I'm on the move in six of the greatest cities of the world
and I'm on the trail of their top movers and shakers.
They're not all cut from the same cloth.
In our globalised world, don't make the mistake
of thinking everywhere's now the same.
Each great city marches to its own tune.
My background's diplomacy, cultivating networks.
As an ambassador, my job
is to get to know some of the most powerful people in the world
and find out what really makes them tick.
Crime, glamour, power and influence - it'll be there.
In these six cities, I'll grapple with
the dark, Machiavellian heart of politics.
I'll witness up close the lives of the immensely rich.
And I'll get into the minds of those who really rule the roost.
This is a journey to uncover the networks of power.
Mumbai, India - previously known as Bombay.
This is one of the world's greatest cities
and somewhere I barely know at all.
Welcome to Mumbai, sir. It's great to be here.
Yes. Thank you, sir. And your name is Parag?
Yes. I am the chauffeur for the day.
Tell me, what is this car?
It's an Ambassador car. Ah.
I'm rather chuffed, for obvious reasons,
to be in the famous Hindustan Ambassador car.
But it doesn't exactly look on trend today.
Mostly the VIP people use this car.
So everybody's gonna think I'm a VIP. Yes, why not?
I was last here in the 1980s,
and since then the population has doubled.
Close to twice London's numbers squeezed into one third of its space.
Most live in slums, but this one city contributes
a staggering 40% of India's tax revenue.
That's not just down to a lot of people -
it's a lot of extraordinarily rich people
and some of the world's most successful businesses.
The skyline may not yet quite be Manhattan,
but the property prices certainly are.
I'm staying right by the Gateway of India,
the city's most famous monument.
This is the legendary Taj Palace Hotel.
Admittedly, by staying here I'm rather pampered.
But having the right address will, I hope, also help me open the doors
to Mumbai's elite.
And I'm pleased to see everyone who's anyone
stays here when in town.
Talk about power! They're all here.
The Queen, Prince Charles,
Obama, George W Bush,
Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger,
John and Yoko.
And in pride of place,
the biggest picture of them all -
Shobhaa De, whom I'm off to see.
All the more alluring and glamorous for sitting on a swing.
I've got some quick homework to do on Shobhaa,
Mumbai's equivalent, if that were possible,
of Tina Brown, Jilly Cooper, Joanna Lumley and Nigella in one.
Model, best-selling author,
columnist, magazine editor, and top socialite.
She's my ideal first port of call -
and acknowledged queen of ritzy South Mumbai.
(MELODIC DOORBELL)
(CHUCKLES)
Good afternoon, Mrs De. Good to see you!
Welcome to Mumbai. Welcome to India. Thank you.
You live here in a wonderful place.
I used to write looking at the sea here,
and I couldn't write more than three sentences a day
because I'd look at the mood of the sea, the tide coming in,
and all of that, and of course the changing skyline -
the building activity which is frantic in Mumbai.
Last time I was here, and the only time I was here, was 25 years ago.
I need help in navigation. What can you do for me?
You have come to the right woman, because I'm a true blue Mumbaikar.
I'm very much a Mumbai mulgi, as they say - well, girl from the city.
It's electrifying, it's scary, it's sinister.
It's all the things that great cities should be.
With this huge development of Mumbai,
has a new breed of powerbrokers come to town?
Is there a kind of divide between the new people
and the older and more traditional people?
New money versus old money - well, there's much more new money
than there is old money.
This is hard to come to terms with.
All the nouveau riche who are there, flashing their labels,
flashing their cars, flashing a lot of bling.
But we have come to kind of accept it as part of change.
And there's no point getting stuffy about it.
Mumbai is a magnet, and it is a city
which provides the most fantastic opportunities.
It's almost like a Bollywood script.
You can become a billionaire in one generation.
What I want to do is to plunge myself into the bubble.
How do I get in?
I'll tell you what I can do.
I do have a few wonderful friends, and I could make a few calls
and see how it goes.
I think you're a nice guy. I don't think there'll be a problem.
Mumbai has a tremendously generous spirit,
and I have some really fine friends.
