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The biggest boom in car sales in India has been —not in the entry level cars — as you would imagine, but in the premium luxury sector. In the next few months up to ten new brands of luxury cars are going to be sold in India, including Porsche, Audi and BMW.

And contrary to what you think, not all of it is being consumed in the big metros. Chandigarh and Coimbatore have recorded brisk sales for Mercedes Benz and are among the country’s biggest buyers of the German legend.

Talking to the Rolls Royce people recently, I was not too surprised to learn that they had met their yearly target in the first couple of months on opening shop. No, what surprised me was the age factor involved: it seems a substantial amount of Rolls were sold to the 28-38 brackets!

“The 20-something’s are buying them for their parents as thank-you gifts!” My friend ad-man and media wiz Ashok Kurien said to me. “In India we have this concept of gratitude — even if the young Rolls seekers are chairman of their companies — it’s most likely to be daddy’s company. So, this is their way of repaying the generosity.”

I see his point. A few years ago, I was witness to the wedding anniversary celebrations of a couple I have known for long.

Part of the celebrations took place in Bangkok where they had flown thirty of us down for a weekend, along with chefs, champagne and caviar. The second part of the festivities took place at a five star hotel in Mumbai, where at the end of the party, the couple was presented with a spanking new Porsche by their 20-something son.

The world where cars are presented as thank- you gifts is not really that remote you know. But back to Rolls Royce’s tryst with India. To begin with there is nothing new about it.

Between the Maharajah of Patiala and Rajneesh, they mostly cornered the market. At one time there were 99 Rolls parked at the KoregaonPark ashram in Pune. I was one of those who had the privilege of watching the Bhagwan glide in softly, softly in his Phantom. To this day, I am not sure if the reverence evoked by the spectacle was for the car or the guru.

Meanwhile, the Rolls Royce people are tightlipped about their customers, but say there is a Bollywood actor who’s indeed bought one of their models. So, who’s going to be the first Bollywood star to get himself a Rolls? My bet is on SRK. He seems to have a sense of humour about his larger-than-life persona — palatial bungalow, designer suits, star quotes — the whole nine yards. Shah Rukh behind the wheels of that magnificent machine is glamour on wheels.

Come to think of it the thought of Bollywood — ersatz and energetic and Rolls Royce sophisticated and solemn —has an interesting contradiction to it. But nothing as contradictory as selling Rolls Royces from a shopping mall. Kind of sums up the new India, doesn’t it?

s_malavika@dnaindia.net