Britain’s iconic St. James’s Palace in the heart of London reverberated to the beats of a Kishore Kumar classic during a special reception hosted on Thursday by Prince of Wales Charles and his wife Camilla.
The royal couple clapped and foot-tapped to “ O Mere Dil Ke Chain ” from the 1970s film Mere Jeevan Saathi , sung by popular British-Indian singer Navin Kundra. Kundra followed it up with two of his own chart-topping hits — “ Tere Liye ” and “ Mehbooba ” and even got the future King of England to address Camilla as his ‘ mehbooba ’ (loved one).
“This is a word you can use for her all the time,” Kundra said at the event, hosted for members of Britain’s Indian and Sri Lankan communities to mark the royal couple’s upcoming tour of South Asia next month.
“This is a major milestone in my career and a huge honour to be performing in this monumental palace. I wanted to give their royal highnesses a flavour of India to put them in the mood for their tour,” he told PTI.
Prince Charles and Duchess of Cornwall will be in India during November 6-14, their third and most extensive visit yet to the country as a couple.
They will then travel to Sri Lanka for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Colombo, where the heir to Britain’s throne is representing his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
“We look forward to welcoming him in India, a place he said is always a pleasure to visit,” said Virander Paul, India’s acting High Commissioner to the U.K., who joined his Sri Lankan counterpart at the palace to extend a ceremonial welcome to the royal couple.
The guests at the event included prominent British Asians from the fields of business, politics, entertainment, charity and media.
Indian-origin business tycoons like S.P. Hinduja and Tom Singh were joined by the likes of filmmaker Gurinder Chadha and actors Nina Wadia and Preeya Kalidas.
“While we know you are seasoned travellers, I would remind you to stick to bottled water and haggle on price while shopping in India,” joked British-Indian comic actor Sanjeev Bhaskar in his address.
The couple are scheduled to travel to Dehradun, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kochi, where they will meet India’s top political, business and cultural leaders.
This report has been corrected for a factual error
