Author: Bachi J Karkaria
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1992
Language: English
Pages: 262
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780140170542
Description
Born in a small village in Punjab at the turn of the century, Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi began his career in the hotel industry on a fifty-rupee-a-month wage at Simla’s Cecil Hotel.
But he was not destined to remain in his lowly position for long. With a combination of clear-sighted thinking, frugality and sheer hard work, he managed to put together a plan and the finances necessary to acquire his first hotel: Clarkes.
That was only the beginning . . . Decades later, The Oberoi Group has twenty-eight hotels and four luxury Nile cruisers, girdles the globe, and is acknowledged as a standard-setter.
In this well-researched and candid biography, written with the cooperation of M.S. Oberoi, Bachi J. Karkaria describes how a man of modest beginnings became the head of an internationally celebrated hotel chain, and details how a major business is established, operated and maintained at the top.
COMMENT:
‘You Could call Rai Bahadur the Country’s Only Exclusive hotelier.’
--- J.R.D. Tata
Contents
1. Daybreak
2. The Boy From Bhaun
3. By A Hair's Breadth
4. Corset and Steel Frame
5. Formidable Gertie
6. Inns and Outs
7. Hotel Number One
8. Cockscomb With Bare Feet
9. The Colonel and the Monk
10. 500 Rooms, One Cockroach
11. The Grand Vision
12. Soda For Your Bath
13. Never A Night Without A Fight
14. Chained At Last
15. Shiv Nath's Revenge
16. No Pall On The Mall
17. Wolves In Sharkskin
18. Good-Bye Partners
19. Raj Exorcized
20. Consolidate, Not Diversify
21. Half-Way To A Century
22. Learning From The World
23. Maidens No More
24. A Palace Coup
25. Prince As Playboy
26. Heir-Apparent Biki
27. Diversion
28. A Style Called Imperial
29. Less of the Lessee
30. Breaking the Hex
31. Flesh On the Bones
32. Keeping House With Style
33. 'Have You Gone Mad?'
34. High Rise, High Tension
35. Big Bucks In A Burqa
36. Next Stop, the World
37. Don't Blink First
38. Grilled Cheops
39. History Revived
40. King of the Room Boom
41. Big Daddy to the Company
42. State of the Unions
43. G row Your Own : The School
44. Squire Midas
45. Another Brand of Power
46. Getting 'Jeh'
47. Curry Cook, Go Home
48. Rhapsody and Waltz
49. Goodbye, Bhagwanti
50. 1984
51. The Ascent of Biki
52. Symphony in 'E'
53. Carry on, Jeeves
54. That's How the Money Rolls In
55. Beatific Giver
56. Back to the Rescue
57. Sun-downer
Select Bibliography
Appendix A
Appendix B
Index