The following notice appeared in the London Times under the headline, `Court circular': `Her Majesty the Queen returned from Canada after an official visit and was received at Heathrow by the Director of the airport. She had been there to present colours to a Canadian regiment.'

The Prime Minister was not there to receive her, nor was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Lord Chancellor, or even the head of the Foreign Office. Not a single MP, clutching bouquets of half-dead flowers, had come to welcome the Sovereign. The Court Astrologer and Court Jester's posts having been done away with, there was no sign of them either. Photographers and journalists were conspicuous by their absence. Her Majesty's departure from Heathrow for Buckingham Palace was as low-key as her arrival. Not a single road was closed and not one of her subjects -- ordinary people like Martin Massey -- suffered the least inconvenience. Probably, no one of the M4 knew they were sharing the expressway with the Queen.

The British Prime Minister is defeated and goes to take his leave of the Sovereign. He is still officially PM when he goes, so he is allowed the use of his official car for the last time. He is no longer PM on his way back, so he travels by his own car, then goes off to watch a cricket match.

Naturally, he has a home of his own, and while he's been making the official calls, the removal vans come to 10 Downing Street so that his successor can move in immediately. He pays for the vans himself. No concurrent occupation by incoming and outgoing PMs conditioned by malefic planetary influences!The new incumbent goes to kiss the Queen's hand, after which he is really and truly the PM. In the meantime his wife drives the children down in her own car to supervise the unloading of their things at Downing Street.

The ousted PM is now a private citizen and can expect nothing from the Government. The peerage will give him the right to sit in the House of Lords, but nothing else. Visiting heads of State and other VIPs will not be brought to call on him, though he may sometimes be invited to join them for dinner. If he has a black cat around, it'll be of the four-legged variety.

Most former PMs keep themselves occupied by writing their memoirs and making the fortune they could not make while in office. And there are no samadhis erected for them when they depart for their `heavenly abode'. The Rt Hon'ble Lord Bernard Weatherill, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1983-92, was in the capital three years ago. He had served in the Indian Army of undivided India. Once, he told me, between a dissolution and an election, when technically he continued on as Speaker, he had asked his office to send him a car so that he could attend an official function at the Finnish embassy. The civil servant told him it couldn't be done because he was not actually the Speaker on that day. The Rt Hon'ble got some laconic advice: "Go by bus or take the Tube." He went by bus.

A young man I know returned recently to India to work in a bank at a salary that made us blink. He was happy to be back home and complained of the hard work he had been subjected to in England. They had only two holidays at Christmas, two more at Easter and two bank holidays. "Not even the Queen's birthday is a holiday," he complained. "Or William the Conqueror's or William Shakespeare's. Nothing for Cromwell or Churchill." He was upset because the British had so little time for religion. "Not a single saint's birthday, including St George's Day, is a holiday." But he brightened while telling us about immigrants from the subcontinent who were trying to get Queen Victoria's birthday made a public holiday. After all, she had been Empress of India and her great grandson was the last Viceroy, who ushered in freedom.

"These Brits do not even declare a holiday when foreign heads of State die," he moaned. "They just go on working. It's so shamefully unfeeling!"

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.