(CAR HORNS HONK)
They may not be billionaire businessmen,
or Bollywood stars,
but the countless millions on the Mumbai streets do have a real say.
India is far and away the world's biggest democracy.
I'm not gonna get plain talking from any politician,
but the man I'm off to see now is famous for calling a spade a spade -
very loudly indeed.
How sincere is this attempt? You answer the question.
Let me ask you a counter question. No, don't ask ME!
(THEY TALK AT ONCE) One minute, one minute.
Meet Arnab Goswami,
sort of India's shoutier...Paxman.
Renowned for calling the powerful to account.
I want to say a big thank you for joining me on Newshour Debate.
Sir, how are you? How are you?
I can't get up because I'm all wired up.
I'll get up and shake your hand.
You sounded very passionate. Yes.
You had a very passionate debate. Yeah, absolutely.
This is a superb... You see,
this debate sets the agenda strongly. Yeah.
You know, at the end of the day,
Indians, by nature, are very argumentative and passionate people.
And more and more in the nine o'clock slot nowadays
people are moving away from watching soaps to watching the news.
This has happened through the last four or five years
as we've been broadcasting.
Do you know what your viewership is? The show has a reach of
anywhere between, I would say, 25 to 30 million every night.
Impressive. I've got to go back.
You watch the next bit. Yup.
Omar Abdullah was the first to condemn the terror strike
on one of his top ministers...
Arnab's been at it at this level for an hour and a half,
and it's not even his day job.
How are we taking that story forward on Kashmir?
We should force a reaction from the government on it.
He's also editor-in-chief of the Times Now channel.
I was determined to extend his day still further
over a quiet drink.
Well, a drink anyway.
In Mumbai, power is defined by your business clout,
your financial clout.
The richest people in Mumbai weren't born the richest.
You'll find a thousand rags-to-riches stories,
and I'm telling you, each one of those people out there
actually believes that he or she can make it big tomorrow.
You see, when you look around the city here today,
and you look at the people who live in those apartments,
each of which cost two to three to four to five million rupees apiece,
the fact of the matter is 90% of those people
are self-made people.
And I can tell you 99% of the people who you find on the streets
believe they can get there.
I mean, I've arrived from a depressed country
in a repressed continent, where people are not very optimistic
about the future. You have described a very optimistic picture.
How far will Mumbai be in 25 years' time?
Is this a constant upward curve?
I don't think I'm being overly optimistic.
But consider this - just before doing the TV show,
we said, "Oh, my God, we are so upset
because we might just hit only 7.5% growth."
(THEY CHUCKLE) That answers your question.
I take your point, yeah.
If this country averages this kind of growth,
A: Does it have the workforce? It does.
Is there entrepreneurship? It's growing meteorically.
Has this city changed? It has.
So the future is when you come here 25 years from now,
then you will find probably in this vicinity
25 other buildings as tall as this one.
Simply put, I think 25 years from now
will inevitably be
one of the greatest financial centres of the world.
Because the Indian economy could outpace the Chinese economy
as the world's greatest economy.
And I wish when you come 25 years from now
you're going to have to say that I told you first. (LAUGHS)
Arguably, it's because of people like Arnab
championing freedom of speech and free society
that I back India in the big coming global race with China.
Tomorrow I try to meet one of those who has truly made it -
one of Mumbai's famous billionaires.
And I also get to meet the biggest star in the world.
Sunday is race day in Mumbai,
and a good place to try to hobnob with the city's high-rollers.
They've been racing here for almost as long
as the Derby's been run at Epsom.
And today's race card includes one of the four classics
of the Royal Western Indian Turf Club, the Two Thousand Guineas.
Though I am completely clueless about horses,
I'd better have a flutter.
Er, excuse me. 500 rupees on Cardinal to win.
Thank you.
That's £6.50 resting on the outcome of the big race.
Shobhaa De had come good on her promise of a warm welcome
from her well-heeled, powerful friends.
This is Adar and Natasha Poonawalla.
They'd invited me to their family box.
The Poonawallas' wealth comes from pharmaceuticals,
but their passion is bloodstock.
And I'd chosen my horse with care.
They're about to start now.
Which one have you bet? 500 on Cardinal to win.
