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Monthly publication which focuses on the passions and indulgences of India's top business leaders.Features a wide set of interest-ing and influential articles on a variety of premium products and services.Serves as a perfect buying guide for our rich and discern-ing readers.

Indulge

Is there any topic that the storied The New Yorker magazine hasn’t published about that makes you feel

embarrassingly under-informed? If memory serves right, the magazine has made me feel utterly uneducated about ketchup, Osama Bin Laden, the acai berry, and even Gandhi.

But one recent, and brief, article in that magazine is of particular import in this edit note. In May, James Surowiecki wrote a piece about the role “venturesome consumers” play in the US economy. He talked about how important it was that the US had customers who were willing to experiment with young start-ups and risky products.

“You might think of consumption as a fairly passive activity,” says Surowiecki, “but buying new products and services is actually pretty risky, at least if you value your time and money.”

This newspaper values your time and money. We try to make sure that every piece of newsprint we push your way is worth the time it takes you to flip through it, if not actually read it in full. (And by extension, I hope it is worth the sacrifice of the tree involved.)

Mint Indulge is our latest project. The entire point of Indulge is to showcase products, services, concepts, and, most importantly, ideas that have a reasonable chance of exciting the prosperous or won’t-

give-up-till-I’m-prosperous male. (Though we’ve made a mental note to not shove that Y chromosome in your face.)

So in this issue, we go behind the scenes to look at the products and services that make Vertu that rare, sensible “luxury” brand. There are also short, intelligent conversations in these pages with all kinds of people: a watch marketer, an international cricketer, a chief minister and others. And instead of asking them to pontificate aimlessly, we talk to them about personal superlatives.

But Indulge is also about efficient living. So we’ve finally given an accessory some long overdue attention: the trolley bag. We’ve also tapped the minds of some experts on knives and whisky.

All this and the rest I will leave you to explore.

Now all this leaves you, the reader, in the position of an early adopter. What you have in your hands is the first quarterly issue of Mint Indulge. In a way, by opening and reading it, you’ve inadvertently become like one of those guys who sit in tents outside the Apple store days before a launch.

We thank you, venturesome reader, for your indulgence.

And we hope you enjoy it.

SIDIN VaDukutissue editor

Welcome to indulgence

editor’s note

8| Cover story The making of Vertu

ContentsIndulge vol. i | issue 1 | september 2011

4| Sports Column: Aakash Chopra

on the toughest cricket match of his life

Beg, borrow or steal: The Callaway Razr Hawk driver

6| Review dom Perignon lounge,

F Bar, delhi

11| Travel Column: R. Sukumar

on why he likes bags

19| Cars and bikes Column: Siddharth Vinayak Patankar on the best test drive of his life

20| Food and wine

The microwaving man

26| Gadgets Column: Sidin

Vadukut on what makes a luxury gadget

Beg, borrow or steal: The Fitbit wireless activity tracker

22| Watches game. Set.Watch:

Sports meets luxury watchmaking

12| Case Studies: The frequent flier’s ablest allies

21| Column: Joel Harrison on the basics of whisky

24| Interview: Thierry lamouroux, Cartier Watchmaking

25| How to buy a serious watch

14| Column: dileep Premachandran on life as a cricket journalist

Beg, borrow or steal: The Triplt iPhone app

issue editor: SIDIN VaDukut, editorial coordination: PraDIP kumar Saha, design: aBel roBINSoN, uttam Sharma, VeNkateSulu. Mint editorial leadership team: r. Sukumar (editor), NIraNjaN rajaDhyakSha (executive editor), aNIl PaDmaNaBhaN, tamal BaNDyoPaDhyay, NaBeel mohIDeeN, maNaS ChakraVarty, moNIka halaN, ShuChI BaNSal, SIDIN VaDukut, jaSBIr laDI ©2011 Ht Media Ltd, All rights reserved

Cover design: uttam Sharma

27| Home Column: Madhu Menon

on the basic knives your kitchen needs

28| The gentleman’s almirah

29| Books Shelf life: definitive

guides to whisky

30| Milestones Omar Abdullah on the greatest speech of his career

2 | mint Indulge | September 2011

The making of

Vol. I | Issue 1 | September 2011

new delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh*, Pune*

A behind-the-scenes look at what makes Vertu clickPage8

Case studiesA selection of

outstanding strolley bags from a variety of

brands and across a variety of price points.

