Spinner of tales
For some reason, Indians have always warmed to PG Wodehouse’s two most famous creations — Bertie Wooster, who is well off but unfamiliar with the concept of work, and Jeeves, his gentlemens’ gentleman. Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse was born on October 15, 1881 and died on February 14, 1975. To mark the 50th anniversary of his passing, the PG Wodehouse Society invited the Indian High Commissioner, Vikram Doraiswami, last week to give a talk. When Doraiswami made his debut at the society in 2023, he claimed Jeeves was a “disguised Indian”.
Doraiswami, a Wodehouse fan “since the age of 12, when I picked up my mum’s copy of Summer Lightning”, said: “Growing up in India, I saw in this ability to stick with great discipline to his defined stylistic batting crease, but to innovate brilliantly within it, a similarity to Indian classical music. Here, too, the artist improvises within a set frame of chords and scales which we call raagas.
“But this theme is also visible, if in a less highbrow art form, in the gloriously exhilarating stew that is the Indian film Industry. Here, too, the core theme
is about boy meeting girl, boy losing girl, and boy getting girl again at the last reel, something that Wodehouse did to perfection time and again. No wonder then that Indians continue to lap up both Bollywood and Wodehouse, albeit not simultaneously, of course.”
He added: “The consummate skill with which Wodehouse could turn a sentence is better than anything that even the legendary Bishan Singh Bedi produced.”
Difficult life
Lord Swraj Paul, who celebrated his 94th birthday on February 18, 2025, tells me he hopes to make one more trip to Calcutta. He left the city in 1966 when his daughter, Ambika, was diagnosed with leukaemia to seek medical treatment in London. When she died aged four in 1968, Paul decided not to return to India but instead establish a steel business, Caparo, in the UK. He suffered a shattering blow in 2015 when his youngest son, Angad, whom he had appointed Caparo’s CEO, died in tragic circumstances at just 45. He suffered another great loss in 2022 when his wife, Aruna, passed away after 65 years of marriage.
Lord Swraj Paul
Swraj has done much to help build up a close relationship between the UK and India. He gave me a copy of his memoirs, in which I was deeply saddened to read of his “unease at the inquest into the death of my loved son, Angad. He was the brightest and most ambitious of my children and even though he was experiencing mental anguish in the weeks leading up to his demise, I still find it hard to believe he took his own life.”
Risky flight
The chairman of IndiGo, Pieter Elbers, has given an interview to the Financial Times , painting a glowing picture of how well his airline is doing, presumably in the hope of picking up extra business in the UK. “Coverage in India, when it comes to airports, is already very, very strong,” according to Elbers. “I think what’s important, actually, is to have bigger airports, better airports and more capacity.”To that, passengers from the UK would add better care of baggage and customer relations.
I noticed a PTI report in The Telegraph in which former Infosys CFO, TV Mohandas Pai, said “IndiGo treats its passengers badly”.IndiGo certainly ruined one holiday. One of my niece’s friends stayed with her in Calcutta over Christmas. IndiGo managed to lose her suitcase between Hyderabad and Goa. It contained “12 handloom sarees from West Bengal, Kerala, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu worth 40K. On the other side of the suitcase were Okhai dresses worth 10K, Maheshwari dresses worth 5K, regular wear kurta, salwar dupatta sets worth 15K. Inner wear 5K.” Spotting a vulnerable young woman, IndiGo fobbed her off with 5,000 rupees.
If that happened with a white British passenger, especially a woman, the tabloids would give Elbers a turbulent ride. Of course, all airlines lose suitcases but IndiGo’s cavalier attitude suggests it will fall afoul of the UK’s consumer protection laws.
Inside story
I have long thought of London as the capital of greater India. It is certainly the best place in the world for books of interest to Indians on everything from politics to economics, biographies, art and history. The one book that the political class is talking about is Ungovernable by Simon Hart. As chief whip when Rishi Sunak was prime minister, he had to keep badly behaved Tory MPs in line. For example, he had to rescue an MP from a brothel at 2.45 am.
After promoting a woman cabinet minister, Sunak said: “Let’s all agree about one thing. She is ****ing useless but we can’t get rid of her.” This is thought to be a reference to his business secretary and now Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch. She has boasted about stopping the UK-India Free Trade Agreement from being signed.