Unfortunately it was raining when I visited Ranjan Marwah's office, so we were unable to play golf. It was a shame. The condition of the green on the balcony of his penthouse office complex in Central looked fine and the idea of sinking some putts on the 25th floor of a skyscraper was appealing. Instead, Mr Marwah drew my attention to a collection of Chinese hats, each of which he told me was worn by a Mandarin and each of which was purchased after Mr Marwah - chairman of headhunting firm Executive Access - was responsible for the appointment of someone earning US$1 million or more. He has 23 hats.
The diversions of Mr Marwah's office did not end there. The far end is dominated by a huge original Thomas Edison phonograph, in full working order, as I discovered when it was wound up and started playing a song from the 1920's. Mr Marwah danced a brief jig next to me while it was playing and sang along a little. We moved on around the office, past another Edison phonograph and towards a wall dominated by a painting, under which more gadgets were to be found. There was an early 3-D photograph device, an old army-field phone, a Chinese porcelain pillow and an unusual sculpture of an eel.
But it was the picture above all this that caught the eye. It portrayed a proud, turbaned man astride a horse with an attractive blue-eyed woman sitting next to him. The horse's nostrils are flared as if about to go into action and the man looks steadily out of the picture with an expression of regal authority. The face looked familiar, and then it twigged. The couple in the picture are, in fact, Mr Marwah and his wife. He told me the painting was commissioned from local artist Gerard Henderson who, Mr Marwah said, had a bizarre habit of attending society parties dressed only in a mink coat and whose idea of introducing himself to ladies was to walk up to them on occasion and - for want of better phrase - fondle their breasts. Mr Marwah made the anecdote crystal clear by grabbing my chest by way of demonstration.
Some people know how to make a first impression and Mr Marwah is one of them. I was already in no doubt that he was a wealthy man who enjoyed his money and whose interests went beyond his work. He appeared to be a man who liked to do things in style.
Why else have a penthouse for an office with a putting green on the balcony? He also looks sleek. He was expensively dressed and looked as well-groomed as the horse he sat upon in the painting. Not bad for a man who arrived in Hong Kong from New Delhi in 1971 with $8 in his pocket and $300 stuffed in his sock.
'My parents were refugees from what is now called Pakistan. They came from a wealthy landed background and were suddenly neither wealthy nor landed any more, so my father joined the [Indian] government, stayed in government and retired in government, variously in intelligence and as a diplomat overseas. It was middle class rather than privileged. He originally came from a privileged background and I spent most of my youth thinking why was I not going to have a privileged background like he had. So I decided to fix it, and I think we're getting close.' He is being modest. He leads a very privileged lifestyle best summed up in his own words.
