort of these clients.

This advertisement was designed to attract more conferences to the hotel as that was a growing segment of the market at the time. We wanted to convey that our resort was a place where you could have a formal meeting and also have a great time with good team bonding.

P Chidambaram Former Finance Minister of India

Sunder Advani was a pioneer in the hotel and tourism industry. He helped put Goa on the tourism map of the world. His story

graphically captures the hurdles that had to be crossed in setting up a business in the age of licences and controls. Mr Advani is a

committed liberal and his commitment shines through the pages of this book.


Instead, a health faucet is now a requirement. More hotels are being built in the mid-price range so

they can cater to the needs of both Indian and foreign tourists. OYO, Treebo, Airbnb and other brands

have entered in a big way. While this is a positive move, I firmly believe that India needs more luxury

hotels and other infrastructure to attract more upmarket tourists who will contribute to tax revenues

and GDP.

Pricing, a function of demand and supply, also plays a major role in the success of a product or

service. In the days when the Indian economy was tightly closed, there was a shortage of most items

and demand exceeded supply. Today, with the exception of few items such as oil, supply exceeds

the demand for most products and services. As a result, competition is much stiffer and the customer

benefits.

With the technology available today, buyers have easy access to knowledge of prices of competing

products or services. For hoteliers, there are high-tech vendors who provide us with reports on our

rates and occupancy along with those of the competing hotels. This enables us to offer competitive

prices that fluctuate constantly, based on demand.

When Holiday Inns entered India, the hotel industry was new, and this was India’s first step

towards standardization. High-quality items to equip the hotel were difficult to come by. When our

economy started to liberalize, we were able to import many items cheaper and of better quality

than those made in India. When our hotel in Goa carried out major renovations of the guest rooms,

I imported most of the furniture from China as our local suppliers could not compete on price and

quality. Today, many Indian hotels compare well with those in Europe and in some cases surpass

those in USA.

With the growth in domestic tourists, requirements and standards were adapted accordingly.

Bathtubs, were previously a requirement for a hotel to be classified as five-star but no longer.

An aerial view of three wings of our hotel, swimming pool, tennis courts and golf course, shot from the sky, showcasing the size of the wide beach in front of our property as well as the extensive area available for future expansion.

Prasad Kanoth Hotel Manager Caravela Beach Resort

I joined Advani Hotels as Front Office Manager in 2004 and most of the hotel was occupied by foreign guests. In the last three years,

we have seen a dramatic increase in domestic business.

Mr Sunder and Mr Haresh have been personally involved in every decision and when Mr Prahlad took charge, they have taken

the backseat and we report more to him. Even the smallest guest complaint is highlighted to the family. I have found that they truly

value their employees and are very good to work with. When they take up anything, they always choose the best of the best. Some

years ago when we were getting publicity photographs of the hotel taken, they hired a well-known Delhi photographer and rented

a slow-moving plane for him to take aerial shots. A few years later, the hotel had a different look and they called him again – this

time he and his son worked together and took photos using a drone. Seeing the results, some of the neighbouring hotels gave them

business too!

Taxi drivers who operate cartels outside the Goa hotels continue to harass tourists with extravagant demands. Time will bring

maturity and balance. During these years, many worthwhile efforts have been made to showcase Goan culture and a very vibrant

Arts scene has developed in the state.


In the early days, as competition increased, hotels began to

rely on travel agents to fill their rooms. Marketing departments

appointed salespeople to call on travel agents and corporate

houses as most hotels were located in major cities. Independent

hotels could not afford to spend on promotion and many joined

larger hotel chains of the time, basically the Oberois or the Taj

Group, to fill their rooms. One of the advantages Holiday Inns

introduced to India was that each hotel would be advertised in

the worldwide directory and connected to the company’s global

reservation system and loyalty program.

Today, digital marketing has transformed the way we promote

our products and hotels now rely on their own website and

online travel agencies to fill their rooms. Genuine guest reviews

on online travel portals such as TripAdvisor.com have become

more effective than traditional advertising. Word-of-mouth plays

an important role and we now make efforts to stay in touch

with guests. With new technology-based initiatives constantly

emerging, an alert and savvy marketing department has become

crucial to most hotels. Online travel agents like Expedia.com,

Bookings.com, Hotels. com, MakeMyTrip.com and others have

almost made travel agents redundant and today they bring us

around 30 percent of our business. Our revenues have increased

by 20 percent since last year.

In terms of customer segments, when the charters started to

decline, we began to cultivate first conferences and today the

wedding business. We started by taking the weddings in the ‘off-

season’ months from April to October, outside which we did not

want to risk driving away our foreign guests with noisy Indian

wedding revelry, people knocking on each other’s doors and

shouting loudly, calling out to each other down the corridors. The

wedding business has become more important to us, and we are

now planning a separate building with its own pool, designed for

the weddings. It is a highly competitive market and here I feel that

our not being part of a large chain does give us the advantage of

flexibility. Last year we did thirty-three weddings and the previous

Ritu Goyal Executive Housekeeper Caravela Resort

I came to Caravela after working for several years in large hotel chains and I have found that the standards here are as high as or

even higher than the top brands. We use the very best upholstery. And when others hear that we provide Kama Ayurveda toiletries,

they find it surprising because these bottles cost Rs15 while most hotels use products which are available for Rs5.

