A lot of things have happened at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Arguably the world’s best known hotel in the world’s best known square (5th Avenue and Central Park). Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s immortalised it. Hemingway fought over a bill at the coffee shop, Richard Burton divorced there in a suite after 11 minutes of marriage.
Diplomats, kings, world leaders, rock stars, Nobel laureates checked in and had their country’s flag put up to tell the square, New York, the world, I’ve checked in. When the Home Alone kid was lost in New York, he was lost in the Plaza Hotel first.
In its hundred-and-something years of witnessing history, of being a New York and world landmark, of hosting ultimate celebration, of being privy to deeply secret liaisons of the extremely powerful, of serving tea at meetings to decide the future of our world, of providing beds for scandalous affairs, it has never, however, been sold from a jail.
Many of you know this but some may not. In recent years, The Plaza fell on hard times financially and a large Indian industrial house worth a bazillion crores (that’s a real number) based in Lucknow bought it.
That company (hereafter, That Which Shall Not Be Named) whose colourful boss (henceforth, He Who Must Not Be Named) with a prominent moustache (that which does not have a name), thought, as a good patriot, that the Indian flag must fly at The Plaza and so he paid what that cost and flew it.
For a brief time, when we were going to be a world economic superpower apparently, whichever Indian went to 5th Avenue, the heart of American pomp, and saw the Indian flag right up there with a British or French flag, felt like we’d arrived. Also to know that the other two were just people checked in. Our one would stay forever.
Forever in business essentially means two years. Lately our main court has decided that He Who Must Not Be Named must be taken into a place that can be named: a jail. Something to do with not paying back retail investors.
Negotiations are under way about how much to pay back, what is owed, whose lying, one-page newspaper ads are brought out with claims that they are not thieves by the party. (Not the court. That would be quite a day if our main court had to take out a full page ad in a paper to say:
‘We are right, they are wrong.
Everyone quiet!
Now go check the next page for Salman Khan film listings’).
We don’t really know what is going on with that matter because someone will probably say, "Don’t talk about it. It is sub-judice."
I love the words sub-judice. We use it a lot. In our country, there’s so much litigation, parents and children can’t even talk to each other (“Where’s the breakfast?” “The matter is sub-judice”). Soon the words "the matter is sub-judice" will probably be sub-judice.
I also love the legal word "matter". In Indian legal circles you hear, "The matter is being settled, the matter is out of court, etc." You need a physicist to pop in and say, "But Mr lawyer, we are all composed of matter, solid, liquid and gas. We are composed of matter, discussing a matter which has no matter. You see…"
Anyway, returning from my lunatic digression, the matter that is judice-free, if you will, is the matter of having to find money to get out of jail and pay whomever has to be paid. So He Who Must Not Be Named said, "I need to sell my hotel to get the cash you want and I need to get out of jail to sell it."
That’s a fair point. We’ve all looked at apartments. It would sound weird if you asked the broker, "Where is the owner?", and he said, "Um, jail." But the court said no. You can sell it from wherever you are. Which I think is some special area at Tihar.
Which means someone is going to bring buyers around to the Plaza hotel in New York.
Everyone else is going to be in a room in Delhi (well, cell if you want to be technical). They are all going to get on Skype. And He Who Must Not Be Named will give them a virtual tour and say, “And as you can see Macaulay Culkin ran out of there, Richard Burton flirted here, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was...”, and the Chinese or Emirati buyer will ask, “Um, sorry to interrupt but is that a policeman behind you?”
To which several witty answers are possible. One of which could be “No, I just make my staff dress this way.” So as not to affect the valuation. The latest news, however, is that He Who Must Not Be Named does not want to sell the crown jewels (That Which Shall Not Be Named also own The Grosvenor Hotel in London).
He Who…wants to keep India’s flag flying at those hotels to show the world we matter – even if that means staying in jail to do it. And for the spirit of that patriotism, one can only say, "That Which Shall Not Be Named."
Pranam.
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Diplomats, kings, world leaders, rock stars, Nobel laureates checked in and had their country’s flag put up to tell the square, New York, the world, I’ve checked in. When the Home Alone kid was lost in New York, he was lost in the Plaza Hotel first.
In its hundred-and-something years of witnessing history, of being a New York and world landmark, of hosting ultimate celebration, of being privy to deeply secret liaisons of the extremely powerful, of serving tea at meetings to decide the future of our world, of providing beds for scandalous affairs, it has never, however, been sold from a jail.
Many of you know this but some may not. In recent years, The Plaza fell on hard times financially and a large Indian industrial house worth a bazillion crores (that’s a real number) based in Lucknow bought it.
That company (hereafter, That Which Shall Not Be Named) whose colourful boss (henceforth, He Who Must Not Be Named) with a prominent moustache (that which does not have a name), thought, as a good patriot, that the Indian flag must fly at The Plaza and so he paid what that cost and flew it.
For a brief time, when we were going to be a world economic superpower apparently, whichever Indian went to 5th Avenue, the heart of American pomp, and saw the Indian flag right up there with a British or French flag, felt like we’d arrived. Also to know that the other two were just people checked in. Our one would stay forever.
Forever in business essentially means two years. Lately our main court has decided that He Who Must Not Be Named must be taken into a place that can be named: a jail. Something to do with not paying back retail investors.
Negotiations are under way about how much to pay back, what is owed, whose lying, one-page newspaper ads are brought out with claims that they are not thieves by the party. (Not the court. That would be quite a day if our main court had to take out a full page ad in a paper to say:
‘We are right, they are wrong.
Everyone quiet!
Now go check the next page for Salman Khan film listings’).
We don’t really know what is going on with that matter because someone will probably say, "Don’t talk about it. It is sub-judice."
I love the words sub-judice. We use it a lot. In our country, there’s so much litigation, parents and children can’t even talk to each other (“Where’s the breakfast?” “The matter is sub-judice”). Soon the words "the matter is sub-judice" will probably be sub-judice.
I also love the legal word "matter". In Indian legal circles you hear, "The matter is being settled, the matter is out of court, etc." You need a physicist to pop in and say, "But Mr lawyer, we are all composed of matter, solid, liquid and gas. We are composed of matter, discussing a matter which has no matter. You see…"
Anyway, returning from my lunatic digression, the matter that is judice-free, if you will, is the matter of having to find money to get out of jail and pay whomever has to be paid. So He Who Must Not Be Named said, "I need to sell my hotel to get the cash you want and I need to get out of jail to sell it."
That’s a fair point. We’ve all looked at apartments. It would sound weird if you asked the broker, "Where is the owner?", and he said, "Um, jail." But the court said no. You can sell it from wherever you are. Which I think is some special area at Tihar.
Which means someone is going to bring buyers around to the Plaza hotel in New York.
Everyone else is going to be in a room in Delhi (well, cell if you want to be technical). They are all going to get on Skype. And He Who Must Not Be Named will give them a virtual tour and say, “And as you can see Macaulay Culkin ran out of there, Richard Burton flirted here, Breakfast at Tiffany’s was...”, and the Chinese or Emirati buyer will ask, “Um, sorry to interrupt but is that a policeman behind you?”
To which several witty answers are possible. One of which could be “No, I just make my staff dress this way.” So as not to affect the valuation. The latest news, however, is that He Who Must Not Be Named does not want to sell the crown jewels (That Which Shall Not Be Named also own The Grosvenor Hotel in London).
He Who…wants to keep India’s flag flying at those hotels to show the world we matter – even if that means staying in jail to do it. And for the spirit of that patriotism, one can only say, "That Which Shall Not Be Named."
Pranam.