How about that as a statement of faith?
It's bred by us, so let's hope. I know. I know.
We're off. Yup, there we go.
Come on, Cardinal!
(GROANS)
The bad news was I was 500 rupees down.
The good news was that Natasha and Adar
introduced me to the Poonawalla patriarch,
Dr Cyrus Poonawalla.
Hi, let me introduce you to my father.
It's a great honour to meet you. Shall we go to the box?
Poonawalla senior started out with just $12,000
that he raised by selling horses.
He's now worth three billion, and is one of India's richest men.
He runs the country's top biotech companies,
selling the world's lowest-priced vaccines in 140 countries.
I don't know about the power,
because I generally don't like to misuse power,
unless one has to do it in exceptional cases.
But what I like most about Mumbai is the warmth of the people.
You can walk in somebody's party almost uninvited and feel welcome.
And do you think the explosion in prosperity here,
the creation of new, mighty moguls of Mumbai
hasn't started to corrode the spirit, the shaking of hands?
No, it's because these billionaires, including myself,
are self-made men.
And we know what it was to be at the bottom of the rack.
So, since we are not some aristocratic family,
guys that like to keep their nose up in the air,
we would be very down to earth.
Beyond that, Mumbai has got a tremendous potential
to have more billionaires than any one city in the world.
But as long as they don't misuse that power.
Do you worry that there's a great gulf opening up
between those who are extremely wealthy
and those at the bottom of the ladder? Yes.
It is a very worrying thing, and what worries me is
it shouldn't lead to a revolution.
It could be a revolution? It could...ultimately,
but at the moment the Hindus are very passive people.
And as long as the rich and famous don't overstep themselves,
and behave themselves,
er, I think we are alright for the next century.
(SQUAWKING)
(BLEATING)
(CAR HORNS)
There's one thing ordinary people in Mumbai dream of
even more than becoming a billionaire,
and that's making it in Bollywood.
As Mumbai Sunday draws to a close,
one of its most popular malls is about to host its greatest celebrity.
It's the mark of my complete ignorance
that I'd barely heard of Shah Rukh Khan before I arrived in India.
But put quite simply, Shah Rukh is the biggest star in the world.
(SCREAMING AND CHEERING)
Shah Rukh is universally known as the King of Bollywood.
Many more people have heard of him than Tom Cruise,
and his audience is far bigger.
(SCREAMING AND CHEERING)
Today the king is accompanied by Bollywood's leading lady,
former Miss World, Priyanka Chopra.
They're strutting their stuff to launch the computer game
which accompanies their new movie - the gangster action flick Don 2.
Thank you, everyone. (CHEERING)
Thank you very much all of you for coming here.
(CHEERING) Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!
(WHISTLING AND CHEERING)
The great news is the Don 2 publicity machine
have promised me a private audience in Bollywood tomorrow
with the man himself.
I've got some revision to do overnight
to pass as an entertainment reporter.
I'm lucky to get out of that in one piece.
I've been stamped on, I've been kicked, I've been pinched,
I've been elbowed, I've been pushed aside -
I've never seen anything like it.
Politicians would kill their grandmothers
to get adulation like that.
I'm just a big fan, sir. Sir?
Call me Don.
Shah Rukh's people told me to be sure to report to his studios
at 12 noon sharp.
So this is Bollywood. Doesn't look like much, does it?
This is the biggest film production centre in the world -
a film city countless movies shoot simultaneously.
I'd mugged up on Bollywood as much as I could,
but it would be fair to say I was some way short of being an expert.
Hi, how do you do?
He's in charge of doing the set, is he?
Yes. No, no, no, he's...
He's a hero! Oh, my God!
I'm sorry! (LAUGHTER)
I'll shake your hand again.
That was Rambi Kapoor,
and a bit like not recognising Brad Pitt.
Things weren't looking too promising for my meeting with the king.
And it also looked like I had
the entire Bollywood media pack for company.
The plan seems to be this -
everybody from the press gets 15 minutes each.
And that includes us.
But actually, no-one's got a clue how this is gonna work out.
If power is measured by how long you keep people waiting,
Shah Rukh Kahn is in a league of his own.
