A hundred years after Queen Mary and King George found themselves being served at the longest dining table in the world, my wife edged their ghosts off the chair to add her name to those who had famously sat down for dinner and a lesson in patience in the dining hall. This was where Hyderabad’s prime minister and his wife probably conspired to sell off the palace they had built because eating at a table separated by 99 chairs wasn’t a lot of fun.
Amir e Paigah Sir Vikar ul Umra had built the Falaknuma Palace in his nephew’s realm (talk about nepotism) and all homes, as many of us know, somehow defeat the budget the contractor first lays out. And so the good Paigah found himself broke with a dining table for 101 but little to lay on it. Maybe there was a fresh batch of Basra pearls his wife wanted to order, or maybe she was hoarse from talking across the yawning length of the table, anyway Lady ul Umra hatched a plot to invite the world’s richest man for a sleepover at the palace.
Expectedly, the sixth Nizam said the kind words expected of him, of how he thought it was the nicest palace he’d been invited to, at which point his uncle said it would be his honour to gift it to the Nizam. That’s jolly good of you, old chap, the Nizam apparently said, but I don’t accept things for free, and so he paid up the value and plenty over to the prime minister and turned the palace into his guest house (it was gestures such as these, no doubt, that were responsible for turning his son and successor into the famous miser that he became, even though he remained the richest man in the world).
When you’re a Nizam, your guests don’t expect you to stint, so when George and Mary came calling, the Nizam had to have the Falaknuma electrified, Belgian chandeliers were suspended over the grand dining table, the carved rosewood chairs were re-finished in green leather, and the “cruets, table cutlery, forks, spoons, even to the covers of the champagne bottles and the crumb scoop” were of gold. It was to this table, two waiters to each guest, that my wife repaired for dinner with our son, wanting to add her name to that of the luminaries who had gathered before her for their skikampuri kebabs and kachhi biryani.
What she hadn’t bargained for was a seven-course meal, each consisting of several more varieties served over what seemed like as many hours in a room with dodgy air conditioning. And though the gold had been replaced by silver, she was unsure about the gaps between the courses so she ate fast rather than well. And her friends were spread down the length of the table so, like the Paigah’s irate spouse, she found herself unable to conduct a conversation without raising her voice and shouting. What was the point of janoob jhingey on your plate without the zing of gossip, the lazzat-e-murgh or ambada gosht without the spice of conversation?
Setting off for her grand adventure, she’d called to say she couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to sell their house because it had gone a little over-budget. Now, late at night, back in her hotel room, she called again, “I think she may have had a point — I’d go mad if I had to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner on a dining table for 101, to say nothing of tea.” For some time, at least, I think she’s going to stop griping about our intimate dining table for four.