Indore: Phoenix Citadel isn’t just a mall. It’s a hallmark of Indore’s explosive entry onto the urban landscape. No longer Mumbai’s dowdy stepsister, Indore is a tier-2 city inching its way up – investments are mounting, the demography is changing, and people are desperate to find things to spend their newfound money on.
Indore is on its way to becoming a city of surplus even before it attains cosmopolitan maturity.
Nestled conveniently along the Agra-Mumbai highway, an ideal spot for outsiders, Phoenix Citadel mall looks like a palace built by middle class dreams: an imposing pearly white façade that wanted to be a European palace as well as Taj Mahal. Beset with indecision, it decided to be both.
Indore is shedding its old-world humility for a brasher, bolder and brassier avatar. A new wealthy class is exerting its will on the city—driving BMWs and Porsches, storming elite schools and colleges in Chanel and Birkenstock, and erecting grand towers while sipping on tandoori cold coffee and nibbling on kulhad pizza. It is the story of every tier-2 Indian city – toggling between new cash and kitsch.
An ancient city of pohas and Holkars, Indore has burst onto Indian consciousness with new tags like smart city and cleanest city. It is the only city that has both an IIM and IIT, and marquee companies such as Wipro, Infosys, and TCS are already here. Its money now needs to catch up with all the new attention it has been receiving and become what it imagines a modern city looks and feels like. So, it turns to postcard images from its last SOTC Euro-tour.
Phoenix Citadel is the shiniest jewel in Indore’s crown of aspirations. The mall’s massive entrances are made to accommodate cars worthy of the mall’s nouveau excess. The street lamps are reminiscent of a cobblestoned Italian street, ready to fulfil anyone’s sudden yearning for Tuscany.
In fact, there are several such reminders of Italy in Indore. Blown up photographs of quaint homes with red rooftops overshadowed by a single Michelangelo-esque statue adorn the walls. It’s hard not to venture upon random signage: “Welcome to Bologna.” “Welcome to Tuscany.”
But the resemblance to the Italian countryside ends there. Phoenix Citadel is a sensory overload in a way only a mall can be—nauseatingly bright lights, filled with stores that glower down at passersby.
Everything is feverishly recorded for family WhatsApp groups and Reels.
Families united by the sandalwood paste plastered across their foreheads, women holding on to the delicate brocade borders of their saris, their husbands wearing sunglasses indoors. They take selfies in various permutations and combinations. A man wearing a silver-printed shirt takes the lead, extending his phone past the railing to accommodate them all. After clicking a few, he has had enough. They are no longer worthy of his frame, and he leaves them to his own devices—while he searches for his next best angle.
A few metres away, another family walks furiously, their child clutching a Hamley’s packet, led by a woman in a striped minidress who clearly has places to be.
Birkenstock, Armani Exchange, and MAC are some of the stores that leap out, as well as a virtual-reality gaming arcade. “We get 50-80 customers daily, and 120 on the weekend,” says Saurabh Sharma with pride. He grew up in the city, and is working his way up the ladder—much like Indore. First there was Pakiza, an Indore-based ethnic-wear brand, then Forever21 and now Birkenstock.
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New money shows itself
Luxury in Indore adheres to a formula—elaborate display of ostentation, something that Raunak Kasliwal terms “pomp”. It’s about large logos and designers who fare well on Instagram and in bigger cities.
“We were living in a bubble. There were only a few reputed families. But now there’s so much new money. There are so many new people, even those who have shifted from good metro cities,” says Kasliwal.
Indore is referred to as mini-Mumbai. Its growth trajectory originated with textile mills and it subsequently expanded into a trade-center. But the Kasliwals also see a mini-Delhi in Indore. There exists a cocooned social elite—fraternising at the Yeshwant Club—and then there are the outsiders-turned-insiders.
This club is where old money meets new. A row of Bentleys, BMWs—not just Mercedes and Audis—line up outside the colonial-era club. Not unlike the Gymkhana clubs of bigger cities, taxidermy deers and bulls look down from Yeshwant Club walls, with tennis courts and pool championships. But the bar is dead with outdated furniture. Not quite the watering hole clubs tend to be. Drinking possibly still carries on in private spaces.
“Indore is very cosmo,” says Kasliwal. His wife, Disha, nods in agreement. She organises luxury retail exhibitions across the city, bringing to Indore the likes of the Ambani family’s favourite jeweller, Renu Oberoi.
