AD Singh (left) and Arjun share a laugh for our cameras

None throws a party quite like AD Singh. Top-notch venue. Check. Fancy food. Check. The city’s most beautiful people. Check. And yes, they say he’s a fabulously gracious host too. One of the great success stories in the Indian hospitality biz, this electrical engineer-turned-entrepreneur is the face behind Olive Bar and Kitchen — a chain of chic resto-lounges in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

His twin brother, Arjun is a corporate honcho who’s made his rounds of the world before coming back to settle in Delhi. Incidentally, Arjun was also an engineer — the mechanical kind — but like his twin, found his calling in something far removed from T-squares and slide rules.

AD and Arjun grew up in Mumbai, where they went to school. Though in distinctly different professions, like almost all twins, they share many interests — including a voracious appetite for fiction closely followed by a passion for golf. The two love to tee off whenever they manage to catch some time together. In fact, for their recent 46th birthday, AD flew down from Mumbai to be with Arjun. The highlight of the day? You guessed it. Golf.

AD and Arjun share many a personality trait too. Softies at heart, the twins rue that they are incapable of saying ‘no’ to anyone. The brothers share a very close bond, so much so that they seem to have a handle on each other’s experiences and feelings, even when miles apart.

AD:

Being twins has always worked to our advantage. As kids we’d copy each other much to the amusement of our friends. We’d insist on sitting next to each other in school. We’d even get the same marks in the exams. Our teacher smelt a rat and made us sit apart. But even so, at the end of the year we managed to surprise everyone by getting the same scores on our report cards.

Such inexplicable things are common for us. We go through the same emotional changes in life. And often, we experience the same feelings even though Arjun and I have lived apart ever since we turned 18. I went to the States to study electrical engineering and Arjun did his mechanical engineering in India. I remember, I’d call my mother to tell her I was missing her, and I’d find Arjun calling her at the same time to tell her just that too. My mother would be left wondering which one of us she was speaking to because our voices are so similar.

We capitalise on that similarity quite often to raise a laugh or two. Four years ago, on our birthday we made Arjun pretend he was me. He changed his hairstyle, took off his glasses and sat through the evening chatting to people who had absolutely no clue of what was going on. That was a moment we still talk about.

Arjun and I are much the same kind of people. We are both softies and sometimes it’s a disadvantage, particularly for my brother who is in the corporate world. Despite our radically different careers and the fact that we live in different cities, we have mutual friends and share common interests. We always discuss any major decisions regarding our careers, property and everything that is important. We even holiday together with our friends and family like we did last December. But I must say it has been easier for us to nurture the bond even over the miles as our wives get along very well with each other too.

Arjun:

As kids, AD and I did everything together. We’d fight and tease each other mercilessly, though we were pretty much inseparable. Since AD is older than me by all of 14 important minutes, he takes his elder brother role very seriously. I think it became more pronounced after he returned from the States and one fine day decided to be the responsible, protective one. Not that I am complaining! In fact, my only grouse against him would be that he was by far the luckier sibling when it came to girls!

AD and I went our different ways when we finished school at 18. I went off to pursue mechanical engineering in IIT Mumbai. And AD went abroad to major in electrical engineering. After college, I worked for five years before I set off for Calcutta to do my MBA from IIM, Joka.

On finishing the course, I went to work for the ANZ Grindlays bank in Melbourne for two years. Then I shifted to Delhi to work for a Gurgaon-based BPO. Five years later, I shifted base again to Amsterdam, where I lived for the next three years working for ABN AMRO. I decided to relocate to India because I felt that would be the best for my family and particularly for my daughter, Amira. Now I work for another BPO in Delhi, looking after the finance and banking aspects of the company.

But over all these years, I have never felt emotionally distant from my brother. We’ve always shared our thoughts with each other. And as AD said, we always discuss with each other any major issues concerning property, business or life in general. Not that we didn’t get to see enough of each other during that spell. In fact during the three years that we lived in Amsterdam, my brother and his wife came visiting as many times.

Uncannily enough, our lives always seem to take similar courses in some way or the other. For instance, I remember when I got an offer to move to Amsterdam, AD, who had lived all his life in Mumbai decided to up and go to Delhi. One day he called me and told me about his plan to start a restaurant business there. I realised then that I should give the Amsterdam offer serious consideration.

Above everything, what I really admire about my brother is his down-to-earth nature. Despite his successes, he continues to be what he always was — kind, simple and forever considerate towards people, especially those who work for him.

Photograph by Jagan Negi