I Blended My Experiences To Set Up Rumi, Says PVR Inox's Gautam Dutta

It was nice to see a vivid side of Gautam Dutta, Co-CEO of PVR Inox on a bright, warm and fuzzy winter afternoon accompanied by his family, additionally as the owner of Rumi Farms. Set in the tranquil surroundings near Sohna, Gurugram, Rumi Farms recently opened its doors to guests to indulge in a lavish farm stay, ensuring an unmatched getaway from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Situated on a sprawling 1.2-acre farm against the picturesque landscape, Rumi Farms has been designed by Suparna Bhalla, Principal Architect of Abaxial, and serves as the perfect weekend retreat, offering contemporary amenities and a plethora of wellness facilities for leisure seekers.

In an exclusive tete-a-tete with Everything Experiential, Gautam Dutta, Co-CEO of PVR Inox and owner of Rumi Farms discusses creating memorable customer experiences at Rumi, how he wishes to keep it far away from the recent mounting buzz of AI and technology, and more.

Edited excerpts:

How can Rumi Farms leverage experiential marketing to create a unique and memorable customer experience, ensuring guests not only enjoy their stay but also have lasting impressions and positive memories that they take back with them?

The way this market works, it is not so much about saying. As a traveller, I think what is most important is to be able to delight and surprise. It’s always about asking - can we go two notches higher than what the consumer expects?

You may find it slightly strange, but when we were getting the photography done, we had the option of getting a top-notch photographer to clip these pictures, and I did not want that. I did not want the pictures to look better than the place. Because wherever we've travelled around the world and stayed in Airbnb’s, I just felt that the consumer discounts the picture by about 50 per cent - that saying what I'm seeing, if I get half of what it's going to be there, it'll be a great place. Whereas everyone who's come and flavoured and tasted this place has just gone back and said, why don't you get this place re-photographed? Because it looks so much better than what you show. And I think that, to begin with, is a unique factor. We wanted that to happen, we wanted people to feel that.

All the facilities are there. But then you begin by delighting and surprising. We can curate a lot of experiences. Even little things like sleeping on the terrace are something that we can organise for you. We've got manjis and we've got this local lady here - she stays in Sohna, who will come with her little choolah made of mitti to make sarson ka saag and bajre ka roti, and all of that.

Now, these are all experiences that can easily happen. We do this virtually every day, from functions to music, a lot of books, stocked up fridge. From chocolates to eggs to milk to butter to bread to cake, everything is here. Even with a couple of pints of beer, they just feel wow, this is so good. This doesn't cost much, but the kind of impression it leaves behind is fabulous. So people just go back feeling, this is so nice. The caretakers that we've kept here, again, have been trained to go two steps ahead to be able to give a great, unique experience.

There’s a lot of talk about AI and technology. Are you looking at using AI in any way to enhance the overall guest experience at Rumi?

I think this is not about AI at all. This is all about getting back to nature. We want people to disconnect – we haven’t even kept wifi and we don't want people to be connected.

When you step out of this farm, you get into AI. But when you get into Rumi, this is about taking you back 20-30-40 years back. So this is not about AI. And we don't intend to use AI for any kind of marketing. We just want to use very genuine consumer feedback and word of mouth to experience the place.

We've opened this place in the bare form it is. Even when you will come, you will see it exactly this.

We've used Kota Stone, so no AI space at all. Like in cinemas, they say you enter the doors of fantasy. This is about entering the door of reality, closer to nature. Nothing to do with AI.

You mentioned about the concept of Sufism for Rumi. What exactly is the concept behind this entire experience?

Normally, a space gets made and then you try giving it a name. And that happens towards the end – about what should be the name mentioned at the entrance gate. But here, it was completely the opposite. Before we laid a brick, we decided on the name. And because we decided that name, we knew that it needed to look a certain way. All these stones are stones that we got from this land which were kind of landscaped, chiselled and then put into place.

So Rumi, to my mind, I don't know what it meant. I just know of Rumi - of these beautiful, very soul-touching quotes. And that's how we know of him. That's how he was - very connected to the basics. And we wanted this place to be extremely basic - very bare, but a blend between modernity, comfort and creativity. And these are two professions I've been in. I've been in advertising, which has been creative. And I've been with PVR, which is all about being modern and very comfortable. So I blended both my experiences.

Creativity, comfort and modernity. So that's what we got, but using very basic material. We had decided that whatever material we found within 20 km of the radius of Rumi, we would stick to that material. We are not going anywhere further than that.

We know a lot of retreats and Airbnb’s have been set up for quite a while. What is Rumi’s differentiating factor, which you think would draw customers to this place?

The sincerity, the basicness and the modernity in the most basic form look so beautiful.

I have never used Kota as a stone. It's supposed to be the back office stone, but Suparna has used it in the living room at Rumi and it looks awesome. So I think how she's blended very basic, simple Indian ingredients to give you a wow feel - that is still on infrastructure.

But the soul of the place comes in through these little curated corners that we create through creativity. And I think that, to my mind, is the quirkiness of Rumi. That every corner gives you a little surprise. Every corner has a little story. You can't just walk into this house and just keep walking straight. You will stop, you'll bend, you'll watch, you'll say, hey, the lamp is different. These are not just bought offline. I have a very weird manner in that when we travel all over the world, I don't go to any malls. I don't go to do any fancy shopping there. I only go to their flea market. So it’s all kind of junk and scrap stuff that I have brought and assimilated in this place. From gramophones to sculptures from Switzerland. Even if that meant being there at 4 am, I would go there to pick it up.

Now, I have trained my daughter too - she's in Amsterdam. She picks up all this quirky stuff. So that's really what we intend to do. And I think this surprise, you may like it, but try creating the space wherever you live, you'll realise that you won't be able to do it. And that's the key thing.

You can't get the urli that I've got, you can't get the frog. He came with me in the business class seat from Amsterdam - I bought this from a flea market for just €700. But because of its shape and size, it took me two years to export it from Amsterdam to Delhi because it could only be got with me in the business class. So that's the experience that Rumi gives you.