That's two hours and 40 minutes.
And if he ever turns up, it's power I want to talk about.
Politics, money, force -
that, traditionalists argue, is where real clout lies.
But Shah Rukh can influence billions worldwide.
That's not just soft power, it's the real thing.
We've just been told it's ten minutes.
That's the fifth time.
He's in fact now been coming in ten minutes
for a full seven and a half hours -
almost enough time to fly from Mumbai to London.
Let's say I've had a while to rehearse my moves.
Here he is.
Here, here.
Mr Khan, good evening. Hi, how are you?
I'm Christopher Meyer from London.
And before we go any further, can I give you a little gift?
Thank you. Which is all the classic
English Ealing comedies from the '40s and the '50s.
Fantastic. Long before you were born,
but they're quite amusing.
Perfect entertainment for you.
We've got this chair for you here.
I'm not sure what he'll make of them -
Bollywood's a long way from Ealing.
And Alec Guinness doesn't burst into song in The Ladykillers.
OK.
What I want to talk to you is about power.
Are you the most famous, the biggest movie actor in the world?
(CHUCKLES)
Er... Well, I read it,
and if it is written like this I feel very happy to know that.
Um, or even to believe that at times.
I won't deny the fact that when people say that
X amount of eyeballs watch my films,
even if it is because every fourth or fifth person in the world
is from the subcontinent, so that gives you an advantage...
an advantage of having an overpopulated country.
Now that you say this to me, I've become even more desperate.
I'll go and work harder the next two hours
just in case they stop calling me The King.
(LAUGHS) I don't want you to suffer from overwork,
but I was very struck to see in such an august publication as Newsweek
that you were considered by them
to be among the 50 most powerful people in the world.
I don't know is it because of my work,
or is it because of the rest of the world now looks towards India
as a rising economy, as a...
You know, I truly believe when an economy is doing well
the first thing you notice about it are the films and the culture.
I haven't bought that Newsweek. So you don't have it at home?
I don't have it at home. But I have the Time cover, yes.
I want to frame it and keep it, yes. Your children would like to see it.
My kids preferred their mother being on Vogue
more than me being on Time Magazine, to tell you the truth.
It may be the size of his audience that makes King Khan
the biggest star in the world,
but his power's about much more than numbers
and it might just help save the world.
(SINGS)
Shah Rukh is a Muslim, and though the mullahs ban his films,
he has a huge following outside India in Pakistan and the Muslim world.
(SINGS)
If the Taliban and violent Islamism are to be defeated,
it won't be because of Western politicians or their armies.
It'll be because ordinary people dream of a more tolerant
and attractive way to live.
Would it be putting too much of a burden on you as an artist
to say that you also stand for tolerance?
You are a Muslim, I believe your wife is Hindu.
You have an exemplary life together.
You set an example to the world.
Yeah, and the scary part is
that people don't know my personal life.
I'm hardly a role model. I don't tell my kids to study.
I have no restrictions and censorship on them.
I'm like, you know, you can follow the religion of your choice.
I'm not going to burden you with my Islam
or the wife's Hinduism.
I think lack of knowledge leads to intolerance.
I was brought up in an atmosphere which is multicultural,
so I have been introduced to the Bible.
I'm Muslim by birth, so I know the Koran.
I've been brought up by Hindus, so I know the Geeta.
So somewhere down the line, the knowledge,
not the full knowledge, makes me very tolerant.
In India especially, it's very important.
I think the world also requires this kind of tolerance.
Otherwise, I think for a very, very simple mistake
of not educating ourselves
we will be at each other's throats for the rest of our lives.
By Mumbai's now now derelict Royal Opera House,
you'll find the city's most tight knit, secretive
network of power.
It's one that arguably trumps even Bollywood
in terms of global reach and glamour.
Though you'd hardly guess it from first appearances.
Everyone in these jam-packed streets and buildings
works in the same industry.
Excuse me. Thank you.
They all hail from the same two Gujarati villages.
You can go inside and on the right. OK.
They are all traders in the world's most desirable, easiest to pocket
commodity.
Hello. God almighty.
Are you selling millions of pounds of diamonds?
Yeah?
