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Panchgani

MaharashtraPosted by Steph 2009-11-05 00:22:07

The dream of any fan is to meet his idol or at least get a chance to see him in ‘real’. When i suddenly became a fan of Freddie Mercury and Queen in 1991, the singer had just passed away and obviously my dream would remain a dream. But at the age of 11 i decided that i would at least go to the places which had been significant in his life, let’s say a kind of pilgrimage (agreed, i’m very fond of pilgrimage..lol) Quite a big task because he’s been moving a lot, but over the past 18 years i have been fortunate enough to see few of these places…

London, where he spent most of his life and his last days, and Garden Lodge, his beautiful Victorian house in Kensington.
Montreux, where he’s been working for many years during the late 80’s and where i met Peter Freestone (his close friend), David Richard (record producer) and Rudi Dolezal (director of videos) during a 3-days party for what would have been his 60th birthday.
Barcelona, and Montserrat Caballe, with whom he had composed and sung 1988 the hymn for the Olympic Games which would take place in Barcelona 4 years later. Budapest, where Queen was one of the first band to give a concert on the other side of the iron curtain in 1986.
Munich, where he has been working and living many years in the early 80’s.
And so, among many other places, it was obvious that I would go one day to the school where Mercury first learnt piano and started his musical career...

St-Peter is a catholic boarding school for boys located in a small town called Panchgani, 285km from Mumbai in India. Mercury’s family was living in Africa, but originally his parents were Indian Parsis - Zoroastrians who flew from Persia some 1200 years ago during muslim persecutions. The Parsis were and still are a small but quite influent and wealthy community in India, principally located in Gujarat and Maharashtra/Mumbai. This might be one of the reason why Mercury was sent to Panchgani at the age of 8. At that time, St-Peter was one of the few boys schools in Panchgani ; nowadays, there are around 40 schools in the town.

On 22 october i took a flight from Chennai to Pune and hired a prepaid taxi from Pune Airport to Panchgani. The fare (1800Rs) was almost as expensive as the flight but i was too lazy and too impatient to go by bus. At 8.30am, after only 2 hours drive, i reached Panchgani. I had taken an appointment with Mrs Salvi, Secretary of the Principal, but since i was too early i had to wait. I was told that in the meantime i could walk around the campus and have a look, and so i did.
Incidentally, i came on the first school day of the second term of the acadamic year, which was the opportunity for me to witness a special assembly during which all the boys sang the hymn of the school. I had seen the Assembly Hall before in a documentary, but this one seemed too big to me ; later on, i was explained that the hall had completely burnt down in 2002, and been rebuilt at the same place and in the same shape, though bigger. Two old pianos on which Mercury learnt playing, miraculously ‘survived’ the fire.
Then i met Mrs Salvi and Peter, a 70 years young gentleman who promotes international exchanges and assist the school in establishing partnerships with foreign schools. Without hesitating, Peter took me by the hand and led me into every corner of St. Peter’s, introduced me to teachers, office staffs and students, told me everything he knew about Farrokh Bulsara, and finally invited me for lunch at Kimmings High School (the 'elder sister' of St-Peter for girls) along with a group of teachers from Finnland.
I had been very anxious before coming to St-Peter, whether a conservative indian catholic school would welcome the fan of an extravagant homosexual rock singer who more or less denied his indian origins, but i was received like a vip.

At 4pm (1,5 hours after schedule...) a Volvo bus took me to Mumbai (reservation through http://www.travelyaari.com/ - 600Rs) and i reached Mumbai at 9.30pm.

http://www.st.peterspanchgani.org