Magic realism: A British Airways plane on Westminster Bridge

Hopes for a perfect landing in Calcutta

Here’s an idea for a TV advertising campaign aimed at encouraging people in Calcutta not to leave the city during the Indian Premier League but stay at home to give the Kolkata Knight Riders “home advantage”.

Imagine an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner rolling out of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport and then rolling down VIP Road, through Patipukur, around Shyambazar, along Central Avenue and Chowringhee and coming to a stop inside the Eden Gardens where passengers disembark to the roar of a packed stadium.

Then the words appear on the TV screen: “Don’t Fly. Support KKR.”

Alas, this idea of mine is not original.

I have pinched it from a television campaign for British Airways (BA), the “official airline partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games”, devised by the ad agency, BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty).

After gliding out of Heathrow, we see the BA jet (with a woman pilot in command) roll through Trafalgar Square and over Westminster Bridge, pass a milk float and a cyclist and such landmarks as Big Ben and come to a stop inside a packed Olympic stadium.

As the passengers disembark, the end line appears: “Don’t Fly. Support Team GB and Paralympics GB.”

Is this is the cleverest ad in the world?

In the online version of the advert on the British Airways Facebook page, users can input their postcode and watch the aircraft taxi down their street. I confess I have made the plane go past my home — and those of my friends — again and again.

I think people in Calcutta could also have endless fun if they could make the Air India plane taxi past Belgachia Villa Milk Colony, through Dattabagan Mor, along Prafulla Sarkar Street and Shoppers’ Stop and halt outside Oh! Calcutta for those who might be feeling a bit peckish.

British Airways has done lots of good deeds this summer such as fly the Olympians and Paralympians, with their wheelchairs and equipment, to the Games. The airline currently operates 45 flights a week from Heathrow to five cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Mamata Banerjee’s chances of being re-elected depend on whether she can add Calcutta to that list.

huge canvas: Swaroop Mukerji painting Chapter Houseplay time: (From left) Anjana Saha, Anmol Hoon and Dana Royjest like that: Platform 13 at Stratford

London light

Calcutta artist Swaroop Mukerji, 61, says his priorities in life have changed radically since he survived cancer which, tragically, proved fatal for his wife, as it did for a close friend, whose wife was successfully treated for the disease.

“It is human relationships which really matter,” says Swaroop, who is in London to paint a series of monuments suggested by English Heritage.

Swaroop, who is enjoying himself “thoroughly”, started with Apsley House, with its remarkable address — Number One London — which was the residence of the Duke of Wellington who vanquished Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. It has a nude statue of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker by the Italian sculptor, Antonio Canova, which Swaroop considers to be on a par with Michelangelo’s David.

It is odd that Wellington wanted to gaze on the man he had beaten in battle — “bit like Mamata installing a statue of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee,” laughs Swaroop.

I found the artist last week sitting among the first autumn leaves outside Westminster Abbey’s Chapter House as the weather grows chilly.

Swaroop, who was tinting the stained glass windows, had brought all his material from Calcutta where “you get everything” — special handmade paper (from a shop just off Maniktala Main Road) “which has that lovely texture that goes very well with old monuments”. Paints, too — Cotman from Winsor & Newton — have come from Calcutta.

Compared with the harsh light in India, he finds that in London “soft”. The architecture, though, reminds him of home, which is not surprising considering “Calcutta was the second city of the empire — but there is so much more here”.

huge canvas: Swaroop Mukerji painting Chapter Houseplay time: (From left) Anjana Saha, Anmol Hoon and Dana Royjest like that: Platform 13 at Stratford

Bard matters

All the world’s a stage, with a walk-in part for Calcutta, I am happy to report.

A year after she attended a Shakespeare workshop in Stratford-upon-Avon, Anjana Saha, vice-principal, Delhi Public School (DPS), New Town, Calcutta, has been briefly in London, to attend a three-day international conference, Worlds Together, aimed at “exploring the value of Shakespeare and the arts in young people’s lives”.

The conference, organised by the Royal Shakespeare Company and held at Tate Modern, a co-organiser, had a morning session, Why Shakespeare Matters, chaired by the excellent BBC presenter, George Alagiah (like me, he arrived even before Tate Modern’s doors had opened).

Anjana, who was accompanied by Anmol Hoon and Dana Roy, a pupil and a drama teacher respectively from DPS, found the conference “inspirational, invigorating and humbling” (as I think we all did).

“Adapting Shakespeare to suit the needs of our 9 to 17-year-olds so that they enjoy it and it reaches their bodies, hearts and minds is what I will try to do in my classes here,” she pledged.

“We teachers have the key to allow the children to see how the language and characters work so that it is engaging and they grow to love it,” she added.

Travel bar

Sadly, Swati Agarwal, a Jaipur girl and one of the eight finalists in the Indian Institute of Hotel Management’s “Young Chef India Schools 2012” — selected after heats in eight cities featuring over 1,400 schools across the nation — is not being allowed to come to London for the finals to be held at the University of West London on September 24.

The distinguished chef and organiser of the contest, Shaun Kenworthy, says: “Unfortunately, the girl has regretted that she will not be able to take part, owing to pressures from her extended orthodox family not agreeing to her travelling. So sad.”

There is no problem with the other four boys and three girls — Rohan Dev (Bangalore), Yashveer Ajay Singh (Pune), Saiesh Paigankar (Goa), Ishan Abraham (Delhi), Dikhsa Chowdhury (Guwahati), Aditi Chand (Ahmedabad), and Zainab Begum (Calcutta).

Kenworthy adds that Swati’s parents “are willing but the extended family are not! We’ve pleaded but nothing doing.”

Seems so cruel to deprive poor Swati of what could be a life changing trip.

British humour

huge canvas: Swaroop Mukerji painting Chapter Houseplay time: (From left) Anjana Saha, Anmol Hoon and Dana Royjest like that: Platform 13 at Stratford

A Martian landing at Stratford station in East London last Sunday might well have caught the Jubilee Line train from platform 13 thinking that was the way to get to Rio de Janeiro for the Olympic Games in 2016.

After 80,000 spectators left the stadium at midnight following the closing ceremony, the seething mass of humanity inched its way to Stratford to be greeted by a demonstration of the British sense of humour.

Some foreigners might have been baffled but most commuters were amused by the new hastily erected signs for “Rio de Janeiro” and by the announcement: “The train on platform 13 is for all stations to Stanmore via Rio de Janeiro.”

Tittle tattle

England have held off announcing the team for India this winter, which some see as a sign that Kevin Pietersen, in the doghouse for sending texts about Andrew Strauss to South African players, may be included in the team.

But texting is not the only issue. Pietersen will have to submit a grovelling apology over his loyalty to the IPL and pledge to play Test matches in May.