Maharajah dons many guises to greet world

The popular portly mascot has appeared as a playboy, artist and even sumo wrestler to help identify his carrier

FOR THOSE WHO have recollections of the golden age of air travel before mass-transiting took place in the 1980s, the diminutive Indian gentleman from Air-India, the Maharajah, immediately comes to mind whenever the airline is mentioned.

One of the most familiar airline mascots known globally, the Maharajah with the namaskaar, the traditional Indian form of greeting with palms together and head bowed - suggesting the infinite that resides in man - has been seen around the world for nearly six decades.

The origin of the 58-year-old character came about when a memo pad was requested by the airline. When a simple line drawing of an affluent Indian potentate, suggesting high living and graciousness, was created, it soon evolved and came to life in the guise of a royal-looking gentleman ready to offer his best services.

S. K. (Bobby) Kooka, a commercial director of the airline who created the character with artist Umesh Rao, thought up the character in 1946 as a ploy to rival other airlines in the post-war years.

'Looking around us, we saw airlines much bigger than we were ... their advertising budgets were fatter than ours ... we realised then that we'd have to do something about it,' Mr Kooka said.

In posters, advertisements, billboards and leaflets of the airline, the portly Maharajah was, in true style, an international jetsetter and man-around-town everywhere he ventured. In an old Air-India graphics manual of the early 1970s, of which there is now only a surviving photocopy, he was seen in illustrations partying with can-can girls in Paris, sumo wrestling and dancing the Kabuki in Japan, chalking up artistic creations on pavements, and pushing saucy tourist postcards.