India, July 11 -- A surge of anticipation flows when boarding a flight. Not quite the same when chugging on parallel lines on a Vande Bharat or a Shatabdi, though that has a romance of its own.

Flying with the Maharaja comprises childhood memories of skimming the cumulus and the cirrus or watching the setting sun in sub-continental skies. My experience with the Maharaja began with the Douglas DC-3s, called the Dakota, in the 1950s. The man of the moment and pioneer of Indian aviation was the legendary JRD Tata. I still remember with nostalgia the flight to Kashmir, my first, with my parents, looking out of the porthole, marvelling at mountains below. I couldn't help grinning ear to ear, and, so the story goes, walked a foot above the tar...