The fact that one of India's best-known tycoons, Ratan Tata - head of the country's oldest business house, the Tatas - has weighed in on how the rich should live, amid distressing poverty, has caused quite a stir.
In an interview in The Times of London, Tata was quoted as commenting on fellow industrialist Mukesh Ambani's opulent billion-dollar palace in Mumbai. 'It makes me wonder why someone would do that...' he reportedly said. 'The person who lives in there should be concerned about what he sees around him and [asking] can he make a difference. If he is not, then it's sad because this country needs people to allocate some of their enormous wealth to finding ways of mitigating the hardship that people have.'
A Tata spokesman later said the remarks were taken out of context. Whatever the case, they could trigger a badly needed debate in India on how the wealthy should live alongside the millions who will never own a room of their own, much less a home.
There are no easy answers. Tata is known for living modestly. There are plenty of other billionaires - such as N.R. Narayana Murthy and Azim Premji - who live simply, drive ordinary cars and travel economy class. They consciously eschew ostentation because it seems callous to live luxuriously when millions of Indians do not even have electricity.
But these distinctions are only meaningful to affluent Indians; to the poor, even Tata's modest flat must seem like a mansion. Likewise, when construction workers pass my three-bedroom flat and see me sitting on the balcony, they probably think I am as much a fairytale princess as Mrs Ambani.
The 'old money' of the past probably had the answer. They lived comfortably but refused to flaunt their wealth out of a certain delicacy of feeling. As important was their benevolence and commitment to those around them. So, the driver's son would be educated, the cook's daughter married off and the maid's son given a loan to open a shop. The human connection was strong, despite the gulf in income and lifestyle.
