New Delhi, March 1 -- Reading Mahatma Gandhi's remarkable ideas about wealth and trusteeship against the backdrop of the in-your-face opulent "pre-wedding" revelries of the Ambani scion Anant and his fiance Radhika Merchant is a striking experience.

Just bear this one fact in mind-four men alone, namely the host Mukesh Ambani, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim have between them a combined worth of $535 billion at $112 billion, $148 billion, $170 billion, $105 billion respectively. This is not counting other relatively poor billionaires and multi-millionaires in attendance.

It is true that each of these billionaires and even others who might be in attendance have made massive ph...