I have had a lot of encouragement and appreciation from the Advani family whenever I suggest improvement or new ideas. In Goa,

it’s not easy to order and get quick deliveries the way you can in cities like Bombay or Delhi where things are available on the rack,

and I get a lot of support from them to make this easier. When it comes to good-quality staff who expect high salaries too, they are

always supportive. Basically, we want our guests to get the best of everything.

Attrition in the Goa hotel industry is very high. New entrants join with absolutely no knowledge of housekeeping. We work very

hard to teach them, and in nine months or a year down the line they are qualified to move on and we have to start all over again!

There is a committee called iPHA, a national-level professional and educational organization for individuals associated with

housekeeping in hotels, with about two hundred members, and I represent Goa. This year during the International Housekeeping

Week, twenty-three top Goa hotels including all the Goa five-star hotels participated in various fun events organized by iPHA. Our

hotel won the bed-making competition, the flower-arrangement competition as well as the best-of-discard competition. In towel art

we came second. I see this as a credit to the Advani family because quite a few good Goa properties don’t see the value in such

events but the Advanis do, and they are very encouraging.

year it was thirty-nine. We have successfully balanced the wedding business with the corporate

conferences – where the requirements are significantly different. This requires a lot of sales effort

to see that we get sufficient bookings every month because when one wedding party checks out,

overnight a hundred and forty rooms are left empty! It’s not easy finding a balance and we have to

control our room inventory on a day-to-day basis. A hotel room is a perishable commodity – if you

don’t sell it today, the revenue is lost forever!

As far as our location goes – besides its spectacular beauty, no other hotel in Goa has as wide a

frontage on a beach of powder-white sand. The gradual incline into the sea makes it extremely safe

for swimming. On either side we have just grass and coconut trees. And we are located conveniently

just fifteen minutes from the airport.

top • A king-bedded room in the north block with a private balcony, overlooking the swimming pool.above • The lawns on our property adjoining the beach, laid out with furniture and decorations, awaiting the wedding party.


Continuous improvementOne of my most fundamental beliefs of business has been to ensure that

the customer gets the best value for money spent. We spend a lot of time

in making improvements, frequent renovations, new developments and

energy saving measures. Our back-of-the house is recognized as the best

in Goa.

In 1989, we engaged Singapore landscape architect Belt Collins and we

called their former associate Joel Burega, now running his own business,

back to work with us again recently. He and Prahlad have worked closely

together, developing and improving the landscaping. The detail to which

things are planned are impressive – plants are selected based on the

height to which they will grow and arranged to serve as hedges for privacy.

We have about 24 acres of land with two hundred and two rooms. The

main categories are deluxe rooms, superior rooms and garden-view rooms

and in addition we have ten ocean-front rooms with a spectacular direct

view of the sea, four suites, three family villas and two presidential villas.

Over the years, we conducted a large-scale renovation of rooms and are

now continuing to improvise with our new customer base firmly in

mind so that they can get the best benefit of our vast grounds and

beach front with functions and ceremonies on the lawns or on the

beach itself. Our casino, Goa Nugget, has been transformed into a

small banquet hall that can accommodate up to one hundred people

in cluster-style. Since we need a covered space for large gatherings

during the monsoon, we have planned a 16,000 square foot banquet

hall and will start construction after receiving permissions from the

Goa Town Planning Department.

Adapting to changeIn the early days, our guests were just a tiny fraction of the Indian

population, but as our economy has grown, so have the numbers.

Domestic guests are more demanding and pay greater attention to

service than our international guests. With the high rate of attrition at

lower levels across the industry, our staff may not be highly trained,

but they are exceedingly warm and friendly and this is something

our guests notice and mention. Despite the high rates of attrition, we

feel that training is essential and have also innovated new ways of

providing training on the job.

One of the consequences of international tourism was that our well

trained English-speaking workforce became increasingly attractive in

the global resource pool. Goa, in particular, developed as an excellent

source of manpower for the international cruise liners. When a cruise

liner docks at the Mormagao Port – you can be assured that when

it leaves there will be at least a few vacant positions in the hotels of

the town. One day, our entire bakery department disappeared. The

cruise liner hired the entire lot, and they upped and left, every single

one of them, just before Christmas.