Disha narrates a story of a newer inhabitant of the elite, taking care to mention his incorrect pronunciation of Chanel and his inability to grasp the concept of a designer belt with no logo.
Other residents affirm the magnanimity with which wealth is showcased, as only the dregs of modesty remain in Indore. Wealth isn’t real if it’s invisible. This is the reason behind Renu Oberoi’s ardent following in what most would call a ‘tier 2’ city. A senior journalist from Indore went a step further, terming it a ‘C’ city.
‘Quiet Luxury’ is seemingly eons away, a belief exemplified by an otherwise innocuous street, that configures excess in a different way for a different class. Jail Road, known for selling hardware and mobile accessories, has another selling point—no one in Indore needs Nykaa, surprisingly. An approximately 200 metre road, it is brimming with beauty and cosmetic stores stuffed into every nook and cranny with luxury products like MAC foundations and HUDA beauty lipsticks. “Original bhi mil jaayega (you can get the original as well),” drawls a shopkeeper.
In ‘Cosmetics Hub’, a building of eight stores in Jail Road, surrounded by standalone shops, they retail for about Rs 200.
“There’s a lot of competition now,” acknowledges Aman Punjabi, owner of Her Beauty Store. He claims his was the first store—the others came two to three years later. Still, he is blasé about the baffling number of shops as well as his profession.
“Main sindhi hoon, mujhe business toh karna tha [I’m a Sindhi, I had to get into business],” he says, his earrings gleaming in the light of the store, a tattooed hand resting on the counter. He previously used to run a poly-bag factory, which closed down once environmental regulations kicked in and Indore began its ‘cleanest city’ campaign.
After receiving the cleanest city tag six times in a row, residents’ psyche has changed. It’s a freshly minted source of pride.
“When my son goes to other cities, from the car he sees garbage. And he can’t believe it,” says Ashwin Palashikar, a tenth generation Indori, who lives on a street named after his family.
“Indore had a very conservative society. People weren’t too focused on showing their wealth.” He explains: now they go to better schools, study abroad, have nicer homes, and want to show-off.
Palashikar runs an electrical instrument manufacturing company, but his family has a rich history. They were revenue ministers for the Peshwas and consequently moved to Indore.
“We are custodians of our family’s wealth. Not consumers,” said Palashikar.
Raunak Kasliwal, too, embodies Indore’s old wealthy class. He and Disha live on a five-acre estate with manicured lawns that house 47 marble statues, all of which have traversed oceans to reach MG Road in the heart of the city.
Scion of the Hukumchand family, Kasliwal’s great-great grandfather was Sir Seth Hukumchand, known as the cotton prince of India. He amassed a fortune, and his descendants continue to live off the benefits.
“We were always into money,” he says, one leg crossed over the other, in a room with black leather couches and cushions embossed with gold catholic church motifs.
Kasliwal’s great-grandfather was the first ‘commoner’ to enter then-hallowed halls of Daly College, which remains the city’s ‘best’ school, even as others like Emerald Heights and Shishu Kunj vie for the top spot. He is a fervent upholder of his school’s reputation. Nearly two decades later, after obtaining an MBA from a university in Ohio, the life he has constructed for himself is surrounded by the Indori elite he grew up around—running his family businesses and socialising within a tight circle that consists of fellow Daly College alumni.
His son goes there too, although, Kasliwal admits, he doesn’t necessarily relate to the other parents. Indore’s demography is changing, schools like Daly College are no longer restricted to families like his—there’s an onset of new money and the fabric tying together the elite has changed colour.
The demand for land is greater than ever before, and liquid income is flowing in for those who didn’t always have it. “It’s not about owning property or owning flats. It’s the value of the land itself,” he says.
The oldest beneficiary of land in Indore is the Zamindar-Mandloi family, the ‘original’ royal family. Their home is the city’s oldest fort, their land home to court complexes today as well as the bustling vastu-perfect commercial centre Siyaganj. Once subedars, the Holkars arrived on the scene and the Mandlois ultimately received the short end of the stick. The British recognised the Holkars as Indore’s royal families—and so began the city’s love affair with its proclaimed royals. The airport is named after Ahilyabai (who allegedly only visited the city twice).
Another Indori estimates that the Zamindar-Mandlois own 10 per cent of the city.
“We’re not a showy family,” says Madhavi Zamindar, in her office ensconced in a corner of Bada Rawala. “We believe more in supporting local communities.” She’s an organic farmer and artist, her daughter works at Vogue, while her son is in charge of the family’s real estate affairs.