Page12

Shelf lifeA range of best-selling

books on whisky Page29

The microwaving

manSidin Vadukut on the

versatility of microwave ovens

Page20

INSIDE

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2010

An eye-care institute with a vision for the poor >W2

Innovative homes blot out flood nightmares >W3

Giving students an after-school advantage >W4WEFINDIA

ECONOMICSUMMIT

THIRST CRUNCH

Water crises cloudeconomic horizon

BY ARJUN THAPAN··························

Crisis. The word is clichéd.Overused. But how elsecould you describe 360

million urban dwellers in Indiawith a daily average 2.9 hours ofindifferent quality water? Or780 million South Asians forcedto defecate in the open? Orhow Asia’s urban utilities leakand lose most of the water theyfirst paid to clean? Or nine outof 10 litres of untreated sewageand wastewater that leachesinto our rivers, streams, lakes

and aquifers?If the water is cloudy, the

trends are clear: a dangerousspiral of less water and morepollution for more and sickerpeople.

The poor quenchtheir thirst at an in-creasingly high cost.Low incomes buyincreasingly smalleramounts of unsafewater. As Asia ur-banizes more rapid-ly than expected, bigcity slum dwellerswill scavenge forwater. Since waterprices bear no relationship toeconomic end use values, indus-try will continue its profligatewater use. Untreated wastewaterwill worsen as a consequence ofadditional consumers. Water

quality will deteriorate. Fecal co-liform will plague our water bod-ies on a more or less permanentbasis. Sickness will increase.Asia’s water world is witnessinga new dynamic—that of dimin-

ishing returns.The implications

of this doomsdayscenario go beyondthe non-attain-ment of Millenni-um DevelopmentGoals and the un-likely imagery of‘stimulus packag-es’ bankrolling thewater sector. With

towns and cities going furtherafield to secure water, and withpublic irrigation systems becom-ing increasingly unreliable, Asiawill see massive monetary shiftsin capital. Just as energy and

transport infrastructure deter-mine today’s investment deci-sions in industry and agriculture,soon those investments will fol-low the availability of assuredwater supplies. Before that canhappen, assured water supplieswill require significant invest-

ments. If that doesn’t happensoon, Asia’s economy will slaminto limits imposed by lack ofwater.

Water is not distributed equi-tably. Yet people rarely just

TURN TO PAGE W2®

Water may soon turninto a conflict issue;local thinking andinnovative solutionsare needed urgently

Daily dilemma: A file photo of women and children collecting water in a New Delhi locality.

WEBCASTWatch the WEF India summitdeliberations live on our specialmicrositehttp://wef.livemint.com

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

GENEVAISSUEmint 05

April­May 2011 www.livemint.com

If you thought high­end watchmaking was all aboutmind­boggling complications, think again. Some of thisyear’s most breathtaking pieces were merely works of art

his year’s Cartier San-tos 100 Hummingbirdwatch, which is part of

the art collection, does not havea tourbillon in it. Nor a minute-repeater. It does not even have achronograph. It is a simple two-hand watch, powered by a Carti-er Calibre 076 movement.

Yet, the watch is a master-piece of workmanship. Workedinto the dial, and overlappingonto the bezel and case, is abeautiful red hummingbird mo-tif showing the bird drinkingnectar out of a flower. The eye-catching design is constructedout of 10 pieces of mother-of-pearl, nine colours of enameland 20 pink sapphires.

The case itself is constructedout of rhodium plated 18-karatwhite gold set with 216 dia-monds. On paper, all that blingsounds like an explosion of tast-lessness. But, in fact, the watchis a superb piece.

And, at the Salon Interna-tional de la Haute Horlo-gerie (SIHH) this year,that was one of a handfulof timepieces on show

that highlighted not just thework of the watchmaker, butalso that of the jewellers andcraftsmen. Instead of move-ment, these watches flauntedexquisite workmanship in an ar-ray of art and craft forms.

Vacheron Constantin dis-played the first of a new collec-tion called Métiers d’Art—Cha-gall & L’Opéra de Paris. Eachwatch in the collection is basedon the ceiling of the Opera Gar-nier in Paris that was painted byMarc Chagall in 1964. Vacheron

intends to bring out a series of15 one-of-a-kind that depictsthe ceiling in enamel work. Thefirst one, called a Tribute To Fa-mous Composers, was unveiledin November and displayed atGeneva to wide acclaim. Thepiece depicts a complete view ofthe ceiling on the surface of thedial using grand feu enameltechnique.

