Prince Philip
Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan
As news channels recently brought in the sad tidings of the demise of Prince Philip, it sent me on a down memory lane trip with the British Royal family and the media coverages they merited.
In the late nineties, I was given short notice by my chief reporter at The Free Press Journal to cover Prince Philip visiting the Mahim Nature Park in Mumbai. Unsure of where the Park was located, I queried my neighbour Jayant. He told me it’s bang opposite Dharavi bus depot.
However, I was unaware that the bus depot was located at the fag end of the massive slum. With a smug feeling that Dharavi border my locality, namely Matunga, I set off walking towards my destination.
As I kept walking through the narrow streets, repeatedly querying people about how to reach the bus depot, I soon learnt that it was at the furthest tip of the slum area, meaning, it’s going to be a long walk through the mud patched narrow streets are till I make it to my destination.
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After finally arriving at the Park entrance, I was relieved to see the familiar faces of reporters from other publications. I paired up with Placid Edmunds, who was reporting for the wire service, namely UNI. Our guests arrived a bit later along with a group of event organisers.
The organisers had a brief chat with our media entourage, and cautioned us not to try any conversation with the Prince. Eventually, as we trailed the team conducting the Prince through a guided tour, Placid picked up courage. He patted the Prince from behind and queried, “What are your impressions of the park?” He was quickly pushed away from the Prince by the security cover and to this day no one has learned about what responses the Prince had.
Much later, as our walk progressed and we came to a spot for that housed some exotic species, we got a taste of cryptic British humour from the Prince. A school teacher who was part of the group of visiting entourage struck a conversation with the royal guest. Her words still echo in my ears. “I have brought two of my kids here.” The Prince quipped, “How many of them are at school and how many of them are at home?”
Later, after an extended walk covering the nature species of all hues we were briefed by the organisers to board into a bus parked outside the Park. We were informed that we will directly be joining Raj Singh of Dungarpur and Prince Philip at the Brabourne stadium.
Raj Singh, being a staunch anglophile, was known to favour Brabourne for any cricketing encounter. The Prince and Raj had a brief walk before our team along with the guests broke up for lunch.
The second instance was when the Prince arrived at the Naval docks on board a British ship. This was too brief compared to the earlier event.
Last I had a personal touch from the Royals was a video shoot of four years old Prince George, reciting verses from the Holy Bible in alphabetical order. I felt like it was my kid brother!