Mumbai's diamond network supplies the world
and every deal is sealed with nothing but a handshake.
So you all trust each other... Yes.
..100%. OK.
And you have no security here at all, do you?
That's your security.
Yes, it's 100% trust-based. 100% trust-based.
Regardless of where they're mined,
11 out of 12 of the world's diamonds are cut, polished and processed
in India.
The industry employs 850,000 people.
And increasingly, Mumbai's Opera House traders
are chipping away the former dominance of Antwerp,
Tel Aviv, New York and London.
Almost everyone down in this crowd is a diamond dealer,
with discreet cargos and little packets about their person.
But I'm lucky enough to have an invitation
from one of the big boys up there.
Firestone.
Firestone Diamonds' CEO is Neeshal Modi.
Mr Modi, how are you? Very nice to meet you.
It's a great pleasure to be here. Great pleasure.
Goodness me! You can see all of South Bombay.
Well, beautiful as it is,
I have a feeling there's something more beautiful on this table.
Could you talk me through this? Sure.
This is rough diamonds.
Neeshal offered me something very special,
something few outsiders witness -
the chance to sit in on a potential deal
with an Israeli diamond buyer.
The customer's waiting outside. How are you? Good. How are you?
Nice to see you.
Er, show me from the cushions, please. Sure.
Thank you. How much it will cost me this time?
Because you're coming to the office, and it's Christopher's first deal,
we're gonna make you a special price.
22,000 a carat.
22,000 times 5.01.
It's 110... I think I paid a little bit less last time.
But the colour is much better than last time.
Look at the stone. Anyway, you're making money off me.
I will be ready to give you 19,000 a carat.
Is that fair enough?
Check the stone one more time.
Neeshal, I really want to do the business,
but really I'm offering you a fair price compared to last time.
I like the stone, I like the make better,
but I think I'm offering a fair price.
What is the final price you can offer me?
You're gonna come back to me again. I'm always happy
with what you supply me.
OK, give me your hand.
OK? And I will give you 20,000,
but this is really a final offer. 20,500.
20,000, Neeshal, let's make it and I'm a regular client.
20,500. 20,250.
We cut in the middle. OK.
That was neat and swift.
But how much was the deal worth?
What's the total value?
1.3... About $110,000. US dollar.
OK, well, that's quite a lot of diamonds.
What interested me in that deal was
you clearly have done lots of deals together.
If you were strangers to each other, how would it work?
Difficult. Er...
We would not be working with strangers.
You wouldn't even have them in this office? No.
He wouldn't probably be in the building,
he probably wouldn't make it to the street.
Firestone's Opera House office is strictly trade only.
If you're in the market to buy some ready-to-wear rocks,
you head for their stunning showrooms.
I'm meeting Neeshal's older brother, Nirav Modi.
And, happily enough, my arrival coincided with a photo shoot
for his latest collection.
When we talk about high-value diamonds,
what's their value?
These are two pear shapes.
Two pear shapes. They weigh two grams each.
Two grams each. And you're holding
two million dollars in your hands. Oh! Makes me... (SHUDDERS)
How long does this process of cutting take?
Three to four months. What?! Yeah.
It's a huge responsibility on the cutter. Yeah.
One mistake and it's... It's worth zero.
It's worth zero? Yeah,
cos it can blow up into smithereens.
Do you ever lose diamonds like that? Absolutely.
Can you break down the market for us?
What percentage sells in India, what percentage sells abroad?
I'd say today 50-50.
Three, four years ago, it was zero India.
Zero India? I didn't sell anything.
And I'm moving all production to Bombay.
So we have necklaces which we have sold for $10 million.
Very important jewellery made in Bombay and sold in India.
I'm beginning to realise
that Mumbai's extraordinary diamond business
is about the most integrated network of power you can find.
Many of us have come from a very small village in Gujarat.
Anywhere from 60 years to 20 years ago.
When I came here at the age of 19,
I was earning a salary of $100.
I worked for my uncle. He taught me the trade.
And they knew who my father was, they knew who my grandfather was,
who my relatives were, and who vouched for me.
And I was doing millions of dollars of business when I had very little.
