Queen and I shook hands: Former Karnataka MP

Hedwig Michael Rego recollects the monarch as 'a gentle lady'

A resident of Richmond Circle, Hedwig Michael Rego regards the Queen’s passing away as “the end of an era”. The news reminded her of the time she met the British monarch in Delhi around 25 years ago.

The year was 1997. Queen Elizabeth II was visiting the country’s capital to mark the golden jubilee celebrations of India’s Independence.

A banquet dinner was organised in her honour in October at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and Hedwig, a nominated Anglo-Indian MP then, was invited to the gathering. “I belong to the Anglo-Indian community — our ancestry is a mix of English and Indians. We are a linguistic minority. I was proud and felt honoured to be at the banquet,” she says.

Now 85, Hedwig recalls that select guests received formal invitations and were informed about the banquet a week ahead. On the day, the Queen and Hedwig were seated on opposite sides of the table. “She was a gentle lady and spoke softly. The table was quite broad and we couldn’t hear each other’s conversations. But she was gracious and had kind and friendly eyes. Those were the things that stayed with me,” she recalls.

Dinner began, one course after another, and Hedwig remembers the Queen handled everything delicately.

“Our eyes were on her. She turned to the left and to the right and spoke to the dignitaries. We couldn’t get up until she got up from her seat,” says Hedwig.

She didn’t get a chance to speak to the Queen. “But when we walked past her, we shook hands while many others said ‘namaste’. The moment was brief but memorable.”

There was no specific code of conduct to be followed on the day. “I wore a simple salwar-kameez with a dupatta as all Indians did. The Queen was in a beautiful primrose yellow gown, and wore a small tiara,” she adds.

That was the Queen’s third and last visit to India.

Looking back

Hedwig and her family sang ‘God Save The Queen’ earlier, but after India gained independence from the British empire in 1947, they would sing the national anthem ‘Jana Gana Mana’.

“We moved with the times. My four brothers who were with the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy became officers with the Indian Air Force and Indian Army,” she says.

Hedwig was a teacher at the Frank Anthony Public School. “I was a history teacher but I never taught British history. It was a choice. I taught cultural Indian history, and took my students to temples, churches and gurudwaras,” she says.