A Bollywood poster at Trafalgar Square

London, Aug. 17: Nelson turned a blind eye today to the funny goings on in Trafalgar Square where a group of five artists from Mumbai were enjoying themselves painting a typical Bollywood poster on to a 15 metre by 12 metre canvas.

The artists are in London as part of mayor Ken Livingstone’s India Now festival aimed at bringing the rich tapestry of Indian culture to the British capital at the height of the summer tourist season.

Livingstone said: “Throughout the summer, London is proud to be hosting India Now, a citywide season celebrating the riches of this diverse culture. The sixth Trafalgar Square Festival is very much a highlight and guarantees to be nothing short of spectacular, celebrating Indian culture through dance, theatre, music and visual art.”

India Now will see over 200 cultural organisations contribute to the season, including a selection of London’s most well-known museums and galleries such as the British Museum and V&A. Over 1,500 events will take place during India Now, with well over one million Londoners expected to participate in the season.

The Bollywood painters, among the most experienced in the business, paint in periods of 40 minutes with acrylic, which is easier to work with than oil in British conditions, and then wait for an hour to allow the paint to dry before resuming their endeavours.

The whole exercise has been named Namastey Trafalgar Square.

They began yesterday, carried on today surrounded by a large throng of admirers from all corners of the globe, will carry on tomorrow and finish their masterpiece on Sunday. All this is going on at the foot of Nelson’s column.

One of the painters, Sushant Sandal — his father, Suresh Sandal, who has his own studio in Mumbai, is the leader — told The Telegraph: “I am very happy to be in London as part of India Now, promoting the culture of India.”

The other three painters are Satyayya Devsani, Alam Choudhary and Santosh More.

Though the image being painted in London is “a generic image”, the five are between them veterans of many well-known Hindi films.

Sushant said: “We have done so many YashRaj films. We have done Dil To Pagal Hai. In the past we have done Tapasya, Namak Halaal, Virasat and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.”

He lamented the fact that painting giant Indian film posters is something of a dying art. “My father has been doing it for 40 years. Now they tend to be digitised which is also a lot cheaper.”