At the Victoria and Albert Museum with Shashi Tharoor, London, 28th February 2017
Does anyone remember our colleague Shashi Tharoor back in the early 80's when we were working in the old CWR building? Well if you’re not as old as me, here's a quick sum up – Shashi – Author - Politian and once Staff Member of UNHCR, was, in 1983, elected as UNHCR’s first Chairperson to our newly formed Staff Council which had just split away from the Staff Union in the UN in Geneva. He worked with my boss, Vice Chairperson, Ugandan national Dr. Kallu Charles Kalumya, a humanitarian lawyer and international lawyer who fled Uganda during the early 70’s. Kallu now lives back in Uganda and runs a successful law practice. Shashi moved from UNHCR to the UN in New York where he was appointed UN Under-Secretary-General under Kofi Annan and left the United Nations on 1 April 2007. Shashi continues his political career in India and also continues to write.
On 21st January this year, my husband Tejinder and I were unexpectedly grounded in London, after he was operated for a detached retina. While we were there we received an invitation for the 28 February from the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington (aptly known as the world’s greatest museum of Art and Design) to attend the latest book launch of Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor in conversation with Tristram Hunt, the new director of the V&A and an ex-Labour MP.
We were actually going to Cancun, Mexico for a short break and then on to Washington DC where Tejinder would have been part of a grand ceremony to receive a prize from the American Physical Society for his leadership role which led to the discovery at CERN in Geneva of the elusive Higgs Boson particle in 2012. The Higgs Boson, controversially nicknamed the God Particle, is the particle that gives mass to other particles. Without the Higgs Boson we could not exist. Its remarkable discovery now completes the Standard Model of Physics. And the Standard Model is how physicists explain our most complicated universe dividing it into its basic building blocks.
However, the night before our flight to Cancun, Tejinder complained about a black curtain closing over the vision in one eye. After reading on the internet about the possibility of a detached retina, we urgently went to the A&E at the Western Eye hospital in Marylebone which happened to be across Hyde Park some few kilometers from Kensington where we have our cozy red brick Dickensian home, hidden off the high street in a cobblestone courtyard.
The following morning, Tejinder was urgently operated after they discovered four potentially dangerous tears around the retina. Recovery was slow at first but then, after just three weeks, he started to regain his sight and with each day passing, his eye improved even though he was still under strict doctor’s orders to stay still and lie on his side for as long as possible. I have to say that I was so grateful that we never boarded the flight to Cancun, primarily because of the daunting prospect of a long stay in Mexico to recover if he’d been operated over there, and secondly because of the chaos that ensued at the airport in Washington DC the following week when Trump announced the infamous travel ban.
As Tejinder improved during our stay in London, I have to say I began to look forward to seeing Shashi as it had been so many years since we worked together. Me, Shashi and Kallu - and I do remember that period in UNHCR in the CWR building with great fondness particularly so, as, at the time, I was expecting my daughter, Natisha, now 32 followed by son Jas 30. And who could ever forget those beguiling morning lake views crashing whitewashed waves against the old-walled lake barriers from the CWR building. Views extended to our top 4rd floor cafeteria which overlooked the manicured gardens which were exceptionally pretty in Spring. The snowy vistas of the alpine range would just take your breath away and looked different every day. At UNHCR, we, the staff of 4 or 500 at that time, became a part of the Geneva scenery too, a firm fixture into the landscape, for just a limited time until WTO took over our building in 1996 and turned it into a steeled walled fortress such that we can no longer just pop in for a causal lunch.
As a few more weeks passed in Kensington, Tejinder recovered to the relief of all our dear family and friends. I am and will be forever eternally grateful to everyone who called us, emailed us, helped him get better, in particular the eye surgeon who had him up and running just like before. Despite the trauma of his eye operation the care we received from all the staff at the NHS was impressive. At the Western Eye Hospital in Marylebone, the doctor finally gave him the ok to travel back home to Geneva but I decided to stay to see if I could get a ticket to the book launch of Shashi’s Inglorious Empire.
