Monday 26 October 2009

A ROYAL ENCOUNTER

This is a slightly different post from what I have been posting earlier. While my earlier posts were about events way back in the past, mostly from rural India, this one is more contemporary !

A few days ago, to my utter surprise and completely out of the blue, I received an invitation from the Buckingham Palace inviting me to a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, Obviously, it was quite exciting and when I emailed my confirmation, I received a response saying that it was being held in view of a forthcoming visit by the Indian President to the UK. There was quite a bit of excitement in my office as well, for no one before from our office had received an invitation like this. So well, I was very much looking forward to it - and of course, I was not disappointed.

The reception was at 6 p.m. on Oct 13th. 2009, Tuesday, and we were asked to be there before 5.40 p.m. I was there at about 5.30 p.m. We were supposed to enter from the main palace gates. Once inside, we were ushered into a hall (called the Investitute Hall, where the Queen normally meets foreign dignataries and where the various honours and awards include conferring knighthood, is held). As people filed in, I estimated that there were about 200 people there - a mix of British, Indian-British and Indians, quite a mixed crowd.

At 6 p.m. we were all asked to take our seats. And then there was a Bollywood dance show, with British dancers dancing to the beats of old melodies like 'Pyaar Hua Ikraar Hua Hai' and the more modern 'Dhoom Macha Le'. That was for about 15 minutes. After that, we were ushered into another room called the Picture Gallery where there are some exquisite paintings, some several hundred years old, that belongs to the palace.

And as we queued up to make our way, we saw, at some distance ahead, the Queen and her husband. She was there, greeting everybody by shaking their hand with the Duke (her husband) next to her, also greeting and shaking hands. It was quite a moment when it was my turn to shake the Queen's hand and then the Duke's. I was struck by how elegant she looked and yet very modest and greeting each person individually.

That done, I worked my way round the floor, meeting and greeting a few people, making some small and social conversations. Champagne was served and I helped myself together with some canapes - very delicious. The guests were spread across 3 halls. We had assumed that the Queen would have retired to her private chambers. But to my surprise, I found her in the midst of people, mingling with the crowd.

I was obviously keen to have a word with her and as I made my way to a group of people who were talking to her, her assistants, two of them, asked me to get closer into the group so that I could talk to her - which I did ! She asked me what I did and I spoke briefly about my organisation and our work. Even at the ripe age of 80+, she spent well near 2 hours in the reception, never sitting even once, moving around, greeting people and talking to them. Absolutely amazing !

There were quite a number of known faces. One of them was the big film producer, Yash Chopra, with whom I had a chat. Then there was the Indian-British film maker Gurinder Chadda (of the Bend it like Beckam fame), Indian-British actors Sanjiv Bhaskar and Meera Syal, Bollywood actor Saed Jaffrey, business tycoon Vijay Mallya, the Indian High Commissioner to the UK and the Indian-British cricketer Monty Panesar (whose autograph I got). And of course, there were many other not-so-known members of the royal family. I met with and spoke to the Duchess of Gloucester (who apparently went to India for her honeymoon several decades ago and she said it had been organised for her by Lord Mountbatten !) and Princess Michael of Kent.

All in all, it was quite an amazing and memorable experience. But what I found most amazing and was indeed deeply impressed was how simple and modest the Queen was, so informal and pleasant ! And very interestingly, though the event was in the Palace, security was absolutely minimal. There was only a couple of cops who checked our identity card and our invitation. There were no metal detectors, no checking, no frisking ! Thought I'd share that event with you which will remain one of my most memorable evenings !!!