And this is where the importance
of the single Gujarati village comes in.
Because if you're from there, your word is your bond.
Absolutely. And to break your word in this business...
it's the worst thing you can do.
Sadly for my wife, I left Firestone Diamonds empty-handed.
It was time to leave the rich, glamorous set behind
and head into a very different city.
Well it would be, if it wasn't for Mumbai's habitual gridlock.
Isn't it faster for me to take a rickshaw?
No problem. You cannot move in the traffic.
It's better to take a rickshaw, sir.
(HORNS HONK)
One in ten people here live on less than 25p a day.
Even Mumbai's average daily wage is less than a fiver.
But don't think the poor here are powerless.
Collectively, they have real muscle.
And one genuine source of power
flourishing here in contrast, say, to back home in Britain
are the unions.
This is a branch meeting of the Mumbai Autorickshawmen's Union.
Their leader is Shashank Rao.
Mr Rao. Yeah, hi.
Terrific speech, but I didn't understand a word.
So what was it about?
These chaps don't want that.
Yeah.
You're clearly, I've now seen it with my own eyes,
a brilliant speaker.
I was watching these men and they were hanging on your every word.
You have a lot of power here.
Do you think this is power which you are using
for the benefit of the members of your union,
or do you also include the travelling public in this as well?
Yeah.
So, your ultimate sanction is to go on strike.
So it's a big power you have here.
And the voters are not just them, but their families as well.
So how many voters do you think you can mobilise behind your...
That's two and a half million votes he's talking about!
And surely here, among those with relatively little,
I'll finally find the politics of envy.
Everybody is optimistic.
Maybe they're saying that because I'm a foreigner, maybe not,
but they sincerely seem to be very optimistic
about the future of Mumbai. Are you an optimistic man as well?
The Sharad Rao to whom Shashank refers is his own father,
and one of the most powerful trade union bosses in all India.
Here, it's not just the business moguls
who construct family dynasties.
No-one in India gets overly hung up about nepotism.
Mr Rao senior is currently languishing in hospital
with Dengue fever, but he's determined
I don't leave Mumbai without exploring the power of the many
not the few.
I do hope you're feeling much better, and I assume
that you're being well looked after here.
Because aren't many of these people your members?
So, if you're President of all these organisations,
do you consider yourself a powerful man?
But do you worry that in Mumbai today
the gap between the rich and the poor is growing,
unacceptably so?
Despite Sharad Rao's predictions of revolt,
I don't see any signs of it yet on the Mumbai streets.
That has to be good news for India's richest woman,
whom I get to meet next.
This is the recently built world-famous Antilia House.
It's the most expensive private residence on Earth,
and has been valued at two billion dollars.
Though you'd barely guess at street level.
It supposedly has three helipads,
a staff of 600,
and its floor area is allegedly greater
than the Palace of Versailles.
It houses India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani,
his wife, and three children.
Shobhaa De had told me all about it earlier in my stay.
Well, I went to the house-warming party.
It is a spectacular building by any standards.
How many storeys? 27.
For one family - not bad.
But I see it as a landmark.
I've called it the modern-day Taj Mahal.
And I have seen crowds of people from across India,
and Mumbaikars themselves,
who stand across the footpath clicking pictures.
Antilia has, as you might expect, come in for a bit of flak
for its opulence.
So I'm not surprised its doors remain closed to me.
But the great news is, thanks to Shobhaa De,
her good friend Nita, Mukesh's wife, has agreed to meet.
Mukesh Ambani, in 2007 the world's richest man,
runs Reliance Industries -
India's largest private sector company,
which has a stake in countless fields.
Nita Ambani is a qualified teacher
and spends much of her time running this new school.
She founded it to honour Mukesh's father, Dhirubhai Ambani.
His is the emblematic rags-to-riches story -
one-time petrol pump attendant who went on to own the refinery.
Welcome to our school. Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Ambani.
So can I show you part of my school? Yes.
Can I take a closer look at that? Sure.
It's a lovely picture. It represents...
Nita's school is one of the best in India.
But it's not charity. In fact, parents' evenings
may be the best networking opportunity in town.
Even Shah Rukh Kahn sends his kids here.
