Painting gardens from Monet to Matisse

The Royal Academy in London is holding an exhibition called Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse. In all, there are 120 paintings of flower-filled gardens, including 35 by Claude Monet alongside works by Pierre Bonnard, Emil Nolde, Gustav Klimt, Wassily Kandinsky, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, Max Liebermann, Joaquin Sorolla, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Matisse.

This exhibition, which runs until April 20 in case visitors from India have a spare hour or two, is the most magical I have seen.

Now that the French President, Francois Hollande, has been orange juiced and dined at our Republic Day celebrations, one can only hope such exhibitions will be sent to India as part of bilateral cultural exchanges. It takes a lot of money to put together such a wondrous show - and it has come from the global investment company BNY Mellon.

The exhibition is spread in large rooms with broad themes such as Monet's Early Years in Giverny, where there are several examples of the waterlilies he kept painting again and again. The darker hues in another room, Monet's Later Years at Giverny, reflect his sombre mood following Germany's aggression in World War I.

There is a quote from Monet inscribed on a wall: "I perhaps owe it to flowers that I became a painter."

Monet created a floral paradise at Giverny, his rural retreat 50 miles northwest of Paris where he spent the years 1883 until his death in 1926.

Another hall brings together for the first time a triptych, with the huge panels depicting waterlilies borrowed from three separate museums in the US.

Memory is a funny thing but the way the impressionists have captured the Mediterranean light falling on the blossoms takes me back to the winter gardens of my childhood days in Patna.

This is an exhibition which exudes happiness above all.

Sheila's story

Sheila Mukherjee, the headteacher whose death at the age of 92 was reported last week, was a lady of exceptional grace. With her disappears a fair bit of the chequered history of Lord Sinha's family - but she entrusted some sensitive aspects to me to be revealed after she was gone.

Twice she had invited me home for lunch and once I met her when she had come to London on holiday. I did take exhaustive notes and photographs as well and she gave me some contacts in Raipur when I went to see the evocative ruins of the family seat.

She revealed that Lolita Das was her young daughter from an earlier marriage. She said she had asked her brother Anindo, with whom I had become friends in London, to "look after" Lolita while she was away from Calcutta on a trip to Jamshedpur (I think).

"I returned to find my brother had raped my daughter," said Sheila.

Seeing my shock, she repeated what she had said. Remarkably, Sheila's tone was more indulgent than angry. The crisis ended with Anindo (called Jojo by his colleagues in England) marrying Lolita in 1965. Their first child, Arup Kumar Sinha, was born on April 23, 1966.

I met Anindo in London when he was separated from Lolita but on good terms with her (he painted her garden fence, for example). He appeared to weaken when I tried to persuade him to take his seat in the House of Lords. But one day Lolita called and said: "I am afraid I have some bad news for you."

After Anindo's death on January 18, 1999, at the age of 68, his son, Arup, who appeared resentful of his father, became the heir but I could not persuade him to take the "Baron Sinha of Raipur" hereditary title either.

The reference books in England confirm that Anindo Kumar Sinha (born May 18, 1930) "married Lolita Das, daughter of Deb Kumar Das, in 1965".

Arup, a software engineer, told me he had had a short-lived but unhappy marriage to a working-class English girl. Although Arup does not acknowledge this, their son is the heir after his father to the Sinha title.

In Sheila's Calcutta apartment, she proudly showed me the blue cushions with royal insignia on which her parents (Arun Kumar Sinha, 2nd Baron Sinha, and Nirupama Chatterjee) had sat while attending the Queen's coronation on June 2, 1953.

Beyond beautiful

Prince Charles appeared to have eyes only for Neelam Gill last week when the Indian-origin model attended a fundraising dinner for the British Asian Trust at the Natural History Museum in London.

Although the film director Gurinder Chadha, 56, and the singer Leona Lewis, 30, were in the same line-up vying for royal attention, Charles, 67, clearly found 20-year-old Neelam easier on the eye.

Gurinder was gracious enough to call Neelam a "stunner" in a tweet.

Also last week, Neelam attended the London premiere of Zoolander 2 at the Odeon in Leicester Square when she was described as "beyond beautiful".

Neelam, who was born and brought up in a Sikh family in Coventry, has certainly gone places since I first wrote a "who's that girl?" piece about her in August last year.

All she now has to do is learn to mime Hindi dialogue.

India returned

Some relatives of mine by marriage have returned to Calcutta from a three-month stay in London convinced England is paradise on earth.

The compliment is returned by seven high-profile British pensioners whose experiences in India are currently being shown in a sympathetic BBC TV series, The Real Marigold Hotel.

The documentary has been inspired by the film, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), starring the Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, and its sequel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015).

The seven - actress Miriam Margolyes, dancer Wayne Sleep, actor Sylvester McCoy, comedian Roy Walker, chef Rosemary Shrager, darts champion Bobby George, singer Patti Boulaye and former news reader Jan Leeming - pondered whether they could retire to India.

Indian tourism authorities should now prepare for an invasion by British pensioners.

Margolyes, 74, Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, summed up: "I can never have enough of India. I long to return."

Sasthi Brata

From time to time, friends in Calcutta ask me: "Do you have news of Sasthi Brata?"

I had to admit I didn't - until now.

Sasthi, who first attracted attention in 1968 with his autobiography, My God Died Young , died about 18 months ago in the Highgate area of North London, aged about 75.

I have this from an actor, Neil Titley, who does a one-man Oscar Wilde show. He spoke quite affectionately about Sasthi who apparently fell out with a business partner with whom he engaged in a ruinous court battle.

I may have more by and by.