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Make way for food vendors
Away from the aspiration mall is a new kind of public space of Indore—the Khau Gali. It’s a heady gastronomic indulgence that defies tradition, logic and would even make Anthony Bourdain bashful. It is the other end of the spectrum of the Phoenix Mall. This is an unabashed and joyful embrace of the bottom of the pyramid. Evenings at Khau Gali is like Lahore’s food street—crowd, flavour and fat—but just the items on the menu are a mongrelised view of food fetishes.
There was a time when Indore was known for poha, a smattering of street foods, and not much else. That may have changed, but the affection lingers—and is far from immune to the lack of restraint. There is Chhapan Dukan, which has been visited by “everyone”, from Rahul Gandhi to Akshay Kumar.
But for both vendors and customers, it is Khau Gali in Sarafa Bazaar where excesses are relished as much as the dubious-sounding food on display. The lane is full of jewellers and customers walking during the day with a single-minded focus. There is minimal space, shrunk further by store-owners who stand outside and advertise their products by subjecting their their vocal cords to a great amount of exercise. One of them says there are about 5,000 jewellery stores operating out of Sarafa Bazar.
But as the clock strikes 9, the tenor shifts. Shutters are downed and with rhythmic discipline enter the food vendors. They emerge in a single file, each pulling forward a miraculous iteration of a cultural crossover—tandoori cold-coffee, kulhad pizza, momo pizza, dosa pizza, and Central India’s first Bloomin’ Onion, brought to you courtesy Shri Annapurna.
Chocolate sauce drips down the side of a kulhad, and only then a stream of sickly-sweet coffee is poured in. Once the deed is done, it is heated in a tandoor. Pizza sauce and a mashed blend of capsicum, onions, and corn are slapped onto a startling diversity of surfaces: the base of a kulhad, dosa batter, and of course, the inside of North India’s favourite indulgence—and notorious for the amalgams it has spawned—the much-maligned momo.
The momo, however, is being met with stiff competition from the humble dosa. Chocolate dosa, for example, is readily available across the country. But Khau Gali has birthed a special set of would-be abominations. The woman who runs Dosa Craft proudly proclaims: “We’ve made about 250 kinds of dosas.” Paneer and corn are in abundance, squashed into gravy-form. The ‘gravy’ comes down a pyramid-shaped dosa, apparently mirroring snowfall in Kashmir. And so, a dosa at absolute odds with Kashmir is packaged as belonging to the state.
But, the crowning glory of Dosa Craft’s creative endeavours is only one: the Mia Khalifa dosa. Upon reading the name, two boys nudge each other and exchange knowing smiles. It’s a combination of everything. There’s paneer, there’s corn, there are pizza toppings—all crammed into cylindrical mini-dosas. The name raises eyebrows, but that is the point.
“It is the centre attraction,” says the stall owner, who has been running the shop for the past 10 years. The Mia Khalifa dosa also has a sibling in Burj Khalifa dosa, a bigger version.
She doesn’t take too kindly to being questioned about the peculiarity of the dosa’s name. “Naam hi toh hai [it’s just a name]. What’s your name?” she asks.
Dosa Craft conjures up dosas based on what people want. They observe, and deliver. They noticed that mangoes were a hot favourite. And there it was: mango dosa—aam ras (mango syrup/juice) lathered onto the batter. But mango dosa was a temporary fixture. It didn’t make the final cut, and isn’t part of the nine dosas being advertised on a faded banner with photographs of each. Dosa Craft offers wedding catering, and has even expanded into Delhi—at PVR Anupam in Saket.
The footfall is plenty. Even on a weekday night, when many of the momo stalls lie vacant, there is a horde of people outside Dosa Craft; having detailed discussions on which would be a better option—paneer jhini dosa, paneer chilli dosa, or pav bhaji dosa. There is also mayo-less dosa. For the unacquainted, this might imply that somewhere lies a mayo-full dosa. It’s a common misconception, and can be clarified easily. Mayo-less dosa is actually mayo-lays dosa. Chips accompany a generous portion of mayo. Yet, from the crowd of about 20, there is not one who musters the courage to try it. But there are those who simply ask, “which is your best dosa.” The answer is often paneer jhini. Occasionally, paneer chilli.
Exclusive in Super Corridor
Though Indore missed out on the first tech boom, which paved the way for the rise of Bangalore and Pune, the city is an unmistakable occupant of the second. Infosys and TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) have entered the city, opening doors to young professionals, including from metropolitan cities.