I think our school is a joyous place.
Everybody is smiling here.
When people look at you... and your husband and say
these are among the wealthiest people in the world,
how do you reconcile yourself with this enormous privilege
of having so much money, if I can put it crudely like that?
I don't think wealth
has truly been our aim or ambition.
For Mukesh, it has been a passion to create reliance.
To generate employment.
And for me, it has always been...
..the soft power that has always driven me.
Now you're obviously an extremely focused, driving, ambitious lady
who does not like to have obstacles in her path.
I don't think that's my description at all. (LAUGHS)
But nobody without drive and enterprise and initiative,
you couldn't have created something like this.
You know, um, my work has been very distinct from reliance.
From the very beginning, I was brought up in equality.
And it only came with a rider that give your best in whatever you do.
I had a conversation with Dr Cyrus Poonawalla,
and then we went to the races.
And he said that he was so worried
about the gap between the rich and the poor
that he thought that unless something was done about it,
in due course Mumbai might find itself, and these were his words,
in a revolutionary situation.
Have you ever taken such a dramatic view of what might go wrong?
In my... In the world that I deal with...
..where I see young children coming in from all sections of society...
..I'm very optimistic.
I'm gonna ask you, because I can't leave Mumbai without doing it,
one question about your house.
But I hope you will feel that it's not prying
into your private life.
And if you don't want to answer it, don't answer it.
It's a stunning piece of work. Some people have said
it's the 21st-century Taj Mahal.
For Mukesh and myself,
it is the only home that we have in the whole world.
The only one you own in the whole world? Really?
Yes. But sometimes in the middle of the night, do you think:
well, people are making these comparisons
with a great Mogul, a symbol of ancient Indian power?
Not at all. I just want, um,
the home to be not a house but a home for my children.
Do you consider yourselves the modern moguls...
No! ..of Mumbai?
No! The modern mighty moguls of Mumbai?
Not at all. Not at all.
My life is so far removed from all that.
Whatever her protestations,
I think Nita Ambani does deserve to be called a mogul.
Very few people out here in the Victorian heart of old Bombay
will end up in the mogul set.
It's that set, for good or ill,
who are nonetheless setting the tone of an era
every bit as much as their forebears.
This remains a staggeringly unequal society,
but wealth and opportunity do more than trickle down.
And the fairytale story of the rich and famous
seems to inspire rather than breed resentment among ordinary people.
You know, Mumbai, with its boundless optimism
and it's can-do spirit,
it's a bit like New York 120 years ago.
It attracted people from all over the world
and gave them the hope that they could rise
from absolute poverty to prosperity within a generation.
Is that the real power of this great city?
It's my last night in Mumbai,
and I've been invited to a wedding at one of the big gymkhanas
on Marine Drive.
This isn't a billionaire's knees-up.
Dimple and Vikeshji are the children of Mumbai gold traders -
middle-class, I suppose you'd call them.
So this is a simple wedding for just 2,000 or so
of their closest friends and family.
Even so, it makes a Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
look an exercise in austerity.
She is my sister's sister-in-law. She's your sister's sister-in-law.
And they originally belonged to a gold family.
Gold family. Yes.
So two gold families. Two gold families meeting together.
That makes a bigger gold family. A bigger gold business.
(RULE BRITANNIA PLAYS)
I think I'm the only guest here who feels that the soundtrack
to the bridal couple's grandiose entrance
is somewhat odd.
But maybe it's a mark of new India's energy and vigour
that no-one knows or cares this is Rule Britannia.
It's just a good, rousing tune to go up the aisle to.
(RULE BRITANNIA CONTINUES PLAYING)
There are some who worry that India is losing something of its soul
as it modernises.
I think that's patronising.
But more than that, it's completely wrong.
I really don't have anything but good wishes
and a rather sad bunch of flowers to offer the happy couple.
They've got a future as golden as the trade and the city they're in.
Greetings and good wishes from London.
It seems to me that Mumbai demonstrates
that India is growing, taking its rightful place
as a power of the first order.
I wish you much happiness. Thank you.
I hope all goes well.
And doing it its own way,
from which we could learn a good deal.
itfc subtitles