Considering everything happening in the country right now — the PM asking people to avoid buying gold, citizens being told to brace themselves like during Covid, the stock market falling, and the rupee weakening — Desi Bling, the Indian version of Dubai Bling (though still set in Dubai), arrives on Netflix almost like irony served piping hot on a silver… no, a gold platter.
The show follows the lives of Indians who arrived in Dubai with almost nothing in their pockets, only to eventually build staggering wealth for themselves as they rose alongside the city’s towering skyscrapers. At the centre of it all is billionaire couple Satish Sanpal and Tabinda Sanpal. On the show, Satish proudly reveals that he arrived in Dubai from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, with “just” one million dirham — roughly ₹2.6 crore — before finding massive success in the gold business. “I am the billionaire in Dubai,” he declares boastfully.
Now that Satish is living at the very top — quite literally inside the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa — he has decided to put his ultra-luxurious lifestyle on display through Desi Bling: a glittering view from the top, if you may. Let’s take a look.
Gold, gold and more gold
From the very first episode, Satish makes his priorities crystal clear — for him, money comes first, followed by his toddler daughter Isabella, and then his wife Tabinda Sanpal, fondly called Binda. Binda may not say it outright, but the way she passionately talks about the amount of gold she owns suggests her priorities may not be very different either.
While hosting TV couple Tejasswi Prakash and Karan Kundrra, Binda proudly boasts that she has already accumulated 40 kg of gold. “Can you believe it? Satish buys me 3 kg gold every year,” she says. What follows is a visual straight out of a luxury jewellery showroom — mannequins decked in heavy gold jewellery and extravagant accessories. Except, this isn’t a gold shop, but Binda’s personal locker room.
Gold cutlery, gold dress and a pink Rolls-Royce
The gold obsession doesn’t stop there. The couple also reveal that they bought gold cutlery for their daughter Isabella, who was born nine years after their marriage. And like any “normal” billionaire parents, they seem determined to surround her with luxury from day one.
On Isabella’s first birthday, Satish and Tabinda Sanpal had a dress and jacket made entirely out of 24-carat gold for her. As if that wasn’t extravagant enough, the couple also ordered a customised pink Rolls-Royce for their daughter, reportedly priced anywhere between ₹6.55 crore and ₹18.34 crore.
Foot massages, yacht parties and some unhinged behaviour
It’s isn’t just the couple’s uber show of wealth, their personal equation makes you uncomfortable almost immediately. One of the very first scenes shows Tabinda Sanpal massaging Satish Sanpal’s feet while he casually explains his belief that if a woman massages a man’s feet in the morning, it brings more Lakshmi into his life. And the discomfort only escalates from there. In another bizarre moment, Binda is seen cutting Satish’s nails while breaking down in tears and confronting him over suspicions of an affair. These moments leave one unsettled, making it clear that money cannot buy freedom from deeply patriarchal mindsets.
The show then swings from uncomfortable domesticity to over-the-top billionaire excess. Satish invites his “boys gang” onto his party yacht and proudly explains that he specifically bought it to party with his friends — away from women and responsibilities. “You can talk about things that you don’t talk about in front of your wives,” one of his friends says. This is followed by scenes of the men partying and dancing with female performers. The only thing missing was a Hindi film item number playing the background.
Who is Satish Sanpal?
With the show’s release, all eyes have been on Satish Sanpal. He is the chairman of ANAX Holding. As per Economic Times report, the conglomerate is valued at nearly $3 billion. In an interview with The National, the businessman revealed that he quit school in the eighth grade to start a grocery shop business. He was just 15 years old at the time. He had borrowed ₹50,000 from his mother for the venture, but the business eventually failed. This didn’t dampen his spirit and he then moved into stock market trading before relocating to Dubai and entering the gold business, where he eventually found massive success.