Another challenge single-hotel owners face is the growth of large

chains which offer customers benefits like loyalty points across the

chain and discounts for multi-location use. Some of the investors

with large tracts of land in Goa also built hotels. They handed over

The DM Harish awardWe have worked hard to keep our team in place, offering rewards and recognition and a promise of continuous learning and

growth. One of the HR initiatives we made at Ramada was the DM Harish Award. It was given in memory of our friend and mentor

DM Harish to the employee who had been voted by guests to be the most friendly one who went out of his way to take care of

them. DM Harish was a truly exceptional person and these are characteristics that personify him. One of the things Meena and

I remember him for is that he always wore a smile. He was a light-hearted and hardworking person and even if we were waiting

with our problems for him when returned home at 10 at night – he would still greet us with a smile! There was never the slightest

hint of irritation or tiredness and he would listen carefully, analysing the complex problem we had brought and coming out with

a simple solution by the time we left.

facing page • Our oversized swimming pool with its swim-up bar right in the centre.top • The general managers of top hotels in India and the heads of hotel chains were invited to a strategy meeting called ‘Hotelscapes BITB’ at the Leela Ambience Hotel, New Delhi in November 2018. I was asked to address the audience on ‘Bringing Standards of Excellence – benchmarking the Indian hospitality experience’. I spoke on the implementation of standards in hotels across India, and also gave suggestions for unique methods of providing training to staff.


Our cathedral lobby with its grand staircase and waterfall.

the hotels to the international corporates on long-term management contracts without imposing

sufficient controls. For the deep-pocket owners, losses, if any, are well compensated by status and

glamour. Once again – everyone is happy except, in this case, the single-hotel owner who has to

compete for the same clients. Still, I must say that we have not done too badly. One of our biggest

supports has been the online travel agents which most holiday-makers rely on these days. Our sales

team has a separate focus on dynamic pricing which technology helps us to implement. We subscribe

to STR, a travel portal that tracks supply and demand data for the hotels in our competitive set and

helps us gauge whether we are selling too low or too high and plan our monthly strategy according to

live data. Our team has done a fantastic job and this is clear from our TripAdvisor reviews and awards!

Living in a world of continuous change, there is one thing I am confident is never going to change, and

that is our commitment to increasing tourism and to giving our guests a wonderful, relaxing holiday. In

our beautiful grounds and buildings, our focus is on front-office efficiency, clean housekeeping and

high-quality F&B. There is a focus that when guests check in, the quality of our welcome makes them

feel happy, and that is an experience that will be repeated at every interaction we have.

Sourav Panchanan EAM, Caravela Beach Resort

I joined Caravela after working for sixteen years in hotel management, eleven of which were in Scotland. Hospitality as an industry

is constantly evolving and unexpected events take place all the time – part of the skill of a hotelier is knowing how to deal with the

unexpected.

At Caravela, I have seen a strong focus on guests and on revenue. There is a continuous drive to improve things for the guests at every

level. Employees have a work culture of encouragement and transparency, and a lot of recognition for good-quality contributions.

It is a very positive message to the entire team that if you are contributing you will be rewarded; it is the right way to face a very

competitive future with the newly-formed global giant corporate hotel chains entering India. We all understand that a good team is

the biggest resource that will be the only differentiator between hotels. Yes, we do have high attrition in the front line – that is normal

in the hospitality industry worldwide, and particularly so in Goa. But professionals with long-term vision understand that a small and

well-run hotel gives better opportunities for learning and growth. Our salaries are also better.

When we dropped the Ramada brand, there was concern that we might face a mass exodus of senior management – but hardly

anyone left. Today we are a standalone property but our team includes senior professionals from the top luxury brands of different

hotels all over the world including the Taj Group, the Leela Group, Hilton Ras Al Khaimah, Oberoi Amarvilas at Agra and others. They

have successfully implemented their learnings here, enjoyed the working space and added to the culture we already have, bringing

value to themselves and to us.


FAMILYEVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS230 231

Keep smiling, keep shining

Knowing you can always count on me, for sure

That’s what friends are for

For good times and bad times

I’ll be on your side forever more

WE ARE

FAMILY~ Dionne Warwick ~


What I admire most about my Dad

Generosity and Love My parents have given me the biggest gift of all, the opportunity to be educated, pursue my dreams and interests

and be independent. Dad always encouraged me to chart my own course and trusted me with my decisions.

Dad always gave whatever he did abundantly, and with a spirit of great generosity and love, never making me feel

like it was out of a sense of duty. I will forever be grateful for the generosity and love of my parents.

Following his vision Dad’s ability to think big, be creative and have a vision are qualities I have always admired.

Having a vision is one thing, but having the courage to follow that vision and be willing to fail at times, is another thing.

Many people live in regret that they couldn’t try their ideas.

Dad was able to try his ideas, and fortunately some of them took off, while he learnt important lessons from others.

Work ethic I learnt the importance of hard work, day in and day out, as my dad always worked, even on vacation.

I have always known my dad to be prepared and early for every meeting he goes to.

He has an intense curiosity for what is going on in the world, in India, in Goa, as relates to current events.

He enjoys having a point of view and being an agent of change.

FROM LALITA WITH LOVE


Optimism To be an entrepreneur one needs a high level of optimism as you always hear a lot of “nos”.

