India is a land of extremes. It has an extremely high percentage of its extremely large population living in extreme poverty. It also has an extremely small percentage of extremely wealthy living in extreme luxury.
First and foremost of India's elite is Mukesh Ambani, India's wealthiest man, who has just moved into a new home along with his mother, wife and their three children. The 'home', pegged at a cost between $1-2 billion, comprises 27-overheight stories that bring it to the size of a 60-story tower. The house, called "Antilla," comes complete with 600-servants. At 37,000 square meters, it's larger than Versailles. Asia Times reports that Ambani's new digs are raising a few eyebrows:
Ambani's castle in the sky has generated heated debate in India and outside. While some have gushed about its "post-modern" look or praised it as an iconic home that will inspire others to aspire for more, others have dismissed it as "obscenely lavish" and a "visual eyesore." Indeed, from the outside it does look like a tall pile of books of varying sizes.
More damning are the ethical questions being raised. How can Ambani live in a billion dollar home when the vast majority of people in this country live in conditions of abject poverty? Around 37,000 square meters of floor space for a family of six, in a country where it is normal for a family of that size to live in a single room and share a single toilet with hundreds of others in the neighborhood, seems not just excessive but obscene.
It's hard to see how India will negotiate its economic ascendancy without seismic social upheaval. In a nation almost entirely in the "definitely have-not" category it won't be hard for some firebrand to mobilize the public against the ostentatious wealth of the very few. People like Ambani with his genuinely stupid house are practically begging to be scapegoated. In a land of such extremes, Antilla is a profoundly extreme provocation.
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