Nobody in the building had read Dickens

That was The Claridges when I walked in. Rooms at 3,000 rupees a night in Lutyens Delhi. Menus with spelling mistakes. A 130-key hotel with nowhere sensible to serve breakfast. A lounge nobody sat in.

So we went back to basics.

Lutyens Deli was born out of the breakfast problem. The dead lounge became Erawaan, the capital's Thai fix. Rooms and suites reworked, with the best small bathrooms in Asia. Lobby washrooms that are a dream.

The promoters didn't write a cheque. It was funded in small tranches from HDFC, each with a proper payback. Three years on, rate was up 58% and F&B had doubled. The IRR, off the delta in cash flow, was 47% when I last ran it.

It was all there. It needed a vision and someone to put it together.

The credit goes to Mr Suresh Nanda and his son Sanjeev Nanda, who let me do what needed doing and celebrated the small victories with the large ones. The clip below is from one of those evenings at The Claridges.

I'm midway through another transformation now, so a thank you is overdue. To the people who backed me over the years and gave me confidence. And to the detractors, who keep adding to my toolkit.

The whole thing is written up as a teaching case. How a forgotten hotel is revived and made relevant. Ask me for it.