That quality to believe in yourself, your ideas, and to persevere despite critics, bounce back despite mistakes,

and to keep going is a quality I admire in my dad. I have seen him adapt to different situations he has faced in his life with grace

and flexibility and to start over if need be. I have seen him try harder when things aren’t going his way and never give up.

Gratitude for small things

Dad is always grateful when he experiences the smallest things, even it is for the millionth time

like eating a turkey sandwich or apple pie. Every time he sees a Broadway show or Jazz performance he is full

of appreciation even though he has seen countless shows. He is equally content with activities like listening to his ipod,

eating home food, watching music videos and playing bridge or rummy with his friends.

On his eightieth birthday, I wish him the gift of peace and contentment, continued good health

and a meaningful continuation of his journey to make an impact with us by his side always.


What I most appreciate, value, admire, and thank my father for:My father and mother gave me a VERY happy childhood.

That blissful experience of childhood is what I value the most in my life!

What I loved most about my father was how he treated my dear mother.

In my entire life, I have never seen or heard him raise his voice, or argue with my mother even once.

He had no bad habits of drinking excessive alcohol, or smoking, or gambling, or anger management, laziness, etc.

These good qualities made our home stable, supportive, and healing.

It was his good habits and good character that ensured I had a great childhood!

What I really appreciate about my parents is the freedom they gave me to choose when the decision

really mattered a lot to me, especially at the turning points in my life!

I especially cherish the freedom given to me to spend my time (after working hours,

and on each weekend, and for 3-6 weeks continuously each year of my annual holiday),

to learn about spirituality, visit and volunteer in an Ashram for ten years.

Any other parent might have been worried about their only son leading a semi-monastic life

for years in modern South-Bombay society, but he gave the freedom to choose,

to follow my Heart, and find my balance, for which I am eternally grateful!

FROM PRAHLAD WITH LOVE


At Harvard Business School, I was fortunate to learn that,

“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources controlled.”

Thus, a true entrepreneur is one who always sees the opportunity and pursues it with focus and persistence,

irrespective of the limited resources and limited capital they have.

I realised that my father truly fits this definition of an entrepreneur.

All his life he has been truly brave and not been deterred by the fact that he has always had less resources

than all of his competitors. My father found the right opportunity, he formulated the right strategy, he pursued his vision

relentlessly with Herculean willpower, (with the limited resources he had), and ultimately created long-term value

for all stakeholders, including his employees! He effectively created new businesses and competed with players

with far bigger cheque books and added value to society in style!

Even at this age, my father attends workshops, conferences and Professional Development Program (PDP)

courses with my professors to keep learning. He constantly asks intelligent questions to the panellists with

the objective of continuously learning, rather than feeling that he knows it all.

On a lighter note, my father has deeply influenced the music I listen to! When I was a child, he kept his music

cupboard open for me to rummage through and listen to. So I grew up with the Bee Gees, Johnny Mathis, Billy Joel,

Elton John, Sade, Gloria Estefan, Julio Iglesias, Whitney Houston, Phil Collins, Frank Sinatra, etc.,

all of which I thoroughly enjoy till today!

I admire that my father and mother value education and learning, even at this age! They always said to me, “Prahlad, in life you will lose a significant portion of everything you have at least once; the only thing you can’t lose is your education. A good education will help

you regain what you lose and it will help build your character.”



My grandson, SamirSamir was born on January 14, 2015 at St Louis in USA. Our dear friends, Dr Vijayakumari and her

husband, Dr Rao Devineni (Babu), looked after Shahna and Samir through this entire period with

great love and joy. I arrived in St Louis just in time to receive the three of them as the new mother

and baby were discharged. Dr Vijayakumari had arranged for a stretch limousine to take them


home, and so Samir’s very first car ride was in a stretch

limo! We flew from St Louis to Chicago where Prem and

Sujaya welcomed us all with their legendary warmth and

hospitality.

Samir spent his first four years in the beautiful, spacious

and healthy environment of our Goa hotel. He loves the

outdoors and when we play football together and I see

the way he kicks I can tell that he is going to excel at

the game. On our trips together to Dubai and Chicago, I

find he enjoys the creative play centres and keeps asking

for more and more coins to enjoy the thrill of driving the

cars. He is passionate about cars and also loves climbing,

loves navigating mazes where he can crawl or roll. One

of the TV shows that he is hooked on is ‘Motu and Patlu’,

and we watch it together and have great laughs. I enjoy

telling him stories and his favourite is the one in which I

narrowly escaped being eaten live by crocodiles! Living

in Goa has given him an affinity for water and we see him

walking into the sea fearlessly. Even at this young age he

seems to know what he wants and has a mind of his own.

Samir is very concerned about my health and makes it

a point to give me the various pills I need to take before

breakfast and after dinner. Now that he and his family

have moved to our home in Bombay so that he can attend

school in this city, it is a great delight for us.


He’s my brotherMy youngest brother, Haresh, is Executive Director of our company. His wife Nina is a director, and

she and my wife Meena have a great working relationship.

