JOIN USHave you ever looked at your shoes and thought of it as gourmet meal? Not gourmet, but at least as a hearty meal? Imagine chewing the straps as if there were spicy noodles. Or digging the fork into the sole steak.
I always thought shoes were meant to, well, walk. Until I saw a tramp eating his shoe. The tramp with a tiny hedge for a moustache, a curly mop of hair, and mischief spilling out of his black eyes. A tramp who never spoke. No one ever heard his laughter. Nor his rants. He did everything silently. Even eat his shoes.
In Switzerland, I was looking for that tramp. Perhaps the world’s favourite tramp. The man born as Charles Spencer Chaplin one April day in 1889 — Charlie Chaplin. Yes, I was looking for the tramp in Vevey, a Swiss town proud of its Pearl of the Swiss Riviera tag. Sitting by Lake Geneva, the flower-decked promenade looks seductive, the Alpine panorama delightful, and the paddlewheel steamers hark to a forgotten era. But flowers could wait. Chaplin was on my list that July afternoon. I’d walk to his home. Uninvited. A home where Chaplin lived for 25 years (1952-1977) after being ousted from the United States.
That July afternoon, I took a bus for Vevey Poste. Barely 15 minutes away. The stop: Chaplin. Yes, the bus stop is called Chaplin. I hop off and see a white house growing out of green grass like a gigantic marshmallow. The 14-hectare white house called Manoir de Ban (or Champ de Ban Estate Manor) lies between the Lavaux Vineyards (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), Lake Geneva, and the peaks of Swiss Alps. The manor is plush and huge — 19 rooms on three levels, with landscaped garden, deciduous forest, outhouse where once lived 13 staff for the Chaplin family.
Enter the manor
Jean-Pierre Pigeon, General Director of Chaplin’s World, steps in with me into the manor where an older Chaplin waits by the staircase, standing on one foot, his hands up in the air. This is not Chaplin the tramp. This is a white-haired Chaplin who lived in the manor with his fourth wife, Oona, and eight children. The blue doors of the manor chronicle the milestones of his life. Family photographs reflect on the man, the husband, the father.
A blue door opens into the dining room where wooden chairs sit around a large oval table. Plates and cutlery are arranged so well that you’d feel the well-heeled were about to raise a toast before the meal.
In the living room is the brown piano on which Chaplin reedited the music of his films. Pigeon stands by the piano and tells me that Chaplin played by the ear; he could not decipher the written musical notes. Framed photographs sit on the piano, harking to the days when the manor bustled with the laughter of his children and the frequent visit of the rich and the mighty.
In the boudoir, Chaplin is sitting on a sofa and Oona is standing behind him as a film unspools over the projector. Chaplin’s original luggage is stacked in another room with the map of the world pasted on the walls. A grainy video shows Chaplin in various parts of the world — the video is synced with the map. And then there is the bed with blue linen, the bed on which Chaplin died on the Christmas of 1977. The family had gathered for Christmas; instead, they laid him to rest.
Opened in April 2016, Chaplin’s World is divided into three parts: the Manor, the Park and the Studio. A 10-minute film introduces the visitor to Chaplin and the red curtain opens into an interactive space where one can wear the Chaplin hat and pose for photographs, set into the house, break the prison bars, and sit in a restaurant.
The studio is so artistically created that Chaplin’s world comes alive long after he has been dead. There are recreations of famous scenes from Chaplin’s films. He cowers under a table from The Gold Rush; he holds a pair of scissors from The Great Dictator; the blind girl from City Lights sells flowers; Woody Allen stands by the cash counter; Harold Lloyd hangs from a clock on a high-rise building in the 1923 comedy Safety Last.
Rib-tickling moment
I walk out into an unending green expanse where centuries-old junipers and cypresses have bent with age. Pigeon points to an old tree that Michael Jackson loved climbing up. Around Easter, Chaplin organised egg treasure hunts in the park where the mighty shed their lustre to frolic in the greens.
In Chaplin’s World, I sit by Chaplin on a pouffe. Together we watch a film. He has dug fork into two dinner rolls and makes them dance with a flick of his wrist. I giggle loudly. Chaplin was right! A day without laugher is a day wasted. The tramp called Charles Spencer Chaplin was always right.
Did you know?
On July 6, 1925, Charlie Chaplin became the first actor to grace the cover of ‘Time’ magazine.
Three months after Chaplin’s death in 1977, his body was stolen to extort
money from the family. The body was recovered 11 weeks later from the
grave-robbers. Now, he is buried 6 feet under concrete to prevent any thefts.
3623 Chaplin is an asteroid named after Charlie Chaplin by Lyudmila Karachkina, a Ukrainian astronomer.