Kaminstube, Hotel Zur TenneCuddled up between the snow peaks of the Tyrolean Alps in Austria is the world’s most exotic Alpine haven. At this gourmet restaurant, master chef Juergen Bartl has been enrapturing guests with his Tyrolean delights. His ‘Jochberg parsnip cream soup with mushrooms and paprika foam’ and the ‘Alpen farm-fresh Tyrolean greens in aromatic Kurbis Kernol (sunflower seed oil) and pepper essence’ woke us up to an organic cuisine culture. ‘Tyrolean vegetable basket on a bed of beetroot carpaccio, basil and hill cheese’ was mouth-watering. We also had ‘Black salsified tagliatelle in white wine and truffle sauce with Aurach poached eggs’. Zum Wohl!Gasthaus GraflhoheIn the lush Bavarian Alpine valleys in Berchtesgaden, Germany, is this petite ‘gasthaus’ (guesthouse), patronised for its one prized experience. Something food freaks drive all the way from Munich to dig into: the three-tier dessert called Windbeutel Baron. It took us a good 20 minutes to ‘deconstruct’ the Windbeutel (windbag). Alternating with delicious cream and pastry base topped with a red cherry, it is filled with variations of vanilla ice cream with sour berries, blueberries, raspberries, chocolate sauce, walnut liqueur or ice cream, egg and even diabetic puffs. As we immersed ourselves into its enticing layers, another one was on its way… Britannia & CoIn the heart of Ballard Pier lies the quaint, 90-year-old Britannia & Co. Here, at one of India’s finest Persian restaurants, the aroma of sandalwood incense and oven-fresh delicacies, the warmth of the interiors and its affable owner Boman Kohinoor in his nineties are all subjects of nostalgia for many. The ‘Iranian Berry Pulao’ or ‘Polo Ye Zereshk’ in Persian (rice, Persian barberries, nuts and gravy) is one of Britannia's signature specialties. The typical Parsi Dhansak (brown rice, mixed daal served with meat or potato kebab) has its own dedicated fan following. Café LimanThe magnificent expanse of the deep blue Aegean Sea dazzles as one devours mouth-watering Turkish delights at Izmir’s Liman Café. Al fresco lunching on a relaxed afternoon at Liman, watching the anchored ships and the lilting strains of a Kemence violin are quintessential Turkey. Among the most sought-after sweets is the Baklava, the delicacy of the former Ottoman Empire, Central and South-west Asia. Layers of filo pastry, chopped nuts sweetened with honey or sugar syrup make the Baklava a mystery for the palate. Each bite only made us salivate for more, and sips of Turkish chai provided a fine punctuation to the exhilaration. Viateur’s BagelsMontrealers like eating and drinking at all waking moments of the day. Our hop into the sizzling confines of St Viateur’s Bagels opened up the windows to the gastronomic icon envied by its New York competitors. The wood-fired ovens churn out melt-in-your-mouth, butter soft bagels dressed with roasted sesame and cream cheese. Salivating Montrealers, many rushing to catch the New York shuttle, queue up to make sure they get their bag of hot bagels. Variety is limited, but quality is assured. Bagels to die for. N’est-ce pas? Osteria Del TeatroStone-walled in a narrow lane near the cathedral, this eatery in Toscana, Italy, prides itself on more than one indulgence. You are entertained by a waiter who is reportedly the world’s fastest wine bottle opener. From grab to pop, he jerks out the cork, noses it and fills your goblet before you can even drop your jaw! Their ‘Carpaccio of wild Cortona mushrooms in olive oil, garlic, oregano, sage and lemon squeeze’ is heavenly. The ‘Strozzapreti (pasta) of walnuts, pesto and extra virgin olive oil’ is enjoyed with Toscana red wine. La Dolce Vita!(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 03-09-2012)
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When was the last time you saw someone with a canvas on an easel and brush in hand at a beach or a hill station, capturing every wave, every last detail of the terrain, for posterity? Many say landscape art is a genre that is fast dying, if not already dead; blame the Canons, Nikons and others in the camera trade.But at the Delhi Art Gallery (DAG), on the opening day of a show called ‘The Changing Horizon’, the mood was far from funereal. Quite the contrary, it was celebratory. An overview of 300 years of Indian landscape art, with nearly 400 works from over 100 artists on display. There were no blues, except within the frames; no heavy sighs or pregnant pauses. Aficionados had lots to talk about, even though the art wasn’t in the least bit controversial. Curator Kishore Singh was a happy man. “There are takers — discreet, but serious,” he says. The Jamini Roy behind him, a gouache on board, had already found a new home.As children, all of us started out with painting hills, trees, rivers and a yellow blotch for the sun. Just that none of us graduated to commanding a price tag of Rs 1.5 crore — that of ‘Udaipur’, which Husain painted in 1962.Roy’s work in gamboge strokes is from his Impressionist phase, after which he was lured by the Kalighat pat style and moved on to other genres. “So did M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza and G.R. Santosh; they’ve done a few landscapes before finding their forte,” says Singh, also head of publications and exhibitions at DAG, pointing out rare works of the masters.