Haresh and I, despite our thirteen-year age difference, have quite a lot in common. We enjoy similar

tastes in food, music, entertainment and fondness for bridge, which he is better at than me.

Haresh’s professional strengths are in accounting as well as plant and machinery, and he is an expert

at cooling systems, which he learnt at Cornell Hotel School. He is good at negotiating land deals and

has independently achieved success in real estate. I was very happy that he joined me in business in

Bombay thirty-five years ago, when I was having issues with our partners at the Airport Plaza Hotel.

He has helped me immensely and we have fought many battles jointly to make Advani Hotels and

Resorts (India) Ltd into a profitable company with a strong balance sheet.


That’s what friends are forAll through the years, much of my time has been spent on putting out fires in developing hotels for

myself or for others, and at the end of a hard day’s work there was the need to unwind and relax.

Tennis was no longer an alternative after my doctor advised against it in 1982 when he found that I

had developed a double bone on my knee which required surgery. This was around the time I was

invited to join a bridge group, and did so since I love playing bridge. Members lived close by and

we played at each other’s homes. From the money collected in the ‘kitty’, our families took holidays

together, starting with Mahabaleshwar, then trips to Pune, Aurangabad, Shirdi, Kathmandu and other

hotels in Mumbai. Our hotel in Goa hosted this happy group several times. We played together for

long hours and over time we have become known as ‘the extended family’.

The treasurer of our extended family is Captain Ashok Batra, who retired from the Indian Navy, and

his knowledge of ships helped me when I was trying to convert the Caravela sightseeing ship into a

casino ship. Another member is Naresh Jain, whose wife Suman has been a mentor to Meena. We

miss Naren Jain and his wife Manju when they moved away to Pune some years ago. The best bridge

player in our group is Gopal Vazirani who was chairman of the prestigious Willingdon Club where we

now play bridge and 21-card rummy every Saturday and sometimes more often. The most regular

player is Gul Advani who owns the Sun n Sand hotels in Mumbai, Nagpur and Shirdi and Pune, and

who has invited us to play in his hotels too. They attended the opening night of our Casino Goa on

the MV Caravela and I also arranged to take them to the Soaltee Hotel and casino in Kathmandu.

Ashok Kapur, co-founder of Yes Bank, was a long-time member of our group. He was tragically killed

at the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai during the historic terrorist attack on November 26, 2008 and we

miss him a lot. Ashok had helped me obtain a loan for our hotel when he was heading ABN AMRO in

Mumbai. Ashok was an excellent bridge player. His wife Madhu continues to play with us now and is

an excellent rummy player as well. She once took our group in a boat to her holiday home in Alibagh.

Even though I learnt bridge in my college days in Philadelphia in the 1950s, I must confess that

my game is average. However I enjoy playing and it gives me pleasure when I win as I am a very

competitive person! We also play rummy and the gathering gives us the opportunity to relax and joke

around. These are my closest friends and I look forward to meeting them and enjoying their company

every week.

Gopal Vazirani (in the black-and-white t-shirt), behind him is Naresh Jain and next to him is his son Anurang Jain; me, Sushu Kamlani with her husband Ajit behind her; Madhu Kapur (in the red kurta), behind her are Ashok and Kum Batra, Meena, Kiron and Gul Advani. At Naren Jain’s factory in Aurangabad.


We met Sunder for the first time in Chicago a few weeks before one of the most seminal events in recent history, September 11, 2001.

Since then it has been and endearing and enduring friendship of almost two decades.

Over this period, we (Sujaya and I) have met Sunder and Meena on numerous occasions in India, USA and various parts of the globe.

I’ve found Sunder to be a very upright, honest and industrious individual. We are all aware of his pioneering work in the hospitality

industry in India but what has awed me is that he continues to be passionate at the same level of intensity till this day.

Sunder is perseverant in his goals yet uncompromising in his principles. I have also had the opportunity to see him in adversarial

situations and here Sunder is steadfastly poised and composed. His reactions have never been even remotely egregious and

consistently devoid of vitriol.

Notwithstanding all I have mentioned, Sunder’s hallmark characteristic is his prodigious ability to recall events, places and names

from over five decades ago. I am reminded of a particular incident in the town of Eze in the South of France when he was able to

guide us flawlessly to a quaint restaurant in the remote hills of Eze which he had visited more than fifty years earlier. Additionally, he

was able to name the erstwhile owner of the restaurant.

Sunder is a music aficionado and also possesses a singing talent which by any yardstick would surpass the ordinary. I have

been reliably informed that Sunder was an accomplished sportsman in his youth and later life a consummate Rummy player and

demonstrable prowess in game of Bridge.

Over the last two decades, Sujaya and I have been better informed and have gained enormously in his company along with Meena.

We both wish him the best during the rest of his terrestrial presence.

