After a corporate career spanning over 30 years during which he held top positions in companies including Unilever, Murugappa Group, HCL Technologies and others, Ranjeet Bhargava, an IITian and bridge enthusiast, branched out into hospitality when he turned 58.
BeeAar Hospitality initially managed serviced apartments for selected corporate clients, growing to run 200 rooms across New Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai and other cities. A passionate bridge player since college, Bhargava had also taken a handful of cruise holidays in the Baltic, Mediterranean, in the United States, Mexico, etc, and decided that he would blend these two passions—cruise trips and the game of bridge.
In 2019, he led some of India’s top bridge players with accomplished players from the bridge fraternity in Pakistan and Dubai on a four-night bridge cruise through Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, India’s first bridge cruise. Fifty players spent the mornings playing bridge including in a tournament on board, while evenings were dedicated to families and entertainment.
“On the sailing days we held the tournament, with 12 to 16 tables, a server for scoring, the automated Bridgemate software, etc,” said Bhargava, who has planned another bridge cruise for December 2023. (A cruise planned for 2020 had to be cancelled owing to the pandemic.)
There were spaces on the cruise liner that were demarcated for the players only, and the players were surprised at the professional quality of the game management on board.
Ajai Mittal, former head of safety at Unilever India, an IITian and a bridge player based in Mumbai, said while the cruise was managed by the cruise company, the bridge part of the cruise was professionally managed with a tournament director, international class facilities including the technology required to maintain the highest standards in the game. “There were expert bridge players from India, Dubai, etc, many of them leading bridge players in their countries in their generation,” said Mittal. “There was time for people to do other things in the evenings.” It was a great experience for bridge enthusiasts, he said.
The upcoming 12-night bridge cruise will go from Mumbai to Colombo and then to Phuket, Penang and finally Singapore, and several Mumbaikars have signed up. The cruise will be operated by Celebrity, one of the world’s top cruise companies, and the ship will house spas, dining experiences, casinos and more.
“For the next one, we have bigger plans,” said Bhargava. “Hemant Lall, a top USA player, will be on the next cruise, and for another one in June we hope to include players looking to learn the finer points of the game and hone their bridge skills.”
