The Queen & I - Cousin Aban Remembers
Hootoksi Tyabji, 20 September 2022
The death of Queen Elizabeth on the 8th of September 2022 brought back a flood of memories for my cousin Aban Mukherji and she wrote this delightful piece and sent it to me soon after Her Majesty's passing.
The Queen and I
My earliest memories are not those of the mundane world around me, but of the magical kingdom that flourished in my mind peopled with fairies, elves, gnomes, kings, queens, giants, and fire-spewing dragons.
And in this magical world stepped Queen Elizabeth II —the longed-for personification of the ethereal. (Let me hasten to add that royalty may inhabit the earth but, I was convinced they didn’t have to brush their teeth, bathe once a day, untangle knots from their hair or succumb to any of the hundred and one irksome things ordinary mortals were compelled to do to remain clean!)
I was nourished by the rich soul of folktales and fairy tales and could effortlessly conjure up an army of fairies by just screwing my eyes till flecks of silver-gold lights began to dance in front of me—the elves and sprites that the grownups around me pretended not to see!
But photos of living kings and queens kept the hope of seeing one in the flesh alive and when I was nine this dream came true.
Queen Elizabeth II of England was on her way to Bombay and would stay at Rashtrapati Bhuvan, and wonder of wonders, drive down Nepean Sea Rd in an open car with Prince Philip by her side.
My cousin Hootoksi and I were thrilled and at the appointed time stood on the pavement not far from our homes eagerly awaiting the Queen’s motorcade. The roads of Bombay were packed with people waiting to get a glimpse of the queen. And when at last the slowly moving car with the queen smiling and waving graciously to the crowd passed us, we were struck dumb with wonder! She was only a few feet away from us, dressed in blue (or was it green?), and looked directly at us with, I am convinced, an expression of ‘joyous recognition’ on her face.
Hootoksi and I raced home and begged my mother to part with her beautiful letter paper adorned with exquisite drawings of birds on them. Both of us furiously wrote out our delight at seeing her, then in clear bold letters addressed the stamped envelopes to:
Queen Elizabeth, Buckingham Palace, England
and after sealing them well with the sticky glue, dropped them into the nearest letterbox across the road.
Then it was a matter of feverish waiting for the royal letter to arrive. My mother did try to prepare me gently for the worst by explaining that the queen might find it difficult to write back to thousands of children but would certainly be delighted to read my letter.
Caitan the young lad who lived with us and whose education was sponsored by my parents, helped me stop obsessing about the letter. He was employed in the refrigeration department of one of the Tata companies and was sent to The Governor’s Bungalow to check on the Queen’s residential quarters. And to my intense envy he saw this divine being at close quarters and she spoke a few words to him. I could not stop questioning him about her looks. All he could tell me was that she had a lovely smooth pink-and-white complexion! Was it like rose petals or like strawberry jam mixed with cream? And what coloured dress was she wearing? Poor Caitan I pestered him for hours with my never-ending questions.
As I stoically waited for the longed-for letter, Variety Stores, the bookshop nearby, began to prominently display a richly illustrated book titled:
Our Royal Family —a book I absolutely had to possess. In those days parents were not in the habit of lightly spending ₹12.80 on a book and my mother, as I had expected, vetoed my request. I sulked and schemed till my darling, indulgent Mamaiji arrived for Sunday lunch. Then I cuddled up to her and with shining eyes described this jewel of a book to her. Before my mother could react, I had rushed to the shop and bought the book. Now all she could do was purse her lips, give me her most disapproving look, and scold her mother for giving in to every whim and fancy of her granddaughter!
I used to spend hours gazing at the photographs of the young queen and her two children and dream of their idyllic life wandering from one castle to another with roomful of toys and wardrobes full of brand-new clothes, always smiling, always happy!
When the passage of time had dulled the ache of disappointment at not receiving The Letter, and life chugged along as usual, I returned from school one afternoon to find the royal letter waiting for me. You can imagine how thrilled I was!
The letter was from Buckingham Palace dated 10th August 1962, more than a year after her visit to the Subcontinent in 1961.
But alas! it was not from the queen. A lady-in-waiting had written it on behalf of Her Majesty. I wasn’t sure how I should react to this anti-climax, but I quickly consoled myself by thinking of her as a fairy-in-waiting and was of course very happy to receive a letter from the Palace.
Today, as I watch her funeral ceremony from my living room in Mumbai, with the precious book about her family, the letter from Buckingham Palace and the Illustrated Weekly of London describing her tour of the India still in my possession, I think of her with gratitude for being an integral part of the rich fabric of the imaginary world of my childhood, a world much more real to me than the lived one, and for spreading the scent of magic around my growing up years.
A M
19/09/2022