From reminiscing about the royal past to the relevance of royalty in India today, the speakers at the L’Aspiration Summit 2022 brainstormed on ‘Exploring Aspirations and Interpreting Luxury’ in Chandigarh on Monday.
At the summit, a News18 initiative, while many speakers defined luxury as being made affordable, some were of the opinion that merging royalty with democracy was now becoming more acceptable.
From sustainable fashion to democratising royal food, the speakers at the summit touched upon everything that spoke about exploring royalty in many ways. Amarinder Singh Brar of the Faridkot royal family, who spoke about the long-drawn legal battle that he finally won, said that with the family having lost its political relevance in Punjab, it was indeed a challenge to fight the case.
A banker by profession, Brar said that though the property value was worth thousands of crores, it was the legacy that was left behind by his forefathers which made him feel proud rather than the palatial grounds and the palaces of the family.
Tegbir Singh Brar spoke about the probabilities of Derby in Punjab. He said that as a stud farmer he is not only able to generate employment for the maintenance of the horses but like in other countries where it was treated as a serious sport, that possibility should be explored in India too, beyond clubs and racing gambling.
From being a former royal to a contestant at the Kaun Banega Crorepati, Priyamvada Singh of Meja in Rajasthan admits that it was a burden to carry forward the title of royalty and she preferred that she could restore the lost and glorious history and connect the present with the past. In her effort as the glory restorer, she spoke about how it was an effort to look into the restoration of the fort at Meja, which once belonged to her forefathers.
“Since I do not have a deadline in mind and doing it at a speed I am comfortable with, restoring the property is easier than taking it up as a project on a fast lane,” she said.
Speaking about the democratisation of royal food across the world, Chef Manish Mehrotra, owner of the Indian Accent chain worldwide, said that food was getting simpler and it was the ingredients that were more important that defined food. “That Indian food is spicy is a misnomer, it is more to do with the country being the Land of Spices,” he commented.