Prem Rupani Memories are made of thisI have been very lucky that my bond to the US has grown stronger and continues to do so in the form

of very dear friends. It started with an episode of ill-health which led me to a Bombay hospital where I

had a terrible experience. A wrong surgical instrument was used, I was bleeding and partly conscious,

and could hear the nurses and attendants unconcernedly chatting with each other and giggling. I

knew that I had to find a better level of care than that! As I was looking for options, I happened to be

introduced to Dr Prem Rupani and his wife Sujaya, and I must say that this changed my life for the

better in many ways. These Indian doctors originally from Hyderabad (Deccan) moved to Chicago

three decades ago. In 2001, my daughter Lalita was studying in Chicago and we visited her regularly,

and I began my medical treatment there. Sujaya is an ophthalmologist and her partner operated on

me for cataract, one eye that year and the other the following year. Prem and Sujaya have a large

circle of close friends and among them they count doctors of every possible specialization! So when

I need medical attention, I call Prem and he sets up whatever appointments I need with the doctor of

that specialization, and I fly to Chicago to get it done.

It was my friend Dr Prem who celebrated his birthday at our hotel, flying sixty of his friends down and

insisting that I sing for everyone as part of the proceedings! At his birthday party, he was keen to have

Sindhi food served and we arranged for Sindhi cooks from Bombay to come and stay in Goa and they

prepared a feast for us. We meet often and holiday together with our wives to exotic destinations

including Morocco, Portugal, South of France, Rome, Geneva and the luxurious Raj Vilas properties

in India.

facing page • Dr Prem Rupani and Dr Sujaya Rupani with their daughters Shilpa and Priyanka in Goa top • Babu and Vijaya Devineni, Meena and me, Anita, Prem and Sujaya Rupani, Navin, in the lobby of our hotel in Goa.


The inimitable Harilela familyEvery year that Meena and I visited the headquarters of Holiday Inns in Memphis in the 1970s,

Kemmons Wilson would invite us to dinner along with another couple, Hari Harilela and his wife

Padma, and we became very good friends. The Harilelas are a Hong Kong business family and had

been associated with Kemmons Wilson because they were owners of the Hong Kong Holiday Inn

and subsequently built Holiday Inns in Bangkok, Singapore and other cities. In Dallas, Texas, in 1976,

we attended the opening of the Holiday Inn owned by my colleague on the IAHI committee, Jack

Pratt, and I remember Hari Harilela’s speech in which he quoted from the Ramayana and other Hindu

scriptures.

When we visited Hong Kong they would always invite us to their palatial home which comfortably

housed more than a hundred members of the close joint family. Hari and Padma had visited our

home in Bombay too. He would always tell me that if he ever considered a business venture in India,

it would be with me. In 2010, we had the pleasure of his sister Sandee coming to Goa. She and her

husband stayed at our resort and we became very close friends.

My friend MarioI was very fortunate that my good friend and India’s most loved cartoonist the late Mario Miranda, who created several of the murals in

our hotel, could join me at most of the birthday parties I had in Goa. We got to know each other soon after we started building our hotel

in 1988. Dan Mosczytz, Senior VP of Ramada Inc who visited periodically to review progress, happened to see Mario’s work and was

fascinated. Mario, one of India’s most famous illustrators, started his career with Times of India in 1953. His art had a characteristic style and

wit which made him extremely popular. Mario had retired to live in his ancestral home in Loutolim, not far from our hotel, and we decided

to commission him to make some murals for our hotel. Mario made paintings and designed the murals, and we got the artist Ishwar Shetty

from Mumbai to execute them: one large mural showing characteristic Goa scenes behind the reception and two Goa carnival scenes in

our restaurant Carnaval. In 2007, when we were redoing the North Wing bathrooms, the designer suggested giving them an extra touch of

luxury with Mario’s work on the walls. Once again Mario made a sketch depicting life in Goa, and we had it converted into blue and white

tiles by a Panjim artist.

In 2008, when the Spanish Tourist Board held a conference for about sixty Indian travel operators to promote Spain as a destination for

Indian tourists, the head of the delegation saw Mario’s masterpiece behind our reception desk and asked to meet the artist. I was delighted

when this led to Mario being invited to Spain to visit the various attractions and create illustrations of what he had seen to attract Indians

to visit these beautiful places. Mario was jovial, always humorous and loved a glass of red wine. He and his wife Habiba, who was his

inspiration, were good friends and often came over to spend the evening with us.


I have known Sunder Advani for more than forty years. At the conference where we were first introduced, I mistook him for an

American but later realized that he was very much an Indian who was committed to the development of tourism in India, and in

particular of our hotel industry.

During our interaction I observed the way Sunder deals with government officials, always polite and never aggressive, but always

very persuasive and very good at following up continuously until the work got done. As a hotelier, he has just one hotel today, but

his involvement in the industry is tremendous. Sunder is always travelling to attend conferences, seeking new ideas and making

new connections, and always alert to new developments. He is on many industry committees and through his knowledge and

experience he must be influencing other hoteliers and helping them to transform their hotels.

I have also seen Sunder as an extremely good-natured person, and a true family man. Though we met in a professional capacity,

when I was Finance Minister and Tourism Minister and he was looking after Ramada Hotels, over time we became good friends.