(IMAGE COURTESY: Delhi Art Gallery)The first landscapes in India date back to the 18th century, when European traveller-artists such as the Daniell Brothers, William Hodges, Edward Cheney and Robert Grindlay — all whose works are on display — produced ‘documentary paintings’ so as to introduce a colourful land to their countrymen. Interest in landscapes was waning in Europe, which was then experimenting with Impressionism, but the travellers’ works found a ready market among the elite and the East India Company. Indian artists were happy to get inspiration from European realism, but sometimes they emded up making glaring mistakes. “They were learning,” says Singh, standing in front of an early Bengal oil in which the calm sky and the river are categorically European, Radha and her entourage purely Indian, their heights defying perspective and the steps on the Yamuna bank ending abruptly.More refined versions of academic realism can be seen in the works of Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Prosanto Roy and Indra Dugar. Tagore found a mentor in Italian artist Olinto Ghilardi, but he, like many others, was lured by the Japanese wash style where transparent pigments give luminosity to the landscapes. At the show, there are two scrolls over eight feet long, one each by Kripal Singh Shekhawat and Bishnupada Roychowdhury, which feature tiny figures and objects painted painstakingly on paper, reflecting the strong influence of Japanese art.(BW Pic by Sajeev Kumarapuram)In the 1940s, the Bombay Modernists, led by Husain and Souza, discarded the Bengal school for its wispy sentimentalism. Thirty years later, artists grew out of expressionism to play with abstract forms. Contemporary masters such as Ram Kumar and Manu Parekh interpret landscapes as an inspiration and eliminate the formal elements of nature. Benaras was a muse for both, but their works are not picturesque postcards of shrines and ghats, but an interpretation of ideas — evoking presence through absence.“This is like a history lesson,” Richa Goel, a graduate from the College of Arts, Delhi, tells her friend. Indeed it is, with canvases thematically arranged in separate galleries. From etchings that project oriental fantasies of colonialism to Santiniketan washes with elements of culture to morbid cityscapes to abstract activism, landscapes have lived through many intense experiences.So has Kanwal Krishna who, in 1948, went to the Indo-Pak battlefield to paint en plein air (painting outdoors). “He spent about six months with the army, painted the Valley and the lives of jawans,” remembers his daughter Mridula Vichitra. “He was the first war artist of India,” she claims. Krishna was also one of the first to attend and paint Dalai Lama’s coronation. His watercolour of Tibet is on display at the show.Every landscape has a story. In the halls of the gallery, when the crowds recede, listen to them. They could change your horizons.(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 03-09-2012)
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Every four years, a magical showcase invades a chosen foreign city and steam-rolls its way onto our television screens. An event where nations are judged not by their military or economic might, but by how a handful of their representatives can jump, run and swim! Yes, the Olympics are here, and with most of us having to content ourselves with watching the spectacle on television, if you'd like to soak in the Olympic spirit, here's my pick of apps and resources that can carry a torch throughout the games. Apps: Even if you're not there in person, the official 'Join In' app lets you access detailed maps for all the venues, a full listing of the various activities happening in and around the sites, and it even lets you pull together a custom schedule of events that you'd like to check out. Of course, if you're more concerned with who's taking home the most hardware and how the medals tally is looking, the London 2012 Results App would be your best bet. The Results app, available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 devices, includes live scoring, and the latest news, photos and background information on each athlete. Or the PlayUp app for Android, which lets you keep up with the Olympics and socialise with other fans - this app even customises your feed based on your location, so India specific news and announcements always come up first. The London 2012 (iOS), London Olympics Ultimate (Android) and 2012 Olympic News (WP7) apps are worth checking out too. Games: Of course, for the Olympic enthusiast who's also a gamer, there's the London 2012 Office Mobile game for iOS and Android. You get nine events your athlete can compete in, including the 100 meter dash, pole vault, kayaking