Hotelier and Art Investment Guru Kapil Chopra to Open Gallery at Lado Sarai's Art Mile

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

KAPIL CHOPRA, President, The Oberoi Group, who heads the luxury hotel chain's operations in India, is all set to open artdistrict XIII. It is the newest gallery on the 'art mile' in the gentrified south-west Delhi village of Lado Sarai and, as you'd expect a venture by Chopra to do, it will open with a solo show by the talented Australian artist, Paul Davies, who gives houses a distinctive personality

Kapil Chopra, seen with Yubvan Bothisathuvar,
winner of the Emerging Artist of the Year Award
2013, is opening artdistict XIII at the gentrified
south-west Delhi village, Lado Sarai. Image:
Courtesy of BestCollegeArt.com blog

in his paintings.

"The number 13 signifies my desire to overturn the notion that it is unlucky. After all, we are opening at a time galleries we know are closing," Chopra said to me in a phone interview. "I know it's not unlucky. My daughter's birth date is the 13th and she's the dearest person in my life," he added.
The gallery, though, is being launched on April 12 (it's Baisakhi eve) in a neighbourhood studded with serious players in the art business, notably, Latitude 28, Gallery Threshold, Art Motif and Studio 320. "It is going to be a cutting-edge gallery, but in the not-for-profit space," Chopra said, explaining his vision for the gallery. "Whatever we earn, we will invest back into art and developing institutions."
I have known Chopra in his many avatars, from the days when he was the front office manager of the late lamented Grand Hyatt at Vasant Kunj, and admired his enthralling rise and brilliant time management skills. A product of the Oberoi Centre for Learning and Development (OCLD), without doubt the finest learning institution in the hospitality sector, Chopra first attracted notice when he spearheaded the Presidential Suite project at the Taj Mahal Hotel on Mansingh Road, when Abhijit Mukherji was the general manager (he's now Executive Director, Hotel Operations,  of the Taj Group).

Kapil then charted out a new path for Gurgaon, which had just one weather-beaten hotel in 2004, by opening The Trident and went on to give shape to the daring vision of East India Hotels Chairman and Chief Executive, Prithvi Raj Singh Oberoi, by building The Oberoi next door, creating a luxury enclave and winning just about any award that was to be won. His rise to the top was a foregone conclusion, but he surprised all of us five or six years ago by revealing a different side of his -- that of the art connoisseur.

Hoteliers, as far as I can tell, see art as mere real estate for walls. Very few of them are as passionate about art and the business of promoting young artists as Jyotsna Suri of The Lalit and Priya Paul of The Park. In 2008, Chopra launched his blog, Indian Art Review (http://indianartinvest.blogspot.com), and instantly drew the world's attention to his acute understanding of the business of art. He would bet, for instance, on the edgy duo, Jiten Thukral and Sumir Tagra, much before they became international stars. He would predict the highs and lows of the art market much before the world would get wiser about the trends.

I still remember reading his brilliant analysis of how India's contemporary art market, which was then in a state of euphoria over the emerging stars led by the powerhouse Subodh Gupta, was being artificially heated up by a bunch of fly-by-night operators, struck me as the kind of writing that one doesn't get to see in the dwindling number of pages devoted to art in our mainstream dailies and magazines. Chopra's sharp insights were like a life boat in a sea of fuzzy writing. I suspect, though, that he drew a lot of his insights from his good friends, Peter Nagy of Nature Morte art gallery, the launchpad of some of the finest contemporary artists, and adman-art collector-blogger Swapan Seth.

Three of them teamed up and launched BestCollegeArt.com in 2010 to give young artists, the median age being 30, an online marketplace to put up their work and sell directly to buyers for less than Rs 99,000 per work, without parting with fat commissions. Today, more than 1,000 artists have sold their work on this online marketplace.

In 2012, Chopra unveiled the Emerging Artist of the Year Award, where the top prize goes to a young talent selected from among 2,500-plus contenders spread over nationally. The winner gets a Rs 10 lakh award, the bulk of the money going into subsidising his or her three-month stint with the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence Programme. Chopra can with justification claim to be the country's leading incubator of artistic talent and also the publisher of a bright and hip online art and lifestyle magazine and TV channel, The Wall, which helps this young generation make sense of the world they are about to navigate and provides seasoned collectors the tip-offs they need to broadbase their repertoire.

Having raised art in the esteem of the new generation, a gallery with his distinctive stamp was clearly the way forward for Chopra. Interestingly, just a couple of months, while writing on ways to engage the elusive buyers, Kapil commented in his blog: "Galleries who build on an old order, family and the story of 'I have been around two decades', need to wake up and smell the coffee. The game has always been to sell to a couple of museums, attend some art fairs and sell some art to old collectors. That won’t sustain them or their artists. They need to work on their marketing, have a better online presence, engage with collectors and be active." Well, he has set the benchmarks for himself, but I see him raising the bar. Kapil always sees himself as his biggest competition.

