Lost Sheen

The Nirav Modi I met five years ago was a talented diamantaire with a sharp business acumen

- Vandana

There is one striking similarity between Edmond Dantes, the protagonist of the 1844 French classic The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, and Nirav Modi. Both of them know how to manipulate greed. While Dantes bribed Caderousse with diamond to bring out the truth, Modi must have bribed Shetty and his ilk with diamonds and more for the heist he was planning. Modi said he was reading The Count of Monte Cristo when I met him a few years ago.

I met Modi for a late afternoon appointment at his office, after two other meetings and an exhausting battle with Mumbai traffic. But, as they say, art is magical. His office, adorned with some fine paintings and a pleasing décor, energised me. The art collection was spectacular—from Amrita Sher-Gil to F.N. Souza and Jitish Kallat. I discovered that he was the proud owner of Sher-Gil’s ‘Boy with Lemons’, and was told that his sea-facing house in Worli had an equal number of stunning pieces of art. A person who knew about Modi’s collection told me it was worth more than ₹200 crore.