and more. The game is quality stuff, but the graphics and characters are very reminiscent of the casual sports gaming popularised by the Nintendo Wii console. What that means is that you're playing with characters with oversized cartoon heads on skinny bodies, and while the game lacks in details in some areas, the characters are endearing and suited to the casual gaming genre. You can, if you're good enough, look to beat the Olympic and World records (great motivation, by the way!), not a surprise given how many real athletes from every corner of the globe will be trying to do just that pretty soon! Serious gamers should look at the 'London 2012: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games' which features over 30 events with an immense amount of game play variety and true-to-life graphics. Each game is played slightly differently with the game controllers, and given the number of events, it's pretty handy that the game developers have included a helpful tutorial before the start of every new event. Go on, go do India proud, even if it is on your PS3! Web Sites: With us watching a whole bunch of games we probably follow only once in four years, the ESPN Olympics Guide is your one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about each sport. Every Olympic sport is here, with rules and a visual explanation of how it works, plus trivia and a timeline of historic moments in that sport and the biggest stars in that sports' history. Oh, and if your interets veer towards the musical, go download the Coca-Cola My Beat Maker app, which uses the movements of your phone to make a custom version of the official Coca-Cola anthem for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Watch 'em Live!: If you're away from the TV, there's no reason you should miss out on all the action. Just head over to Youtube where the IOC is broadcasting live coverage of the Games free-of-charge to 64 countries (yes, India is one of them!). Happy viewing! Staying In Power“Drat! Has the power gone yet again?” If you don’t want to catch yourself saying this during the Olympics broadcast, invest in a good power backup solution, and the APC Back UPS Pro 1000 is about as good a bet as they come. This is a UPS with the smarts — not only does it perform the regular duties of surge protection and power backup, it also does intelligent power management by shutting down idle peripherals like printers etc. The neat little LCD display gives you important information like the load, estimated runtime, input voltage, etc. — finally one doesn’t have to decipher what the alarm signals emanating from the UPS mean! If you want, you can use the PowerChute software that comes with the UPS to safely shut your computer or laptop down in case of an extended power outage.Rating: 8/10Price: Rs11,000 for the 1 KVA variantURL: http://bit.ly/NVTg0s technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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It's a common conundrum most first time digital SLR buyers face — buying a camera that will serve them well for the foreseeable future, without breaking the bank. Fortunately, entry level SLRs have only become better over the years and the new Nikon D3200 is a perfect example of one that stops short of cannibalising its pricier siblings. Just barely short, though. Put that down to a lot of interesting tech crammed into the relatively small body of the D3200, including features that have trickled down from Nikon's more expensive camera bodies. For instance, you get a variant of the Expeed 3 processing engine that is present in Nikon's top end cameras, which promises to deliver quicker image processing and low image noise. Of course, what's more likely to grab the headlines it the inclusion of a 24.2 million pixel sensor, putting the D3200 right up there in terms of sheer pixel count, bested only by the much pricier D800. The extra pixels allow for some great image cropping while still keeping the image resolution high - a good option for newbies who don't want to invest in a zoom lens. Does that translate to better pictures than the rest of its peer group though? The sensor shows great potential in the images I took, but potential that's wasted if you keep the 18-55 kit lens on and don't invest in a better set of lens. There's no downside to the higher pixel count (except possibly the extra space images take on your memory cards) though. One downside of the massive resolution that you should keep in mind though is that the noise levels increased at higher ISO (light sensitivity) levels, and while I'm pretty used to seeing this on compacts, it's mildly disappointing to see this happen on SLRs as well. Overall impression with the massive 24.2 megapixel sensor - you win some, you lose some. What does show is dramatic improvements in video quality, and the full HD 1080p video recording at 24, 25 or 30fps (or 720p clips at 50 or 60fps) is the best of the entry-level lot. The inclusion of a microphone socket allows an external mic to be placed a good distance away