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The word 'phaeton' (pronounced 'fea.ton') is magical to me. It is one of the first exotic words I happened to overhear when I was 4. I couldn't then figure out the context but now I can reconstruct the scene.
My youngest auntie's wedding was being celebrated in our Village and my Father (not yet HM) was the Master of Ceremonies. The bridegroom's party was from the town Nellore and so they felt superior and insisted that the bride and the groom should be taken gorgeously around the Village Square lining the huge Temple Tank in a procession with bandbaja sitting one beside the other in a proper car the evening before the wedding.
There was no convertible car in our Village and discussions were held if one had to be hired from Nellore. My Father vetoed the wasteful expenditure (he was frugal to his last minute) and offered that he could ask the Village Supremo, Rami Reddy, to lend his open horse-drawn carriage for the event...my Father was coaching the Reddy's children for free. And all that was needed was to decorate it with seasonal flowers, brass lamps, jingle-bells; and the school children would happily oblige. As for the Rocinante, she could be covered with leather upholstery to hide her bones.
The event went off well but before that, the Groom's Best Man, to show off his style, asked my Father:
"Whose is this ramshackle buggy?"
And my Father pretended to get angry and shouted:
"It is no buggy, sir, it is a PHAETON!"
Moral: Don't argue with English Teachers...
Our School in our Village, Muthukur, had no permanent building when we were students there (it has one now). So, we were taught in many sheds, but the main building where the HM was housed and upper classes were held was a converted Court-cum-Police Station which it was during the British Rule. That speaks a lot about the British in India...they didn't deem a school necessary for the Indian villagers but they needed a pucca Court Building and a Police Station. That they took the trouble to have a Court try revolting Indians before imprisoning them is once again a quirk in the British character... before shooting a dog they loved to give it a bad name...recall that Gandhi used this weakness of theirs in his famous Champaran Satyagraha.
The Court Hall was a big affair. The British loved their pomp. It had a barricaded dais that could seat Your Honor with about four ornate steps to it on either side. And two witness boxes where we used to play hide and seek. But the cake went to the Hanging Pankha:
The judges needed cool heads but Muthukur was hot and humid and no electric ceiling fans were there. And a hand-fan wouldn't work because of ergonomic reasons. The peon employed for fanning the judge with a palm-leaf fan would be tired in no time. Also often the Collector would be visiting and sitting beside the judge and the fanner wouldn't know whom to fan. So, the lovely arrangement of a hanging pankha was invented. The coolie employed to pull it and leave it and pull it and leave it could sit bare-bodied outside the hallowed court-hall and even drowse. And the size of the pankha was such that it cooled the whole stage. One can see this lovely arrangement in the block-buster movie, Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) shot in Ceylone.
As soon as the British left India reluctantly, lock stock and barrel, our Nehurjee (who spent years in British jails and wrote history books while there) ordered that all British Court Halls and prisons must be converted into schools...the biggest of them the Hijli Jail that houses IIT KGP now...another showman with an inevitable rose in his Nehru Jacket.
The greatest showman I saw was the King of Magic, P. C. Sorcar (Senior).
An hour before the show was to be held there was a commotion. Apparently PCS came to inspect the arrangements and was dismayed that the Netajee Auditorium which was meant for Dramas (like the Convocation) and movies of the golden silent age was absolutely no good for his Magic Show.
Apparently the front seats were too close to the stage.
It was discovered that the Big Start when PCS enters from behind and takes the stage with his magic wand and a flourish would have to be aborted.
Reason: As soon as he nears the audience, he would pull out pigeons from the air one by one that materialize from the skies...
Not exactly...two underlings of his with half a dozen of pigeons were to be seated concealed on a rack erected high in front of him to push him the pigeons at appropriate times.
And PCS found out in his recce that the front-seaters were too close to the stage and could very well watch the underlings with their winged companions...
So, PCS put his foot down and ordered that the VIPS in the three front-rows were to be summarily evicted.
It took all of 2 hours to let the VIPS agree to go back or go home!!!
...Posted by Ishani
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