By Leslie Rajan 
TWO SECURITY DOGS ENTERED the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, accompanied by four bodyguards clearing a path. Four other guards followed Nita Ambani, who had arrived for a rehearsal ahead of the NMACC opening, scheduled for 31 March 2023. As she inspected the preparations, Nita occasionally flicked her fingers with a small wave. A member of her entourage knew each time what to bring her from a bar trolley: dim sums, thandai, green tea, water.
“We are not to move when she is coming,” a Reliance Industries Limited employee recounting the scene told me, in February this year. Nita—whose husband, Mukesh, owns RIL and is Asia’s richest man—was to perform a dance routine at the opening, and the award-winning Bollywood choreographer Vaibhavi Merchant was there to help her prepare. Some artisans were also present to set up stalls. They were affiliated to Swadesh, an initiative of the Reliance Foundation, which Nita chairs. Vaibhavi, whom the employee called Nita’s “personal choreographer,” told the artisans that they would get two minutes with Nita. As Nita went to each stall to shake hands, pose for photos and present cheques, they added, Vaibhavi followed, telling her “how to smile, now to fold hands, say namaste.”
On the NMACC’s website, Nita calls the multidisciplinary centre an “ode to our nation” that will hopefully “nurture and inspire talent, bringing together communities from across India and the globe.” According to The Economist, the centre is rumoured to have cost as much as $1 billion to build. It is part of a vast commercial endeavour: the Jio World Centre, spread over seven hectares in the Bandra–Kurla Complex, a central business district of Mumbai with some of the highest real-estate rates in the world. Reliance Industries paid the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority Rs 4,005 crore, over several tranches in 2006–07, to lease the land for 80 years. The lease agreement mandated construction within four years, and the company eventually paid an additional premium of Rs 646 crore for the delay—which was partially caused by litigation brought by Mukesh’s brother Anil, who had also bid for the project, over discrepancies in the allocation process.