from the camera, and it's a great find in an entry-level SLR. As is the full manual control over shutter speed, aperture and ISO levels in video mode — a must for any serious video shooting. And videos can now go up to 20 minutes per clip, and the HDMI port can be used for live view during video recording, not just during playback. All in all, this is a seriously impressive video camera as well. But there are two improvements that I think will specifically appeal to the entry-level user a lot. A new Guide Mode — think of it as something in between a scene mode and an interactive photography course — offers advice on what settings to use depending on the shooting condition you select. Switching to Guide mode brings up a colorful menu on the rear display that asks you if you'd like to shoot, review photos, or configure the camera. The Shoot menu is broken up into Easy and Advanced situations which feature presets for landscapes, close ups, low light portraits, fast action, and other common photographic subjects. For someone getting used to the complexity of a digital SLR, this can go a long way into configuring the camera to best capture the image at hand, without the need for encyclopedic knowledge of photographic technique. Having said that, rarely it does suggest solutions that don't quite translate into a great shot. Another feature is the option to purchase an additional Wi-Fi adaptor, the WU-1A, which connects the camera to smartphones and tablets. The device is really tiny and plugs into the camera's USB port, and unlike the Wi-Fi capabilities in some compacts, isn't really designed to send photos to your PC (at least, not yet). What it does allow is a direct connection with your Android phone (an iPhone app is in the works) so you can download photos from the camera and then share them onto your favorite photo-sharing or social networking sites. What's more, it can even be used to take pictures, with the phone serving as a remote shutter release. You can even get the live view of the camera displayed on the smartphone. All in all, there's a lot going for the D3200. A perfect beginner's camera? The D3200 is almost there. It all comes down to pricing, and at current prices, it's barely cheaper than its D5100 sibling. The articulated swiveling LCD and lower noise levels of the latter versus the former's ostensibly higher resolution. Take your pick. Rating: 8/10Price: Rs. 32,250 (body only) or 37,950 (with the 18-55 kit lens) or 48,950 (18-105 kit)URL: http://bit.ly/M7iGsJ Form-idable RivalsThere's no getting away from the fact that LG smart phones in the recent years have been relegated to life in the shadows of far bigger and more successful Korean and Taiwanese phone makers. With its quad-core-HD-display-toting Optimus 4X HD, will LG stand abreast of the current kings of the hill, the HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy SIII? It's a bit of a hit-and-miss, the 4X HD is. When you first glance upon the 4X HD, you see a flat rectangular slab, and with the choice of materials and curves the competition has put out, the 4X HD looks dated, design wise. Hold it in the hand and you'll know what I mean. Switch it on, and the screen tells a different story. The 4.7 inches scream flagship device from every angle, and the 1280x720 pixel (hence the HD moniker) 312ppi is sharp and detailed and quite competitive in this segment. With an IPS display, viewing angles are good and colours are plenty vibrant. Beneath the hood is a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset and 1GB of RAM, which puts the 4X HD at par with rivals in terms of pure specs. The roomy 16GB of memory can be expanded via a microSD card slot under the back cover, and the 2150 mAh battery lasts all day as well. LG has rolled the LG Optimus 4X HD out of the door with Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich, and while I can't say I'm a big fan of LG's software enhancements - many are purely cosmetic — they're not in your face enough to detract from the excellent ICS experience. On purely its features alone, I cannot fault the 4X HD — it offers capable specs, which translate into a good user experience, but I cannot help but feel there's a wow factor missing in the 4X HD that I've grown accustomed to experiencing with the Samsung and HTC flagships. It just feels more of the same, and it makes me wonder - is this phone 6 months too late for LG? Rating: 7/10Price: Rs 34,990URL: http://bit.ly/MTWoMu technocool at kanwar dot nettwitter@2shar
