My first proper introduction to Queen Elizabeth II was a sweet one — in the home of a Parsi friend, Her Majesty appeared on a blue and gold tin of toffees stamped “A Souvenir of the Coronation”. The tin was brought in on a slightly battered tray that also bore the visage of the Queen and brightly coloured miniature paintings of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and the like. Portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria smiled benignly upon us from the walls, the rest of the royals present on an assortment of mugs and biscuit boxes.
The senior Taraporevalas, like many Parsis, nursed a fondness for the British royal family that had survived such minor incidents as Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom struggle and India’s independence from the British and the Crown in 1947. “Take some toffees, my child,” Mrs Taraporevala said. I reached for the sweets eagerly. “Tin is an original piece, from 1953,” she added. It was the 1980s. I froze, wondering if confectionery lasted as long as royal devotion, but thankfully Mr Taraporevala intervened, murmuring that the tin now held sweets of a more current vintage.
I ate the toffees in the end, but in those hand-embroidered hangings that featured a fading needlepoint image of the Queen, the black-and-white photographs of the royals placed in a glass curio cabinet alongside portraits of the family’s own ancestors, I had encountered history’s ghosts.