“No, you can’t afford to get your spoons wrong.”
Thus spake Shashi Tharoor, the irrepressible MP from Thiruvananthapuram in a blog that raises fascinating questions on the role of modern Indian diplomacy.
In a world where every other person can blow the whistle Snowden style and run with the ball of national interest to score a self goal, or settle issues by lobbing a grenade, where do the genteel conventions of upholding national honour or abiding by the Geneva Convention have a place?
Certainly not in the correct placement of a spoon, if we are to go by the opinion of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, holding forth to a freshly minted batch, (2012 cadre), of would-be Indian diplomats. It was not etiquette, but netiquette that would open the doors of the new world order. What they needed, said the Prime Minister, were the triple tools of “trade, commerce and technology” to open the coffers of international investment agencies and hopefully donors waiting to beat a path once more to an India that had lost its shine.
What a world away it seems from the early days of the Indian Republic when my father, K.V. Padmanabhan IFS (1911-1994) joined the nascent diplomatic service and sailed away in the early months of 1949 to take up the post of First Secretary at the Embassy of India, Paris. As he writes in his still unpublished memoirs: “There was little or no training as such for the new job. I was asked to go through some files in the External Affairs Ministry and read up whatever books I could find on France!”
There was, however, plenty of training on the questions of spoons and forks, or the subtle nuances of entertaining that both my father and his wife, Padma, our mother, learnt under the tutelage of the Ambassadors under whom my father served in the early years of his career. As he writes about Sardar Hardit Singh Malik I.C.S. who assumed this role: “He knew that I was new to the profession and saw to it that I proceeded in the correct way. He pointed out the niceties of correct dressing, eating, deportment, entertainment etc. He even tutored me in the correct way to open a bottle of champagne: “You have to cradle it gently in your left arm, as if you were holding a small baby,” he demonstrated, “and gently squeeze the cork out with a downward pressure or you will easily spill half of the precious liquid. He also took us, Padma and myself to some of the famous restaurants for which Paris is famous and taught her how to order the dishes and how not to make a face when swallowing a raw oyster whole.”
As my father goes on to observe, “Of course, one should be careful about champagne, particularly those who are not used to it. On the first occasion that myself and Padma were invited to the Elysee Palace, the official residence of the French President for a New Year party that included all the ladies of the Embassy, they were drawn to the splendour of the furnishings, the chandeliers, the carpets, the tapestries that hung from the gilded walls. When the drinks arrived, Padma and some of her close friends were attracted to what looked like sherbet served in long glasses and eagerly sipped the drinks. The liquid was delicious and the French waiters urged them to have second helpings. Soon, a certain light-headedness over took them and Padma realised that she was giving way to giggles in a most undiplomatic way. So they sat quietly on a sofa for the rest of the evening. It was only later that she realised that what they had thought was sherbet were glasses of Pink Champagne.”
His next mentor was Ambassador to Sweden, A.C.N. Nambiar. As my father observes: “If under Sardar Malik I learnt my first steps as a diplomat, my training was completed under the keen eyes of Mr. Nambiar. Endowed with a sharp intellect, shrewdness and an ability to do the right thing at the right time, Mr. Nambiar had trained himself to be a super diplomat. He had a great sense of humour but he was also a hard task-master. He saw to it that the Embassy was maintained in impeccable style. Since he had no wife, he kept the servants on their toes by undertaking daily inspections to see that every detail was just right. He entertained lavishly. His lunches were the talk of the town. He often told me that in such matters, money should be of no consideration.”
There follow exacting details of how important it was to learn the rules of formal drinking during a dinner and raising a toast to the dinner companion on your left. “Raise the glass to the height of the third button on your shirt and look deeply into the eyes of the lady on your left!” advises my father. And of course, a spoon was essential for tinkling the glass, if you happened to be the chief guest and had to make a speech thanking the host at the dinner party.
I was reminded of the typically European flavour of these diplomatic rituals when watching the film “Grace of Monaco”, the somewhat highly coloured and often melodramatic account of the life of Grace Kelly, the American heiress who married Prince Rainier of Monaco in the early 1960s. Regardless of the merits, or otherwise, of the film, what is interesting is to watch the transition that Grace Kelley has to make from being a bold, brash and beautiful American trapped in the tiny principality of Monaco into ‘Her serene Highness Grace of Monaco’. She has to unlearn her American ways and become European, through a process of learning to walk and speak and use what one of the characters says is ‘guile’ or deception to get the better of her enemies.
In typical movie style we are asked to imagine that it’s not just her marriage with Prince Rainier that is at stake, but the future of Monaco that is about to be ‘invaded’ by France under Charles de Gaulle. In 1962, Monaco was a tax haven for the likes of Aristotle Onassis the Greek shipping magnate who urges Rainier to ‘Act like a Man’ and show the American her place. There are some hilariously incongruous bits of dialogue. Rainer, for instance, says, “The future is business for the sake of business!” Future diplomats, please note.
In the 20th century, the American style of ‘gunboat diplomacy’ advocated by the Monroe doctrine and endorsed by President Teddy Roosevelt was to overtake the wine and intrigues style of the old European order. In the film, Princess Grace uses a bit of both, ‘power-play’ to stare her enemies down, a Dior gown to get President de Gaulle to declare in French at the Monaco Red Cross Ball that he never did attend, “Ah, she’s an American Aphrodite!” Monaco was not invaded. It continues to be a tax haven.
Perhaps Mr. Prime Minister, we need both our spoons and our balance sheets to get Indian diplomacy back to being the once splendid institution that it used to be.