Jules Verne was the flavour ofVan Cleef And Arpels’ collectionthis year with a special collec-tion of four timepieces calledMidnight Les 4 Voyages Extraor-dinaires. Each piece is a tributeto one of Jules Verne’s science-fiction books: Journey to theCenter of the Earth, 20,000Leagues Under The Sea, Fromthe Earth to the Moon and Five

Weeks In A Baloon. Each pieceis a work of sculpture, enameland engraving. The enamel,constructed in several layersto achieve a translucent effect,is laid on top of thin gold orsilver sheets. Van Cleefpresents the collection in anexclusive box with four port-holes displaying the face ofeach watch.

There were also enamel dialsfrom Jaeger Le Coultre andsome exquisite jewellery piecesfrom Piaget’s new LimelightGarden Party collection. So,while complications and engi-neering tends to steal the showat fairs such as SIHH, there werealso some exceptional timepiec-es that focused purely on crafts-manship.

T

Portable masterpieces

BY SIDIN VADUKUT

sidin.v@livemint.com····························

he year’s first majorwatch industry eventopened with none of

the gloom of the past couple ofyears. In 2010, watchmakerswere yet to come to terms witheconomic realities. Business hadbounced back. But were thingsback for good? Or was this thelull before the second crash of adouble dip?

The night before Salon Inter-national de la Haute Horlogerie(SIHH) 2011 opened in Geneva,Hublot supremo J.C. Biver told apacked house at at local hotelballroom that 2010 had beenspectacular. But 2011 would beeven tougher. “Be prepared for

anything this year,” he boomedat a half-amused audience.

This nervousness in the watchindustry was reflected in someclear trends that stood out atSIHH. Classic and heritage de-signs were a trend that first ap-peared last year. This year,brands have adopted it withgreater commitment. Mostbrands have pieces that harkback to previous collections.Cases are smaller, dials cleaner,and there was hardly an over-sized piece to be found any-where.

Much of this is not only a re-flection of economic sobriety,but also, more importantly, in-dicative of a large swing in theworld watch market. Brands arelooking to China and HongKong for revival. Therefore, newcollections this year at Geneva,and later in Basel, reflected thistrend. Not only were watchessmaller and more elegant to ca-ter to Asian tastes, but there wasan abundance of pieces in roseand red gold, and bimetallicsteel and gold combinations.

For many brands, price pointshave also dropped somewhat.Brands have used the minimal/classic/heritage trend to add en-try-level models that can widencustomer bases. Thankfully, thishas not come at the cost ofquality.

IWC’s new Portofino collec-tion is both contemporary yetunmistakeably IWC. Baume &Mercier has taken a new leap offaith with a comprehensivebrand overhaul and communi-cation strategy—perhaps thebiggest experiment at Geneva, inwhat is otherwise a tentativeyear for innovations.

Other trends include a num-ber of World Timer and GMTwatches, more unisex pieces,and greater restraint in coloursand branding.

For watch connoisseurs, it is ayear to enrich collections withtributes and heritage designs.Not a time for new things, butold things done well.

This MintWatch—Geneva Is-sue will be the first of a series ofspecial reports this year that willfocus on the international watchbusiness. Targeted at both con-noisseurs and newbies, the re-ports will cover the two majorwatch fairs—Geneva and Ba-sel—and other major launchesyear-round. We will look attrends, opinions and numbers.Some of the leading voices inthe watch business will talk tous about movements andwatches and strategy. But mostof all, we will showcase some ofthe best timepieces to belaunched this year.

We hope it is worth your time.

After an economic slumpand then a faster­than­expected revival,watchmakers start 2011with cautious optimismand minimal collections

GenevaIssue

New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh*, Pune* APRIL­MAY 2011

Back to the future

T

TIME AND PLACEWatches that help switchquickly between timezones gain popularity >P4

PORTABLE MASTERPIECESSomeof this year’smostbreathtaking piecesweremerelyworks of art >P5

INTERVIEWTitan Industries’HarishBhaton India’s potential in theglobalwatchbusiness >P10

BEST OF SIHHFrom thedozens ofwatchesondisplay,wepick the onesthat impressedus >P6­7

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Source: IRS Q1 2011