Long before Yana Gupta injected some blood-red oomph into flight safety demos at Kingfisher, and before Indigo stewardesses in their Pan Am vintage look taught India a lesson or two in ‘6E’ efficiency, the original mascot of Indian aviation was a portly, whiskered gentleman in a turban.
Created by Umesh Rao, an artist at the ad agency JWT, in consultation with Air India’s then commercial director Bobby Kooka, the Maharaja made multiple generations not just in India but around the world dream of the glamorous travel aboard the ‘palace in the sky. It made Air India the epitome of Indian hospitality and world-class excellence.
The exuberance amid India’s chattering classes over the government confirming the sell-off of the beleaguered national carrier to Tata Sons stems a lot from this nostalgia. And the weight of expectations.
The salt-to-software conglomerate, after all, was the original owner of Air India. Even after it was nationalised after independence, J.R.D. Tata continued to run the airline through the glorious years of aviation in the 1950s and 60s, maintaining its high standards, and then some. Until, of course, a change of government at the center saw prime minister Morarji Desai unceremoniously dumping Tata. The babus took over and the Maharaja’s downward spiral kickstarted.
The nosedive reached its nadir with Air India’s disastrous merger with Indian Airlines in 2007. The company has not made profits since then, as a classic Delhi (where Indian Airlines was based) versus Mumbai (where Air India was based) turf war to wrest control of the new entity played out. For the record, the capital prevailed, even as the airline’s loss of capital ballooned.
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