The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 104
104 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN Dr. Baw Maw who was very fair, with a smooth, clean-shaven face, was in his Burmese national dress, a silk handkerchief tied over his head and a silk blouse and silk skirt. He lounged in the seat next to me. I was told that at one place where the coaches had to stop, owing to the traffic, somebody from the sidelines shouted to me, "Hey, Governor, do sit back and let's have a look at your lady!" The Coronation was one of those exceptional occasions when the rigid British adherence to tradition had to some degree to be relaxed. Those who attended as guests were to go to a somewhat late lunch in the House of Lords. But those of us who had to be in the procession, including the King and Queen, were to go without lunch. For them a buffet was laid out in a temporary annex to the Abbey, enclosed by canvas marquees, where we had a couple of sandwiches each and a cup of coffee, and then we had to start back to the palace. The Coronation was a longish affair but everything went with clockwork precision, according to the usual British efficient methods, particularly where royalty is concerned. Inside the Abbey I was seated in the line of the Prime Ministers, sixth or seventh from Mr. Baldwin. His Highness the Gaekwar of Baroda, being the representative of the Princely order of India was just above me in the line. He was in advanced age by that time, and had some difficulty in maintaining his pince nez over his nose during the proceedings and also keeping his hold over the beautiful book in which the whole procedure and the service were printed. The seats were narrow, because accommodation had to be found for a large number of people within a short space, and all through the service either his pince nez kept falling or his book kept falling, and I had to perform the almost impossible feat of bending down straight to recover each article and to restore it to him. I had to lower my whole body in a straight line and pick up the book, and by the time I had given it to him and had opened it for him at the page at which we had arrived, his pince nez had fallen down! The service, the anointing of the King, the sacred ceremonial, the glittering company, the solemnity of the occasion, and the procession and the joyous crowds were a very memorable experience. I remember Dr. Baw Maw saying to me during the return journey to the palace, "If these people were to stage a coronation, say, every 10 or 15 years, the people would be kept happy; they would never put the government out of office. The British people love these pageants and shows. "