As The Trident Gurgaon Turns 10, It Eyes Bigger Share of MICE Pie and Prepares to Go Organic

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

I STILL remember the evening, ten years ago, when I walked into what was then The Trident Hilton Gurgaon, getting that wow feeling as I beheld the aquamarine water body (I am told it holds 800,000 litres of constantly recycled water) reflecting the frisky flames of the mashaals (fire-lit torches) lighting up the entrance courtyard of the hotel, which stood out as a showpiece in a sleepy town that was just becoming known as the back-end capital of the world.

Nitesh Gandhi, who was the F&B
manager of The Trident Gurgaon
ten years ago and is now general
manager, explains why the hotel is
No. 1 in Gurgaon on TripAdvisor

As I was ushered in through the ornamental doors that towered over me like Aladdin's genie, I was received by Kapil Chopra, whom I had known from his stint at The Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi, where he led the prestigious presidential suite project; David Mathews, who had moved in from the salubrious setting of the Wildflower Hall in Shimla to take over as Executive Assistant Manager (F&B); and Nitesh Gandhi, the F&B Manager. That was ten years ago, when the only competition The Trident had was the older and definitely dowdy The Bristol, which didn't look like a hotel of any consequence in the best of times. I wondered why P.R.S. Oberoi, a hospitality mogul in a class of his own, had chosen to open such a magnificent hotel with suitably appointed rooms -- a Vilas and not just another Trident -- in the middle of a wilderness.

Ten years on, I don't have to ask this question. The Trident Gurgaon, which celebrates its tenth birthday this evening, has been the biggest gainer of Gurgaon's stunning growth. I am sure the staff must have lost count of the number of Fortune 500 company board meetings they have hosted, or the international corporate top guns who have walked the hotel's gleaming corridors. Just in the recent past, the hotel has hosted the global boards of Microsoft, American Express, McKinsey and Harley Davidson. It was also the first hotel in Gurgaon to host an international conference -- that of the foreign ministers of 51 Indian Ocean rim nations -- organised by the Ministry of External Affairs. To provide security to the visiting dignitaries, Delhi Police, in an unprecedented move, had to get its jurisdiction extended to Gurgaon!

The Trident Gurgaon has set the gold standards for a market that has grown from 350 rooms (including 136 of its own) to more than 5,000, and is waiting for another 3,500 to open up at the New Delhi Aerocity through this year and the next. At a time when hotels are engaged in a pricing bloodbath, it has held on to an 80 per cent occupancy; the hotel's February 2014 revenue per available room (RevPAR) -- Rs 9,935 -- is 12.5 per cent higher than the previous year's figure and it is all set to close this financial year with 10 per cent higher gross operating profit. With The Oberoi Gurgaon coming up next door, and with the two hotels working on a "one complex, one sales team" strategy, they are now eyeing with confidence the competitive market cutting across segments. What I thought would be a real estate disaster has turned out to be an industry success story.

"Our Chairman has a sharp eye for locations. See how The Oberoi New Delhi is located right next to the city's oldest golf course. It has ensured, besides offering a great view to guests, the hotel has no competition in its neighbourhood," says Gandhi, as nattily turned out as ever, as we settle down for a chat in one corner of the pool, completely insulated from the noise and confusion on one of the NCR's busiest (and till recently, clogged) arterial roads, just a couple of hundred metres away. The Trident Gurgaon doesn't exaggerate when it claims to be a business hotel that "makes you forget you're on business".

The hotel's main corridor oozes the warmth and
grandeur responsible for making it the 'business
hotel where you forget you are on business'

Ten years seems like a lifetime. Gandhi is now the general manager of the hotel. And he's not the only one who has risen in the corporate food chain. Kapil Chopra, whose ease with words matches his mastery over numbers, is the President of The Oberoi Group. David Mathews, who handed over charge to Gandhi, is the general manager of The Oberoi Gurgaon next door. Rathijit Dasgupta, who started as a steward at Cilantro (Gandhi remembers training him how to balance service trays), The Trident Gurgaon's multiple-award-winning all-day restaurant, is the food and beverage manager of The Oberoi Gurgaon. Gaurav, the then duty manager, is the rooms division manager. Aafreen, the then front office assistant, is the production manager. And Jasbir, also a front office assistant, is now the front office manager. If The Trident is Gurgaon's No. 1 hotel on TripAdvisor with a 96 per cent approval rating, it is because of these people who have hitched their fortunes to it, a rare feature in an industry prone to a high attrition rate.

Gandhi attributes The Trident's success to three features of The Oberoi's work culture that flows down from the man presiding over the empire. "We have been taught to develop an astute sense of detailing, never to make comprises, and to hire the right people," says Gandhi. The right people, with the right empowerment, can create "magical stories for our guests". He mentions the instance of a top executive of a leading management consultancy who was a regular at a neighbouring hotel. Gandhi managed to influence him to transfer his account to The Trident Gurgaon. Today, the guest doesn't go anywhere else because he swears by Fazil, the gym instructor. "When service is at this level, then business comes automatically," says Gandhi. "The standards have to be high when you work for a legend," he adds.

