If I were a billionaire

You roll into bed and switch on the iPod. John Denver’s voice fills the room singing Dreamland Express. And you begin to daydream. What if you were not just plain wealthy but one of the classiest billionaires around? What would you do with all that money? Would you know how to live the life that your “poor millionaire friends” could only imagine? Recently, I had a similar dream. In it, I had loads of money and the chance to see the world and own whatever I wanted to (but for the limited purpose of this story, we’ve restricted our list to products and services available in India).

So, I first went about looking for a great place to live in. I searched some of the richest addresses in India but finally plumped for this brand new, cute “little” 6-bedroom luxury apartment with a private garden on the 61st floor of a tower facing the Arabian Sea. It didn’t cost me the sky at Rs 40 crore and so it left me with a few billions more to spend.

It was then that a voice whispered in my ear: “Does your home look luxurious enough?” I figured she was right and went searching for Versace tiles to do up the floors, picked up this nice affordable ready-made kitchen that Hacker was selling for a mere Rs 99 lakh, got Swarovski to set up the bathroom for Rs 50 lakh and then went about ordering the other stuff, you know, the beds and the diamond chandeliers, et al.

Then this stunning woman walked into my dream and told me that to live like a king, I had to dress like one as well. So it was back to shopping. Made-to-measure suits from Brioni and Pal Zileri followed, as did shoes from Canali, clothes and accessories for my partner from Milleret, Versace and Jimmy Choo. That evening, happy with the way things were moving, I called some of my friends over to show them what “Life Deluxe” really meant. I opened the bottle of Château Petrus to kick-start celebrations. After dinner, where everyone swooned over the gold Merdinger dinner set, we opened the Richard Hennessy cognac, which is as expensive as spirits get in India.

Next morning, both of us were picked up in the S-Class Merc (ah! well, sometimes we have to pretend to be ordinary mortals) and were taken for the most expensive spa treatment in India. The caviar facial and the chocolate massage were awesome and the best part was the bill (Rs 1 lakh for a couple) didn’t pinch at all. Now we were all set to take the world in our stride. So, off we went to the airport (in the Rolls, but of course) and took our seats on the Diamond First Class of Etihad Airways to JFK. The price: a mere Rs 3 lakh each. We landed and went on board the luxury “Celebrity Cruise” liner to Scandinavia. We chatted with others about our hard days as millionaires and played roulette. Oh yes, I did win a few billion more. But just as I was collecting the dough, I woke up.

Back to reality, my wife gifted me a book where a certain chap by the name of George Bernard Shaw had written: “Some men see things as they are and ask: ‘why?’ Others dream of things that never were and ask: ‘Why not?’ “ So I figured I would share this dream and this clever line with you. Go ahead. Check out the following pages to see how to realise your dream and live a life that’s truly “Deluxe”. Dare to dream.

(Additional reporting by Kushan Mitra and Tejaswi Rathore)