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Dhananjay Sinha (not his real name) had a peculiar problem. The businessman had figured on every list of the country's super rich for the past four years. But what he aspired for was a change in lifestyle. That's when he approached a luxury lifestyle consultant. The advice he got was — buy exclusivity.At the Rolls-Royce showroom, Sinha was offered countless customisation choices — diamonds on the steering wheel, a goldplated ‘Spirit of Ecstasy', etc. "The super rich love to agonise over choice. It gives them a big thrill," says a person in the know. What did Sinha choose in his pursuit of exclusivity? If it got printed, it would no longer be exclusive, would it?Yasho Saboo, CEO, Ethos Watches, a large premium-to-luxury watch retailer, cites an instance of some visitors to India coming with watches of a brand called Hautlence, with a price tag of 50,000 Swiss francs per watch. Who would buy an unheard of brand at such a price? "We have come to deliver three units to undisclosed buyers," he was told. That said, despite a slowdown in the economy, luxury purchases in India have shown no signs of slowing down, say experts. A study by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and consulting services major AT Kearney forecasts that by 2015, the market size for luxury goods, services and assets in India will touch $14.72 billion, from $5.75 billion in 2010.Of course, luxury assets (houses, for example) will fuel a bulk of that. While a little more than half of the luxury consumption ($7.9 billion) will be through luxury assets, another $1.45 billion will be spent on luxury services and the remaining $5.38 billion on products.Madhukar Sabnavis, country head, discovery and planning, O&M India, feels that luxury housing projects done up by designers such as Versace and Giorgio Armani will find takers. For example, Armani Casa has partnered with the Lodha Group to design the interiors of World Towers, in central Mumbai.In some categories India shows a marked difference from the rest of the world in luxury products consumption. In India, luxury buying is dominated by jewellery and fragrances, while it is apparel, accessories and cosmetics in the South-east Asian market. But in certain categories such as wine, India, a primarily red wine market, is adapting to global tastes. In the summer, consumption of white wine went up from about 30 per cent to over 50 per cent of the market. "This mirrors the European market,"says the CII-AT Kearney report.prasad(dot)sangameshwaran(at)abp(dot)in
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Saffron: The most expensive spice in the world, saffron or kesar, is made from the dried stigma of the purple crocus flower. Each flower has only three stigma and it can take more than 75,000 threads or filaments of the crocus flower (that's nearly an acre of the flower) to equal half a kg of the spice. No wonder, half a kg of it can set you back by $5,000. (BLOOMBERG) White truffles: Don't even dream of making mushroom matar using this rather ordinary looking fungus. The unassuming white truffle is sold at $3,000-$6,000 a kg. Last December, Stanley Ho, the owner of a Macau casino, paid a record $330,000 for 1.5 kg of truffles. They are expensive because they cannot be cultivated commercially; they grow in the wild. Also, they are available for only a few months, in a part of Italy. It takes trained dogs and pigs to sniff them out near the roots of oak trees. (REUTERS) Kopi luwak coffee: The most expensive coffee is made from animal droppings. And before you turn up your nose, remember that the Kopi Luwak coffee made from the beans digested by an Asian palm civet is so rare that only about 230 kg is produced a year. Half a kilo of it can relieve you of $350. According to coffee connoisseurs, it is mild, smooth and absolutely unmatched. The Indonesian animal eats only the most perfectly-matured beans which it then excretes. Plantation workers retrieve the beans, clean and roast them. The animal's digestive enzymes make the beans less acidic, adding to the coffee's flavour. Caviar: Considered the ultimate in luxurious food, caviar has a grading system and the best of caviar is the Iranian beluga called Almas. It comes from the infinitesimally rare albino sturgeons that are 60 to 100 years old and found in the Caspian Sea. Sold in a 24-carat gold tin, Almas caviar costs $920 per 100 gm. Donkey cheese: Donkey keepers at the Zasavica Special Nature Reserve in Serbia are smiling all the way to the bank. Cheese made from the animals' milk is the most expensive in the world, at nearly $1,350 a kg. It takes about 25 litres of milk to make one kg of Pule cheese. Available only on pre-order.(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-07-2012)
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Hotel President Wilson, Geneva Royal Penthouse SuiteAt up to $60,000 a night, this is by far the most expensive suite. Of course, with 12 rooms and 12 bathrooms, a dining area which seats 26 people, a conference room, a fitness centre, a billiards room and library, a cocktail lounge area to accommodate 40 persons and its own private escalator, it's more like a house. Special features include bulletproof windows and doors and panoramic views of Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc. And for music lovers, there's also a Steinway grand piano.Four Seasons Hotel, New YorkTy Warner PenthouseThe opulent and luxurious penthouse on the 52nd floor soars 800 ft above street level and provides a 360-degree view of New York City. Created by