People

By Richard Lacayo

Red-and-gold-clad drummers and long lines of soldiers marched solemnly past the gold-spired Grand Palace in Bangkok last week. With them came a single flutist playing Phya Sok (Great Sadness). One year after her death at the age of 79, Thailand's Queen Rambhai Barni took her last earthly journey in dignified splendor. Granddaughter of King Rama IV, the Thai monarch romanticized in The King and I, she was the wife of Thailand's last absolute ruler, before a coup installed a constitutional monarchy in 1932. The Queen's remains were borne on the traditional 40-ton, gilded teakwood chariot to an ornate cremation pavilion. Though some were critical of the estimated $1.2 million expense, funerals are occasions of the deepest importance to Thais. Explained Thaveesak Senanarong, who organized the spectacle: "Even one's enemies come. It is their last chance to apologize."