[I’ve told a version of this story before here on the Transparent Hummingbird, but in honour of the Opening of the National Gallery today I feel I have to re-tell it.]
When was the last time you were in City Hall when it still was City Hall, I asked Minz-Papa, who had just come home from the National Gallery. (The one and only time I was inside was for my PSC interview, and I was hopelessly nervous and found the building confusing, so the least said about that the better.) But here is the very daft and wondrous story of the time the schoolboy Minz-Papa met the great Rajaratnam, a story so ridiculous I am still slightly agog when he told it.This would have been in the very early 60s, and Minz-Papa was at St Andrew’s at the time, he was maybe 15. St Andrew’s was having a funfair, as schools do, to raise money, and made students sell coupons, as schools do. Minz-Papa and his best friend took it into their heads to sell their funfair coupons to Rajaratnam. (I know, I know.) “He’s the Minister, he ought to support Education.” So after school the two of them looked up the buses and took the long ride into town, and went to City Hall, and asked if they could see the Minister.
The secretary said, quite rightly, that the Minister is very busy (and he was. if this is in the early 60s it would have been a time of great political upheaval) so could they please go away and not waste government time, but they would not be made to leave. After a long while they heard the secretary go into Rajaratnam’s office and say, Sir, there are two schoolboys here to see you and they won’t go away.
The next thing they knew, the great man himself came out of his office, smiling, courteous, to find out what they wanted. So they explained it was very important to raise funds for the school because education is very important, and the upshot was they sold him a book of coupons for $10. The lovely thing was that when Rajaratnam opened his wallet to pay he hadn’t even got the 10 dollars on him — so he borrowed the money from the secretary and sent Minz-Papa and his friend on their way with a warm handshake. (Have you ever heard anything to touch it — the utter imbecile innocence on one side and the gentle tolerance on the other — you try getting into a Ministry to sell your funfair coupons to any Cabinet Minister today and see if the security men don’t swoop down on you.)
So that is my Minz-Papa story of the day in honour of the Opening of the National Gallery.
Best of the Transparent Hummingbird