"He was intended as an overdressed flunkey, not courteous royalty,” reveals Meher Marfatia in her fortnightly column "Once upon a city” in The Mid-day of March 5, 2017. The tubby mascot of Air India (earlier Tata Airlines) India’s national carrier, was created by then commercial director of the airline Bobby Kooka in 1946. The jovial Maharajah according to the website of India’s national carrier, "began merely as a rich Indian potentate, symbolizing graciousness and high living... His creators gave him a distinctive personality: his outsized moustache, the striped turban and his aquiline nose.”
Kooka tried, along with artist Umesh Rao of......