Quite often we play rummy together. When Sunder ran a casino on a boat, I did make a brief visit once. Having observed him I can

tell you that Sunder is not a gambler!

Today we meet in a purely social capacity and visit each other’s homes regularly. My friend Sunder is a kind-hearted man and a very

good listener. He is definitely not a greedy person. He could have easily expanded his business, especially with all the knowledge

that he has, but he has not done so. Whatever he has done, he has done well.

Sushil Kumar Shinde

A chance enounterMany of the interesting people I know began as chance encounters with strangers on air journeys.

One day, decades ago, I introduced myself to the person sitting next to me and he asked, “Any

relation to Gurdas Advani of Karachi?” I was stunned. It turned out that the gentleman was Mani

Shankar Aiyar and he had become acquainted with my father, Gurdas Advani, when he was High

Commissioner of India to Pakistan and my father was head of the minority community there. We

stayed in touch and became good friends.

With my friend Mani Shankar Aiyar at Prahlad’s engagement ceremony. New Delhi, 2012.

Sushilkumar Shinde, former Home Minister of India, presents me with a bouquet on the twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations of our hotel. Mumbai 2015


Birthday boyFrom 1990 till about 1995 when we were overtaken by the Leela, our hotel was recognized as the

Number One hotel in Goa. It was during this time that we began the tradition of celebrating my

birthday with a party at the hotel every year. As it happens, I was conveniently born on a day between

Christmas and New Year – a time when people all over the world come to Goa to celebrate!

Looking back, I remember my loneliness on my sixteenth birthday while I was studying in London.

When I turned twenty-one, I was studying for my MBA at Wharton, the first time I was legally entitled

to walk into a bar to celebrate with friends – who got me drunk for the only time in my life! My thirtieth

birthday celebration coincided with the farewell party my neighbours at Watergate Apartment in

Washington DC gave me before I moved to India. I was unable to celebrate my fortieth, being too

involved at the time with court disputes with my partners at our Hotel Airport Plaza, but we made up

for that with a big party at the hotel’s Take Off disco when I turned fifty and many of my close friends

and family danced the night away.

We had good friends in Goa too and some of them included the chief minister, governor, various

cabinet ministers, senior members of the opposition, local industrialists and media representatives

and they regularly celebrated my birthday with us. When I turned seventy, many of my friends from

the US flew to Goa. They brought specialty liquors, and as part of the celebrations, Prem’s daughter

Priyanka served up designer cocktails named for each phase of my life and place I had lived in!

A birthday is a special day for each one of us and I for one have always found that my birthdays and

the period around them have invariably been very special and good things have happened to me

during these times. Many of us Indians believe in destiny and that whatever we achieve in this world

has already been decided on the day we are born – a world view that most people brought up in

the US would find unacceptable! To be honest I do find similarities between people I meet who are

born under the same sun sign of Capricorn. Besides, I share my birthday, December 28, with two of

the biggest business tycoons in India, Dhirubhai Ambani and Rattan Tata, and there are surely a few

things we have in common!


Over the years, I have travelled to many countries around the world.

My wife tells me I would stay home longer if our bedroom resembled a cockpit! Until just a few years ago, travelling out of India was

uncommon. I was lucky to be able to visit these places during that time, some on holiday with my family, but mostly to attend conferences

or events.

• Paris • Nice • Provence • St Tropez • Cannes • Monte Carlo • Brussels • • Antwerp • Bruges • Geneva • Zurich • Lucerne • Rome • Genoa • Naples • • Amsterdam • Rotterdam • Munich • Frankfurt • Berlin • Hamburg • Vienna • • Salzburg • Prague • Stockholm • Helsinki • Copenhagen • Moscow • Madrid • • Seville • Lisbon • London • Manchester • Wales •

• Cairo • Luxor • Sharmalsheikh • Dubai • Bahrain • Kuwait • Beirut • • Doha • Abu Dhabi • Marrakech • Fez • Casablanca • Tel Aviv • Haifa • • Jerusalem • Eilat •

• Sydney • Melbourne • Brisbane • Canberra • Surfers Paradise • Manila • Bali • Jakarta • Seoul • Tokyo • Osaka • Shanghai • Hong Kong • Macao • Bangkok • Pattaya • Huahin • Colombo • Trincomalee • Maldives • Kabul • Karachi • Nepal •

• Honolulu • San Francisco • Los Angeles • San Diego • Sacramento • Seattle • • Las Vegas • Reno • Denver • Phoenix • Chicago • Detroit • Milwaukee • • Minneapolis •Burlington • St. Louis • New Orleans • Cincinnati • Atlanta • • St. Petersburg • Daytona Beach • Orlando • Fort Lauderdale • Miami • • Palm Beach • New York • Albany • Boston • Cape Cod • Nags Head • • Charlottesville • Philadelphia • Washington DC • Baltimore • Wilmington • • Atlantic City • Niagara Falls • Vancouver • Toronto • Montreal • San Juan • • Trinidad • Barbados •

THESE VAGABOND SHOES

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A moment in timeWe are all on this planet for a brief period. As I look back today, most of the people whom I learnt

something important from, such as my parents, the professionals I worked with like Kemmons Wilson

and Michael D Rose, and Wroe Alderson and most of my other professors, have all passed away.