As Gandhi gears up for what he perceives as a "tough fight" in the next three years, he has set three goals for the hotel:

* Go for the upper end of the MICE (Meetings Incentives Conventions Exhibitions) business more aggressively, pitching for heads of state visits, Fortune 500 company board meetings and product launches. At the moment, MICE provides 18 per cent of the hotel's business, compared with 75 per cent from corporate clients and 7 per cent from the leisure segment. "Now that the Gurgaon toll is out, we will go for the Delhi business," Gandhi says. "And we are already tapping the Mumbai market."

* Reduce waste for healthier bottomline. "Our Chairman keeps emphasising that economising is not about cutting costs, but about eliminating waste," Gandhi says. He points outs that the hotel's boilers and gas burners (in the mashaals and the kitchens) are moving on to piped natural gas (PNG).
It has become necessary, he says, because of the erratic electricity supply in the summer months and the cost of diesel (used to run generators) shooting up from Rs 44 to Rs 57 in one year. The average per day requirement of diesel, which is 1,022 litres, shoots up to 2,200 litres during the summer months, which see six to eight months of power failure per day.

* Turn organic. This is the mission Gandhi has set for the kitchens of the hotel. "Give us three months and you'll start seeing the difference," he says, adding: "In a competitive market, if you don't differentiate, you die." That seems like a faraway prospect for a hotel grounded in the finest values of the industry.

Fashionable Restaurants Find in Veen A Designer Spring Water Brand

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

A Finnish brand from Lapland with a striking bottle that
has won a slew of design awards, Veen is now also
bottled in Kotagiri in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu

I FIRST heard about Veen at a party hosted by Kapil Chopra, President of The Oberoi Group, for the winners of the BestCollegeArt.com’s emerging artist award. It was here that Vishal Dhar, co-founder of iYogi, the remote tech support service for small and medium businesses, introduced his friend Aman Gupta, who’s a director in the Finnish natural spring water company launched in ice-clad Lapland in 2006. Gupta was in India to seal a bottling deal with Arvind Rathnam, founder-director of the Nilgiris-based Blue Mountain Springs.

Veen came back to my life a couple of days ago when I was interviewing Dharmesh Karmokar, co-owner of the Silver Beach Café and Nom Nom restaurants. We were talking at his yet-to-be-opened restaurant at The Ashok in New Delhi when he devoted a good 10 minutes to talk about Veen. The slim 660ml bottle, with the name embossed on one side of it and a stopper very similar to that of Absolut, has won a slew of design awards, and had Karmokar not pointed out its special features, I would have never understood why.

The bottle has a punt at the bottom to allow you to put your thumb in and two ridges on one side of it designed in a way to let your index and middle fingers fit in. So, you can actually serve water the way champagne is meant to be poured — and the design innovations have ensured that even a rookie can do it. I just loved the subliminal association as Karmokar explained to me the bottle’s design features. “The moment I saw the bottle I fell in love with it,” Karmokar said, marvelling at the marketing genius of having a 660ml bottle — it ensures that a minimum of two bottles get exhausted at a table of four, without the diners realising it. Unsurprisingly, it takes Rs 45 to make a bottle of Veen.

Indian Accent was the first restaurant in the country to adopt Veen, which incidentally is named after the mother of water described in the Finnish national epic Kalevala. It is the second contemporary Indian establishment to take this decision — Michelin one-star chef Vineet Bhatia’s Rasoi in London was the first. But as Gupta had said to me, importing bottled water into India is a bitch. Hence the Nilgiris connection.

The water for the Indian Veen comes from a mountain spring in the dense Shola forests at Kotagiri in the Nilgiri mountains of Tamil Nadu, located at a height of 1,980m. The British Collector of Coimbatore, John Sullivan, who first discovered the region in 1819, described the highlands of Kotagiri as the ‘Switzerland of India’. Blue Mountain Springs bottles the Nilgiris water, whose defining characteristic is the low mineral content. Mineral water, Gupta had told me, is a misnomer, for the best spring water is the one with the least mineral content. The nitrate content of the spring water is less than 15mg per litre.

“We have been looking into India for a while now, but what attracted us to this source was the almost identical characteristics of the water to our source in Lapland,” Mikko Nikkila, Director of Veen Waters Finland, had said in a media release issued at the time of the Indian edition’s launch. The original Veen from Lapland is exported to the USA, Europe, UAE, Qatar, Singapore, China and Russia. Noted ad man Prathap Suthan’s Bang in the Middle is Veen’s global communications agency. With a bottle like that, Veen doesn’t need much help to communicate its qualities.