An M.F. Husain, a Louis Vuitton bag or even your wedding guests. If you want to create a stir, all you need to do is to pay the rent
During their courtship, Vijay Ludhrani, 31, a businessman based in Pune, realised his fiancé Akshita had a thing for cars. On their wedding day, he surprised her by driving her to their new home in a sparkling, chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz. “Of course, she knew I couldn’t afford to own one and that it was rented,” says Ludhrani. “But I didn’t want to wait forever to experience it. God knows when I’ll be able to buy one,” he says. Ludhrani hired the Benz from www.rentbazaar.com for Rs 6,000 per day.

The website offers many luxury cars like the BMW, several Benzes and a limousine for rent. “You’ll find Indians don’t rent home appliances or garments. But luxury items are in demand because people occasionally want to indulge or make a statement even if they can’t afford it,” says Suroji Nandi, promoter of Rent Bazaar. His limos are regularly used in Pune for weddings or business purposes. For example, Prashant Phadtare, 33, with business interests in real estate and infrastructure, hired an Audi Q7 to drive to the airport and pick up a potential investor from the UAE. He paid Rs 20,000 for the car for eight hours.

Image, clearly, is everything. As television and tabloids bombard us with images of fairytale lifestyles of the rich, it’s hardly surprising that some of us get impatient to get into that league. And if you can’t wait till you make it big, you can live the unattainable life, at a fraction of the cost. Whether it’s a ride in a flashy car or a private jet that flies you to your holiday destination, or simply the right handbag that you can carry to a party, it’s up for hire in India.

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