Calcutta boy and Montblanc man Dilip Doshi (Picture by Amit Roy)

Calcutta boy Dilip Doshi, who last played Test cricket for India in 1983 before taking up the whole business of selling luxury goods — he holds the exclusive Indian franchise for Montblanc — is the perfect person to talk to on the question of building a brand.

So how come Pippa Middleton, at 27, has become a brand? And she certainly has ever since television cameras lingered on the back view of her form-fitting outfit at sister Kate’s wedding back in April.

During Wimbledon fortnight, the papers were full of pictures of Pippa with a variety of boyfriends, ex-boyfriends and possibly boyfriends to be. Before that, she was in Paris, being wined and dined, and taking in the French Open.

To be sure, Kate is also getting plenty of coverage in the papers as she fulfils her new role as the Duchess of Cambridge alongside her husband Prince William during a royal tour of Canada, but guess who has made the cover of the August issue of Tatler, the bible of the aristocratic movers and shakers in England? Why Pippa, of course.

“She has been built up by the press,” is Dilip’s explanation. “The press are obsessed with her.”

That may be so but now that Pippa, with the best derrière in the world, according to the UK tabloids, has become a brand, she can promote any product at any price.

It is pointed out to Dilip, who cuts a dapper figure in plain dark suit, blue and white striped shirt and daffodil yellow tie, that Sir Richard Branson, of Virgin Atlantic, is a brand.

Dilip spins back a googly: “Look at Tata — Ratan Tata is a brand. An individual becomes a brand because of that person’s philosophy and beliefs.”

He discloses: “I have been asked to give a talk on ‘Building a Brand’ by IIM in Ahmedabad because in India no one knew Montblanc before I made it famous. I am considered to be a pioneer in luxury. I held many brands — Wedgwood, Burberry, Baccarat, Girard-Perregaux in watches, and Canali — but I gave them all up. I wanted to focus on Montblanc.”

Former Bond girl Eva Green endorses Montblanc

That includes the whole range of Montblanc pens. A limited edition made in the name of Mahatma Gandhi was withdrawn from sale in India after protests from some quarters but there could yet be one to commemorate Tagore. Dilip recently gifted a Montblanc to Amartya Sen — ideal for writing out a hundred lines long hand, “I must not give reporters a hard time.”

The Montblanc brand also extends to luxury watches, jewellery, leather goods and attaché cases.

But what is luxury? “Luxury is a very vague word,” remarks Dilip. “It is a state of mind. Luxury without longevity or heritage value is not true luxury. It is only momentary.”

Dilip was born in Rajkot in Gujarat but “I grew up in Calcutta,” he repeatedly emphasises. “What do I call luxury? Being able to do freely the things you want to do is luxury. It is being able to express yourself. It could be by playing cricket. In Calcutta you have these addas where you have a cup of tea and discuss various aspects of life. For me, time is the luxury you can’t buy. And health. These two are luxuries.”

But is it really worth buying a Montblanc pen which can cost anything from a minimum of Rs 18,000 to many lakhs? Of course, it is, says Dilip. It has become routine these days to send a thank you to someone by SMS or email but it is far more elegant to post a beautiful handwritten note. And what better pen to use than a Montblanc?

Pippa Middleton

Dilip is clearly genuinely fond of Calcutta. His family lived in Allenby Road “near Netaji Subhas-er bari” on Elgin Road. “I was brought up in Calcutta and was fortunate to have a Montblanc pen. My uncle — my father’s younger brother — gave it to me. I was in Bhawanipur Education Society — it was actually built by my father; he was an educationist. I was very, very upset when I lost it. But I held that pen for 15 years. I still believe a fountain pen is the ultimate luxury for writing.”

He recounts how he got into Montblanc. “In India, ‘luxury’ was once a bad word... ‘Ah, you want to import luxury?’ But I went to Tejinder Khanna — he was secretary of commerce in 1993 — and convinced him to grant us an import licence for Montblanc pens to the value of one million Deutsche Marks. Montblanc came under the category of luxury because it was not ‘one of the necessities of life’.”

He adds: “Montblanc is a German company, a very visionary company. This pen I now have was conceived in 1924. It has an 18-carat, handmade gold nib. Each nib has to go through 70 stages of production. It is made to write 18km continuously without interruption before it is released. It has a piston mechanism for filling.”

Dilip’s UK-based company, Entrack Ltd, has been the “exclusive distributor of Montblanc for 21 years. We have 16 ‘World of Montblanc’ boutiques in India — in Bombay, there is one in the Taj, another in the Grand Hyatt, one in the JW Marriott Hotel. In Delhi, we are in the Taj Mansingh and in the Maurya Sheraton. Plus we have 40 authorised retailers.”

“In Calcutta we sell through authorised retailers but we haven’t got an exclusive boutique because we haven’t found the space,” he says regretfully. “It is the city in India which in my view is the most cultured, most philosophically inclined where rightfully we should be but I haven’t found the right spot because you have to have the correct location — we would love to open a branch in Calcutta.”

CALCUTTA REVISITED

I feel I must ask Dilip about Mamata’s ambition to turn Calcutta into London — I am talking to Dilip in his North London office in Golders Green, not far from the affluent “village” of Hampstead.

It is a subject to which he warms. “By birth I am Gujarati but I also speak Bengali all the time — my hometown is Calcutta. If I had to relive everything it would be exactly the same. Calcutta is a very proud place because of the culture of the society. The work ethic has gone down in Calcutta, why I don’t know. In the 1960s when I grew up, Calcutta Stock Exchange was the stock exchange. Calcutta was the commercial centre of India. Then all the changes took place.”

He goes on: “Calcutta has more in common with European societies in terms of the preservation of art and culture than the other cities of India. The only other city in India which would come close to Calcutta is Ahmedabad. That is why the maximum number of Tagore schools outside Bengal is in Gujarat.”

Pippa on the cover of Tatler

And his recipe for reviving Calcutta? “First thing, I would love to see in Calcutta is a sense of pride instilled — eta aamar shohor, eta aamar jayga (this is my city, my place) — and cleanliness plus basic work ethics. Work ethics is a big thing. Nothing good can come without work ethics. But work ethics in India are generally so much better than what I am seeing here in England — it’s unbelievable.”

“Calcutta has many heritage buildings, heritage properties, they could look after them,” he suggests. “Calcutta was a city of bagaan (gardens). They could revive them. Calcutta Maidan was where I learnt my cricket. There was no wicket as such — we used to look for a little barren patch and put up the stumps. I was seven or eight when I started playing — I loved bowling all the time, all the time. I never played with a rubber ball. In fact, my dad never encouraged me to play with a rubber ball. I always played with a proper cricket ball. Even in my house in Calcutta, even if we played on the verandah, it would be with a cricket ball.”

Those who know Dilip say that, like Pippa, he has become a brand. It would not be so farfetched to put him on the cover of GQ.