One of the most important things I have learnt in my life is that if one wants to have free time to follow

one’s dreams, one should maintain good health and not be short of funds for basic comforts. While

money is a great facilitator, it should not become the be-all and end-all of one’s existence, at the

expense of one’s health and value system.

Each one of us has a special talent or skill, and our goal should be to discover what it is that we can

give to the world to enrich it. For me, being an entrepreneur was my true calling. I was never attracted

to professional life, and have tried to develop a successful business which will continue to provide an

income when I can no longer work, and will sustain future generations. The principle I used has been

to find the need for a particular product or service, and to try and fill that need. I am a creative person

and it gives me a good feeling to plan and design projects which will outlive me. It does not matter to

me if I am finally involved in a project, as long as the project got built. I did face many obstacles but

was never totally put off by them.

I was born with a sense of great enthusiasm and a keen desire for learning. Looking back, I am glad

that I have lived life to the fullest. If I am invited to a conference or lecture, even at the last moment,

I go. As a young person, when Bernard of Hollywood offered to take me to Berlin, I didn’t hesitate

for a moment. All these unplanned forays into new and unchartered territories have enriched my

experience immensely.

To me, life is a daily adventure and I urge you not to allow your curiosity and creativity to get lost in

the daily humdrum of living. Pursue your passion with perseverance till you get there.


“Sunder always worked on ideas ahead of the

time and accomplished a lot. It wasn’t easy but

it all worked out and we are grateful.”

~ Meena ~

“Meena is extremely wise and thoughtful

in dealings with everyone, and she

takes good care of me. It has been a great ride for almost fifty years!”

~ Sunder ~





Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing

Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing

Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty

What would life be?

Without a song or a dance what are we?

So I say thank you for the music

For giving it to me

~ ABBA~


Acknowledgements

Many people helped me to bring out this book and it is hard to thank each one individually.

Besides, at eighty, one’s memory is not at its best. I hope that those not mentioned, if any, would

forgive the lapse on my part.

The person who has encouraged me the most to put this together is my wife, Meena. I started

writing some thoughts two years ago, but had not made up my mind whether I should publish a

book this soon. She singlehandedly found all the five-hundred-plus photographs, some of which

were taken almost seventy-five years ago. Moreover, she spent more time on the business so that

I could devote hours every day in the last few months to put these thoughts on my Apple iPad

which I cannot live without.

Next I thank Saaz Aggarwal for helping me to complete this book. She took the pains to record

all our conversations and those she interviewed at my request and on her own initiative. She

deserves full credit for doing independent research on history, a subject which is not my strong

point. To put all this into an orderly format in a short time is a formidable task – for which I cannot

thank her enough. I must thank my cousin Sunita Struck Shivdasani for introducing her to me just

a few months ago.

My son Prahlad spent more time in running the Goa operations so that I could be free to jog my

memory to remember events that happened seventy years ago. His wife Shahna, an accomplished

creative designer, helped me immensely in not only selecting and placing each photograph but

also taking a lot of trouble to create the beautiful design as well as the cover page. My daughter

Lalita gave me valuable advice and gave me samples of successful books published.

I have not enough words to thank Sujata, my ultra-efficient Executive Assistant for over a decade.

She has had the patience to make the innumerable changes and coordinate with all to make this

book a reality.

My adviser, Anil Harish, encouraged me to continue with writing after I had more or less given up

the idea. So did Sasha Mirchandani, my friend Gulu’s son.

The book could not have been completed in record time without the active help of Maneck Davar

the owner of Spenta Multimedia. I must thank my neighbour Bina Thadani for introducing me to

Mr Davar.

I am immensely grateful to Amitabh Kant who took time out from his extremely busy schedule

to write the Foreword of this book. At short notice, Suresh Prabhu, P Chidambaram and Gloria

Guevara Manzo also obliged with their kind comments.

I’m thankful to my niece Nilita Vachani, a writer based in New York, and our family friend Akash

Shah of Jaico Publishing, for their guidance. I must also thank the best-selling author Ashwin

Sanghi (son of my good friend MK Sanghi) and Richard Rothman, who suggested ways to publish

a book. My thanks also go out to all those who voluntarily gave their time to be interviewed and

for the good things they had to say about me even when I was not present!

I cannot end without expressing my gratitude to the songwriters whose songs have enriched my

life over the years. Quite a few of their titles turned out to be appropriate subheadings for several

sections of this book.

EVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS272 PB

And these are the last words I have to sayBefore another age goes by

With all those other songs I’ll have to playBut that’s the story of my life

~Billy Joel ~

Documents

EVEN AGAINST ALL ODDS - SUNDER G. ADVANI