I called up to get my ticket but it was sold out. As a member, I phoned the members hot line, but they told me that due to health and safety regulations they could not let me have a ticket unless someone dropped out. Come over to the V&A, - take a chance at the door, the ticket office suggested. It was freezing cold that night of the 28th February and it had rained for most of the day and to be honest I was considering just giving up. My sister-in-law and cousin had spent the day with me in Kensington and we took advantage of the new show in town ‘The Diana Evening Dresses’ exhibition at Kensington Palace which is conveniently located just a few minutes’ walk from my flat. We’d also had lunch at the Palace Orangery and after that, I was tired and really battled about heading down to South Kensington only a few very short bus stops away, - gosh how lazy is that, I told myself! But then, I knew, that if I didn’t at least try, I’d regret it, so I headed down to the V&A and stood outside, shoulders hunched trying to shiver the cold away, hands in my pockets, checking my watch every few minutes, waiting for the doors to open at 6.30.
A lady came up to me and we started to chat. She had a ticket and was waiting for a friend. The crowd started to grow around the entrance and I must admit I was considering going home, I mean, how was I gonna get in without a ticket? I explained my ticketless situation to her when I spotted Shashi walking up the grand stairs into the crowd flocking by the entrance. I quickly cornered him holding my own book, Rubies and Rickshaws, a romantic novel set in the Himalayas, a work of fiction drawn from my experiences in India dedicated to my father who left Bombay in 1947 for England where, in the early 50’s, I and my brother Bharat were born and grew up.
”Hi, Shashi, do you remember me?” I said rather loudly with embarrassing enthusiasm followed speedily by “I’m Vatsala from UNHCR and we used to work together when you were Chairperson of the Staff Council and I was working with Kallu back in the 80’s” hoping that this quick referencing of information and the all-important time-line might jog his memory and he’ll definitely remember me. “Yes, of course, I remember you Vatsala”, he said graciously and eloquently with that deep deliberately engaging trademark voice of his. “How are you and how is Kallu?” and we started to reconnect. We talked quickly and briefly and then I told him that I couldn’t get a ticket as his talk was sold out at which point he got me in. The lady I was with, Roz, turned out to be absolutely delightful and suggested I stick with her and her friend Jane soon to arrive.
Walking through the V&A lobby under the dome is the 30ft rotunda chandelier ‘Fantasy’, designed by Dale Chihuly which glowed green glass and looked magnificent. We chatted as we walked together through the brightly lit bookshop, down deserted corridors decorated with colorful lit up medieval stained glass windows. After an excellent presentation by Shashi and Tristram in conversation, I queued up with his two books waiting to get them signed when I began to chat with another lady called Heather who just happened to work in Kensington. I was really happy to meet Roz, Jane and Heather and then end the evening with them in Knightsbridge over a Lebanese dinner. Curiously, I asked them why they were interested in the British Empire in India and they responded that even though they found Shashi’s talk fascinating they came to meet the new, young, handsome, debonair director of the V&A museum, Tristram Hunt!
I’m glad I went to the V&A that night. I’m very glad I met Shashi after many years. I’m also glad that it brought back poignant memories from those days when we were so young, so full of anticipation for our UN careers and for the future of our young families. I’m glad that I could give Shashi a copy of my own book ‘Rubies and Rickshaws’, which is my secret pride, a book penned in admiration of my pioneering father who, through force of circumstance, got caught up in Partition. My father, Mulshanker Shamji Oza, a widower in his late 20’s with his young son, were forced to leave Karachi in ‘47 for Bombay. Then with sudden spontaneity he boarded the cruise liner to Southampton leaving his son with his mother. This was the first boat to leave Bombay for the UK arriving in Southampton on 23 October 1947 after Indian Independence, just after British India finally come to an end.
Vatsala Virdee, 18 March 2017
Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India by Shashi Tharoor
Quoted from his webpage: In the eighteenth century, India's share of the world economy was as large as Europe's. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalised racism, and caused millions to die from starvation. British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial 'gift' from the railways to the rule of law was designed in Britain's interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain's Industrial Revolution was founded on India’s de-industrialisation, and the destruction of its textile industry. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes, to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain's stained Indian legacy. Unquote