architects I.M. Pei and Peter Marino, the suite took seven years and $50 million to make. From calf-skin leather walls in the dressing room and semi-precious stones in the Zen room to Han dynasty vases converted into table lamps, luxury defines the 4,300 sq. ft suite. On call is a butler, an art concierge, a personal trainer and exclusive use of a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. Price: up to $40,000 a night.Palms Casino Resort, Las Vegas Two-storey Sky VillaThe only thing the Hugh Hefner villa does not come with is a gaggle of Playboy bunnies. Otherwise this 9,000 sq. ft Playboy penthouse is everything you would expect — three bedrooms, dry sauna, a huge open terrace, a revolving bed and mirrored ceiling and a 12-person glass-enclosed jacuzzi pool bordered by a glass wall for a sky view of lit-up Las Vegas. Highlights also include a poker table for night parties, the Playboy art collection and enough space for 250 guests. Price: up to $35,000 a night.Hotel Martinez, Cannes Penthouse SuiteThis is the biggest and only terraced penthouse on the Cote d'Azur, making it exclusive and expensive. The design is in the Art Deco style, with streamlined furniture, silk curtains and teak parquet flooring. The hotel has a Michelin-starred restaurant, piano bar and huge private beach, all at your disposal. The two-bedroom suite has two bathrooms with hammam, shower, spa bath, dressing room and sauna, as well as a 2,000 sq. ft terrace with views of the Bay of Cannes and space for 100 guests. Price: up to $25,000 a night.(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-07-2012)
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The transition from art as asset class to artist as asset-buying class has been dramatic and without precedent. True, the artist is no longer a jhola-wielding, barsati-residing creature, the voluminous passport increasingly witness to travels for leisure than to the eponymous artists' camp, interested — and invested — in SUVs and multiple real estate. But a Rs 100-crore slice of central Delhi? Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher's eponymous leap into real estate haven is the stuff of which legends — and gossip — are made. From Bihar's badlands to satellite town Gurgaon to Delhi's Sunder Nagar, the journey has been more wondrous than their use of bartans and bindis to create gigantic installations and sculptures rooted in a middle-class consciousness.While we don't know if Gupta and Kher invest in other artists, what's interesting is that in Sunder Nagar, the couple will be neighbours to Lekha and Anupam Poddar, among their earliest and major buyers and mentors. Nor could the timing be better — Kiran Nadar has recently bought Gupta's ‘Line of Control' mushroom cloud made from kitchen utensils for her South Court museum for an alleged Rs 14 crore, while back in Patna, the state government has paid Rs 1 crore for a public work as a mark of appreciation for its home-brewed artist.Meanwhile, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art is wielding its arc of influence to emerge as a serious buyer, conscientiously filling in the gaps in its collection which, hydra-headed, continues to grow. The Poddars have eased off somewhat on the purse-strings. The senior Ambanis have been commissioning rather than buying art, and with legal documents that are an arm long, artists are reluctant to share any information on what's going into Antilia. Tina Ambani has opened herself to contemporary art, but Chintan Upadhyay and Sujata Kejriwal are the extent of her comfort zone rather than the cutting-edge that characterised the Poddars's acquisitions. Rajshree Pathy is more adventurous — but only just.Those who buy art haven't stopped, just slowed down, but it isn't hurting the established artists yet; they're only feeling the pinch on their prices, but like their customers, they're buying newer, larger homes and splurging on a lifestyle. The Razas and Souzas are moving, just not as well, and existing buyers are jittery enough to demand quality over quantity, and so patronage is changing hands from entrenched NRIs to newly-emerging corporates. In the midst of this is emerging entrepreneurship and benefaction from neighbouring Bangladesh where the first couple of art, Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani, have taken it upon themselves to play kingmakers with their very public buy of Rashid Rana at the India Art Fair. With their interest spanning beyond Bangladeshi, or even Indian art, they are frontrunners among nascent aspirants who, like their Chinese counterparts, have emerged as a dominant force in the global art market, wanting to bid for Picasso and his peers with fistfuls of dollars. Should Indian collectors follow suit, it might nip any further attempts among artists to follow the path recently established by Gupta and Kher.Kishore Singh is the head of exhibitions and publications, Delhi Art Gallery(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-07-2012)
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