Sushma's multiplier effect for Wembley

Here's hoping that the Indian government spokesman and Slumdog Millionaire (Q&A , actually) author Vikas Swarup will have time for a cup of tea with an old friend when he comes to London with Narendra Modi.

The British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, briefed Indian journalists about the areas where Britain wants to do more business with India - Hawk trainer aircraft, the civil nuclear programme ("we are pulling out all the stops"), the desire of Rolls-Royce to integrate Indian engineers into "its global design and development operation" and the City of London's financial services.

"We have a very strong and growing security collaboration with India working together on counter-terrorism intelligence in particular," he also said. "That collaboration has undoubtedly already saved both Indian and British lives."

He made a fair point: "People are always asking me, 'What about China? How does the relationship with China compare?' The bilateral relationship we have with India is different from the bilateral relationship with any other country because of the huge Indian population in the UK. That gives it a completely different character."

Hammond seemed keen to know more about Modi's Wembley Stadium rally on Friday when 60,000 people are expected. Some 450 "UKWelcomesModi" community groups have been issuing the invitations to the "ticket only" function which will cost £2 million. Businessmen and companies have donated anything from £25,000 to £1,50,000.

Modi's "will be a spectacular visit in visual terms, largely because of this huge diaspora event which I am sure will provide iconic images," enthused Hammond.

He recalled a visit by external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj in October last year to launch a regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.

"When Mrs Swaraj came here she took me with her to an event that she did at the Queen Elizabeth Centre - I don't know what she was saying to them (as) she was speaking in Hindi - (but) by God she got them moving," he remembered.

"She had the whole audience - (there were) about 2,000 people in there - in the palm of her hand: now we have to multiply that by 40 to imagine what it is going to be like in Wembley," he marvelled.

"Multiply by 100," someone shouted.

I was there among 700 people. I don't want to be pedantic but that makes the multiplier effect 85.714285.

High Noon

The former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, attended a "celebration" of the life of "curry king" Lord Gulam Noon.

Blair said Noon "will continue to be an inspiration even after his passing". Another former prime minister, Sir John Major, a Tory, sent a condolence message.

Committee Room 14 was packed last Thursday with members of the Commons and the Lords at the event which was organised by Labour MP Keith Vaz.

The Speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, was present, too, on the platform alongside members of Noon's family - his wife, Lady Mohini Noon, daughters Zeenat and Zarmin, sons-in-law Arun Harnal and Manraj Sekhon respectively and granddaughter Natania.

Lok and Rajya Sabha members can learn something from the civilised debates in the House of Lords, which Noon had much enjoyed after being elevated to the peerage in 2011.

Lady Noon quoted from her husband's maiden speech on May 12, 2011: "In our democracy, we have the freedom to speak up, to comment and to criticise. There is room for every shade of expression."

She recalled her husband had helped her stage a play on the great Sufi mystic Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi whose poem had struck a chord with Noon: "When you leave me/ In the grave/ Don't say goodbye... It seems like a sunset/ But in reality it is a dawn/ When the grave locks you up/ That is when your soul is freed."

Art reflections

This is the plot of a play, The Glass Office , which was put on last week by Aks, an amateur drama group in London, run by a bunch of young professionals who all come from India and now work in such fields as banking, finance and IT.

This "edgy comedy about the joys of office politics" has been inspired by The Interview , written by one Siddharth Kumar in India.

A well-qualified young candidate, who is seeking a management job in a top firm, is being interviewed by his would-be boss. The latter tells the candidate he can have the job on one condition. He has to demonstrate his management skills by getting rid of the sexy secretary with whom the boss admits he has been having an affair but now wishes to move on to pastures new. Only, the boss does not want his secretary to make a fuss or ring his wife.

Neha Jain, who "grew up between Delhi and Mumbai" and came to Britain nine years ago, is the creative director of Aks and also plays the secretary in a tight sin red skirt.

She was a 26-year-old back in 2006 when I saw the first play put on by Aks - Mahesh Dattani's 30 Days in September about incest in a typical middle-class Delhi family.

Aks has put on no fewer than 11 plays. Having seen the first and the last, I can say the acting is remarkably impressive.

Neha, who finds theatre both "addictive" and a "passion", tells me: "We take about three to four months to cast and conceptualise each production. Rehearsals are typically three times a week, in the evenings and weekends."

She and her friends haven't yet given up their day jobs but I wouldn't be surprised if one day they do.

Of pots and pans 

Next time you are in an Indian market and see bartan - pots, pans, lotas, thalis and other utensils - all piled up, higgledy-piggledy, do tell the shop owner he is in serious danger of being labelled a conceptual artist by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Patna-boy Subodh Gupta has a major new V&A-sponsored installation, When Soak Becomes Spill, outside the museum at the junction of Cromwell and Exhibition roads.

This work by "one of India's most successful contemporary artists" consists of "a stainless steel bucket standing six metres high and overflowing with hundreds of pots, pans, containers and cooking implements", the V&A explains.

The museum's director Martin Roth, says this "really exciting" work is "one of the highlights of the V&A's India Festival" this year.

Pak vs Pak

This morning's scholarship question is: why do British Pakistanis (e.g. Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid) underperform against Pakistani Pakistanis when they play cricket?

The winner gets a copy of Imran Khan's book, Pakistan: A (Very, Very) Personal History, autographed by dismissed wife, Reham Khan. The runner-up receives two copies.

Tittle tattle

Rupert Murdoch, Australian-born executive chairman of News Corp and executive co-chairman of 21st Century Fox, is in pole position to win the 2015 "N.D. Tiwari Paramour Award".

Having dumped three wives - Patricia Booker, once a flight attendant (1956-1967); Anna Maria Torv, a Scottish-born journalist (1967-1999); and Tony Blair's special friend, Wendi Deng (1999-2013), a former TV executive - Murdoch is now dating Mick Jagger's ex, 59-year-old, 6ft tall Texan former model, Jerry Hall.

Baffled folk have been asking Murdoch's new girlfriend: "So Jerry, what on earth do you see in an 84-year-old multi-billionaire?"