On the outskirts of Indore, past the airport, is the Super Corridor. A 12-km stretch of land that is a talisman for Indore’s tech-heavy future with campuses of TCS, Infosys, and Yash Technologies within walking distance from each other. After three years of work from home, over the past three months, a flurry of engineers and software professionals have been trickling in.
“No tech office is close to the city,” says Namami Kabra, a system engineer at Infosys from Narsimhpur, a town near Jabalpur whose primary appeal is a massive temple dedicated to Lord Narsasimh. “There’s free transport both ways, and some projects require you to come in,” she shrugs.
Transport is a must, because beyond the many acres of office space is an expanse of emptiness. The roads are wide, but apart from security staff, there is not a soul to be seen. Ankit Kumar Singh, an engineer at TCS, seated atop his motorbike, waits outside Infosys for his flatmate. Tech companies are obligated to hire from the state, and being from Bishrampur in Chhattisgarh, he forms the minority.
An introvert, he initially didn’t like the city very much. Over the past two months, it has begun to grow on him. He likes that there are places to visit—a waterfall is not too far away—and the fact that he has developed a low-maintenance social circle. “There is a group chat of 15 people. Whether it is going to a café or eating panipuri, someone always messages,” he says. The girls are a bit shy though, he confesses as an afterthought.
Singh lives in Bhawarkua, about 14 km away from his office. He has two engineer flatmates, one from Mumbai and another from Nasik. The trio met while negotiating a room on OLX. There are only young people here, he says. It is rare to find anyone over the age of 35.
With a streak of omniscience that is unique to the young, he declares: “The area [Super Corridor] is going to change.” But, according to him, this doesn’t mean it’s in line to become the next Gurgaon or Noida. “Quality over quantity,” he says. The Super Corridor is not going to become overwrought with offices. Instead, it’s going to be tempered by its alleged exclusivity.
Ample construction is underway, with wire ropes of cranes stretching as far as the eye can see. Although, the confidence in Indore’s ‘quality’ invoked by a young engineer is contrary to the lofty statements by those in power—that spell out excess. A short distance away, close to the city’s Devi Ahilyabai Holkar airport, a billboard proudly discloses an individual success story. One Ankit Singh has landed a job with Tesla. “Rs 4 crore pay package,” takes up maximum space, and other details drift into the background.
“In the next 10 years, Indore will surpass Hyderabad and Bangalore. We will take the startup ecosystem here to an international level,” Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had said last year. The meat behind Chouhan’s speech was the announcement of the setting-up of the Super Corridor.
What also informs its identity as a growth hub, the nucleus of new-age Indore, is that it serves as a connection to Vijay Nagar, a residential hub where real estate prices run the highest.
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The jewel kulfi sellers
The IT crowd is no different when it comes to enjoying the quintessential Indore hangout. They head to Khau Gali as well. The main attraction there glows and glitters and does the boldest billboard asserting that flaunting your wealth is just fine.
There is a duo that attracts visitors purely for the thrill. Nema Natwar and Prakash sell kulfi. But they do it wearing kilos of gold. Thick chains, multiple armbands, rings on every finger—all solid gold. A medallion of a lion with small, red eyes gazes from Nema’s chest.
“Shauq hai (it’s a personal desire),” he says. He’s always been fond of wearing gold, and has been one of Khau Gali’s famous sights and sounds for the past five decades. One of his armbands spells out his name. At his stall, there is a photograph of him placed alongside an article chronicling his story. “Here you’ll get to know everything about me,” he says.
The discovery is this—as the city has expanded, as wealth has entered the ranks of Indore—it has also reached Nema. The amount of gold he wears has increased significantly. Earlier, it was more casual. A few necklaces, a few bracelets. Now, there is a man hidden amid a sea of jewels.
Prakash is a second-generation kulfi-seller. His father began his family’s practice of using gold as a sales tactic. The duo sell kulfi side-by-side, but do not exchange a single glance, let alone a word. In fact, they are engaged in what some may call healthy competition. There is no consensus on who began first. “Whatever he told you, I started 2-3 years before,” says Prakash, shutting down any dispute.
Competition aside, the two have acquired near-deity-like status in Khau Gali. Eager parents shove their children in front, pushing them past the kulfi refrigerator to click photographs with both. Almost mechanically, Prakash whips out a peace sign, puts his arm around a boy’s shoulder, and smiles for the camera.
A group of men dressed in saffron arrive. They pause in front of Nema and Prakash. Both begin to mumble prayers, and the group of men mumble in response.
(Edited by Prashant)