TUNED IN: Mick Taylor

An Englishman’s Calcutta homecoming

The sitar player, a Bengali quite well known in Delhi, who once told Mick Taylor that a non-Indian could never really learn to play the instrument just might moderate his prejudices after attending the Englishman’s recitals in India in September.

The Indian Council for Cultural Relations has invited Mick to play at the Rabindranath Tagore Centre in Calcutta on September 23, preceded by a recital at the Kamani Auditorium in Delhi and followed by the final one in Jaipur.

Mick, who will be accompanied by Ustad Akram Khan on tabla, believes “this is the first time that the ICCR has invited a musician from the UK to perform Indian classical music on the sitar”.

The Asian Music Circuit in London, headed by Viram Jasani, himself a sitar player, is helping with Mick’s air fare.

Mick is pondering what to play in Calcutta, whose audiences he considers the most discriminating in India.

“After rehearsing something for weeks, I will often change my mind just before I go on stage,” says Mick, whose greatest supporter is his wife of 33 years, Kathak dancer Alpana Sengupta.

Three years ago, the couple shifted from Hounslow in west London to a home set in two acres in the Cambridgeshire countryside. Grandparents now, Mick and Alpana look forward to visits by their son, Arun, his wife, Lucy, and grandchildren Anouk and Cassidy.

Mick completes the portrait of a rural idyll: “I can see a hedgehog from my window, there is a pheasant and a blackbird I feed by hand.”

Home from home

That Mukesh Ambani apparently does not have a London home surprises the UK property developer Anil Varma.

If the Reliance tycoon is considering buying something, Varma feels he has just the right place.

The Mansion, an ultra modern residence in Highgate, north London, which Varma has put on the market for £29.5million, has just won the “Evening Standard Award for best exclusive new home”.

Varma’s wife, Welsh-born Marisa, has done the interior decorating, largely in cream and other soft pastel colours.

“I have had offers from a Nigerian, a Qatari and from the Saudi Royal family,” says Varma.

It so happens there is scope to build a connecting passageway between The Mansion and The Villa, Varma’s adjoining property which is on the market for £18.95m, should Mukesh and his brother, Anil, manage to sort out their differences.

A tip for those planning to book cheap flights with British Airways. My nephew found his return flight last week from Heathrow London to Narita Tokyo was cancelled without warning by BA and had to shell out £530 to buy a new ticket.

He lives in Tokyo, is a musician and had booked a cheap return to London, with London-Berlin-London thrown in free as part of the deal. Finding himself in Frankfurt after a gig, he asked whether he could reroute the Berlin-London leg and was told that he needed to buy a new ticket — which he did on BA from Frankfurt.

But BA then promptly cancelled the London-Tokyo return as punishment.

A friend who advises the board of BA tells me: “It’s a racket.”

Brit bond: Rajive Kaul shows off his Imperial College tie

Ties that bind

Cambridge University is not the only British educational institution strengthening bonds with India in general and Calcutta in particular.

When a delegation from the Confederation Indian Industry arrived for a conference in London last week, I noticed Rajive Kaul, a former CII president and Calcutta-based chairman of the Nicco Corporation, wearing a tie with an impressive crest.

“I am president of the Imperial College Alumni Association of India — that’s why I am wearing the Imperial tie,” said a proud Rajive, stressing his very positive bond with the UK. “I graduated from Imperial College in May 1971 in metallurgical engineering.”

The Calcutta alumni “meet once a month over tea at the Bengal Rowing Club,” he added. “There are 1,000 Imperial College graduates in India.”

Imperial College’s Rector, Prof Sir Roy Anderson, “is planning a trip to India in a month or two,” disclosed Rajive.

At the evening reception, in an attempt to bathe in reflected glory, I mention to Rajive’s wife, Manjari, that I had nearly gone to Imperial.

Imperial was only for clever people, she hinted. “There are a lot of people who nearly went to Imperial.”

Our songs, there: The Royal Opera House; (below) Pakeezah

Madame Butterfly meets Bollywood

Much loved Bollywood song and dance routines, such as Chalte Chalte from Pakeezah, will be performed live at the Linbury Studio Theatre in the Royal Opera House on July 13.

But this is not the end of the western civilisation as we know it — quite the reverse, I am assured.

The Bollywood items will be part of a symposium which will discuss dance in Indian cinema. Frame by Frame: the Dance of Indian Cinema is the brainchild of Mira Kaushik, director of Akademi who has been honoured with an OBE for promoting classical South Asian dance in Britain over the past 30 years.

The Royal Opera House, which is home to three world class companies — The Royal Ballet, The Royal Opera and The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House — is trying to widen its global reach.

Elizabeth Bell, its head of corporate communications, outlines the ambitious plans to take opera to India. “Each year, almost 700,000 people attend performances in the Opera House itself, whilst many more experience our performances on BBC radio and television, at the free BP Summer Big Screens around the country, or at cinemas across the world from Alaska to Australia.”

She adds: “Hopefully these cinema screenings will be available in India in the future.”

Unsung hero

BBC Panorama’s much talked about documentary, The Battle of Swat Valley, with John Sweeney as the frontline reporter who has gone where other correspondents have feared to tread, is justly winning much praise. He seeks to explain how the Pakistan army is battling the Taliban, a monster of its own creation.

But the unsung hero who made access possible is the producer, my old friend, Ahmed (“Allu”) Jamal, who has directed many documentaries, including a few where he was misguided enough to let me write the script (The Journalist and the Jihadi, Dead Man Talking etc).

“It was dangerous,” admits Allu. “As a British crew in Pakistan with John Sweeney and Angie Mason with us, we had to be careful. We were advised to keep changing our accommodation every three or four days which we did and strictly told to avoid big five star hotels. That’s the reality on the ground.”

Tittle tattle

It’s always the way — Indians who don’t play for India are doing well.

Vikram Solanki, the Worcestershire captain, is a strong contender for the £5,000 Walter Lawrence Trophy, awarded for the fastest hundred of the season, after his 47-ball century, with 14 fours and 2 sixes, in the Twenty20 match against Glamorgan on Wednesday last week.

Meanwhile, Anand Ashok, who hit 164 not out for Cambridge against Oxford at Fenner’s last week, is in the running for a similar trophy, worth £1,000, for the highest score by a batsman from one of the six MCC recognised universities.

I know it’s out of term but shouldn’t he be revising for his exams next year?