So much for wanting privacy!

Harry & Meghan (Documentary; 2022)
Netflix

Watching this 6-episode documentary about the life and times of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their short stint living as a couple in the royal household reminded me of two things. Firstly of skeets from 'Kumars at No. 42' where they sold the idea that everything in this world was Indian - be it Santa Claus, Jesus, Santa's reindeer and even the British royal family. Father Kumar theorised that the royal family were as Indian as Indians can be. The whole family, including adult children, live with their parents. Everyone is involved in the same family business. Even after marriages, they all lived under the same roof, and the weddings were arranged. These veiled comparisons got its audiences in stitches then. 

The second is the good old saying from Indian culture that when one marries another, they also marry the family. The newcomer into the family must immerse into the fabric of the family and act as one of them. The onus is on everyone, related by blood or convention, to protect the sanctity of the family name. It is their divine duty to mould into the idiosyncrasies of the family, good or bad, to attain zen within the family. 

Only in the scriptures do we learn about people like the Pandava brothers. These five brothers collectively married the same woman just because their mother told them to share their find. In reality, history has described just to what lengths siblings and even mothers would go to seize thrones. The amount of backstabbing, bad-mouthing, poisoning, covert plans and trickery is just staggering. 

In modern times, when swords are merely ceremonial and the royalty's powers are clipped, they have mellowed down. At a time when their subjects question the relevance of a God-sanctioned family line to rule them over, the royal family knows its days are numbered. They try to be non-controversial and regularly re-kindle the memory of a glorious past when they used to rule half the world. They clamour for all the positive publicity they can get. They hope to be the British pride their ancestors were. That is not to say that they have not been controversial before.

In comes an outsider. Not that it had not happened before. A divorcee with a living spouse from the USA had shown her face in the royal courtyard some 70 years ago, and a King had to abdicate his throne then. Now things have changed. She was ushered in without much fanfare apparently but on her side, but she seems to demand all the world's attention. But wait, only when she feels like it!

The whole point of the Netflix documentary is to portray Meghan Markle as an innocent outsider who had found the love of her life. The one into whom she could immerse and get lost despite all the chaos around them. Meghan is presented as an affable person who is a darling of the British public. Despite this, or maybe because of this, she is allegedly vilified by the British press and the royal family. Even though she does everything right, getting her hands dirty cooking for fire victims or engaging in Commonwealth charity activities, she is viewed as an outsider. She is even suggesting that perhaps her new family is downright racist. She considers herself another victim of the royal family, much like how Princess Diana was treated and met her untimely death.

The end result is far from that. The show only managed to paint an image of Meghan as a self-centred conniving prima donna who thinks very highly of herself. The series tells her background as a bright student and an independent woman who pulled herself up by her bootstraps. What they conveniently forgot to mention altogether is her previous failed marriage. From her side, animosity is bottled up between her, her father, and his other family.

Prince Harry is pictured as a lone child growing up without a mother during his formative years. It really shows. Meghan may be filling that vacuum.

Every position comes with specific responsibilities and expectations. However, this young couple wants the cake and eat it. They enjoy being in the spotlight but are quick to whine incessantly when their private space is invaded. There is a reason they are called public figures. If the public pays for your existence, the public has every right to know how their money is spent. You are indeed a public servant. You want to cut off from the royal but still want them to finance you to just loaf around doing sweet nothings.

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.