Family ties

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex rush back into the embrace of the royal family at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations

 

Families, eh? Love them or hate them; there is just no way you can leave them. That’s the thought that struck me as I watched the Platinum Jubilee celebrations to mark Queen Elizabeth’s 70 years on the throne.

 

Unless you have been living under a rock over the past few years, you will be familiar with Prince Harry, his wife, Meghan, and their long and winding whine-athon with Oprah Winfrey. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex – as they were styled after their wedding – gave up their royal duties and departed the green fields of England for the sunny climes of California, where they announced they would make their own way in the world. But wait, not before slagging off the royal family from which they had consciously uncoupled.

 

So, while Meghan, already upset that no one had asked her if she was ‘okay’, announced dolefully that the royal institution – which she referred to, rather sinisterly as ‘the firm’ – had ignored her mental health issues and failed to provide her with support when she felt suicidal while pregnant, Harry angrily revealed that his father, Prince Charles, had cut him off financially once he announced he was leaving for America. Meghan confided that her sister-in-law, Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, had made her cry. Harry said living in the royal family felt like being part of a circus (with him being the performing animal, obviously).

 

Meghan upped the ante even further, saying that an unnamed royal had speculated about the color of her unborn child when she was pregnant. Harry clarified, later in the same interview, that this had happened at the beginning of their relationship, but by then, the damage had been done: the royal family had been painted with a racist brush, and the reputational damage was complete.

 

So, what do you think happened when this racist, unfeeling, even cruel, family celebrated the 70^th anniversary of their matriarch’s enthronement? Why, of course, Harry and Meghan wanted to be a part of the festivities! They would, they announced grandly, be ‘honoured’ to attend.

 

And so, they dutifully turned up for the Jubilee celebrations, even though they were pointedly not invited to make the obligatory balcony appearance with the Queen (that was just for working royals, we were told). Harry wore a slightly hangdog expression during the proceedings, perhaps reflecting on all that he had left behind, though he managed to muster the occasional smile. Meghan, drawing on her experiences as a cable show actress, had a huge grin pasted on throughout, accessorized with even huger hats.  

 

The events were carefully choreographed to keep the warring brothers, Princes William and Harry, apart. And the public didn’t get to see Meghan and Catherine interact either at the Trooping the Colour or at St Paul’s Cathedral. But the family dynamics behind closed doors would have been fascinating.

 

Did the two sisters-in-law grin through gritted teeth and kiss each other on the cheek? How did Prince Charles react to the daughter-in-law who had smeared his family as racist? What was the reunion between Harry and his stepmother, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, like, given that rumour had it that he planned to slag her off in his forthcoming autobiography? And did the two brothers manage to mend their relationship, or at least begin to make amends?

 

I guess we shall never know – unless, of course, the Sussexes decide to sit down for another heart-to-heart with Oprah Winfrey. Or if they decide to reveal their innermost thoughts in the reality show – oops, sorry, docu-series – they are currently shooting for Netflix. Or if Harry includes his Platinum Jubilee adventures in his book, which is due out later this year.

 

But, judging by the look of things, Harry and Meghan seem to have decided that love them or hate them, you just can’t leave your family. At the end of the day, you need that sprinkling of royal stardust to keep shining in the celebrity firmament back in California. 

 

Does that hold out much hope for Meghan’s estranged father, Thomas Markle, currently recovering from a stroke that has left him unable to speak? Will he finally get a visit – or at the very least, a call – from his daughter, who hasn’t seen him since her wedding four years ago? You’ll simply have to watch this space.

 

Soap Oprah

There is no escaping Meghan and Harry – even if you have zero interest in the British royal family

 

Harry and Meghan. Or Meghan and Harry, to give them their correct billing. There really is no escaping them, is it? Even if you have zero interest in the British royal family, there is no way you can have avoided all those clips of the ‘bombshell’ Oprah tell-all that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex conducted last week – or, for that matter, the reams of commentary that followed. 

 

Having devoured it all – there is nothing I love more than a good soap opera, or should that be soap Oprah? – I now feel as if I have been transported back to the 1990s, when Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, was cast in the role that Meghan is now playing. Diana’s ‘explosive’ confessional featured on the BBC’s Panorama show and was conducted by Martin Bashir, a little-known journalist at the time. Harry and Meghan’s inquisition, on the other hand, was at the hands of Oprah Winfrey, who is arguably more famous than both of the ‘royals’ put together. 

 

But if you ignore that minor difference, the parallels come at you fast and furious. Like Princess Diana, Meghan talks about her mental health struggles, admitting that there was a phase – when she was pregnant with Archie – that she actively thought about taking her own life, such was her unhappiness within the royal world in which she felt like a trapped prisoner. Diana had complained famously that she got no support from the royal family when she married into the institution. Meghan lays the same allegation at the doors of what she calls ‘the firm’ – and then throws in the charge of racism, with the shocking admission that a senior member of the royal family had concerns about the colour of the skin of their prospective children.

 

Even the visual cues are meant to evoke memories of Diana. Like the Princess in her Panorama interview, Meghan is wearing black, her eyes are heavily rimmed with kohl, and she speaks with the same soft cadences as Diana did, as she aims missile after missile at the heart of the British royal family. There are tangible, physical reminders of Diana too, sparkling on Meghan’s wrist, where she sports the diamond bracelet that used to belong to her mother-in-law. The message is clear: Diana is part of their story, giving them both inspiration and strength to go forth on their own path.

 

In a strange way, that makes sense. In some ways, Harry and Meghan are living the life that Diana never got to experience. It is all too likely that if the Princess had lived beyond her 36 years – which is, ironically, exactly the age Harry is now – she would have ended up in America, where she was always wildly popular. There was some speculation that she would end up married to an American billionaire and would start a philanthropic career in the States. With the establishment of their Archewell Foundation, Harry and Meghan are starting down that road, though it is lined with multi-million dollar deals with the likes of Netflix and Spotify. 

 

And more importantly, perhaps, even 24 years after her tragic death Princess Diana is still a shining star in the American celebrity firmament. So evoking her name and memory is as good a way as any of sprinkling some stardust on yourself when you are out to establish yourself as A-list figures in the States. 

 

So, what is the problem exactly, you may well ask. Why do Meghan and Harry feel the need to air all their dirty family laundry in front of an audience of millions? After all, they have achieved what they set out to do. They have landed on their feet in California, living in a palatial mansion that cost around 14 million dollars, with commercial deals that ensure that they never have to worry about paying the bills. And judging by the reaction to their Oprah interview, they are much loved by the American people. 

 

And yet, when you watch Meghan and Harry opening their hearts to Oprah, you can’t help but feel that these are not happy people. They seem unable to shake off the grievances that are mooring them in the past, dwelling on the injustices heaped on them by an uncaring monarchy, instead of focusing on the bliss that surely lies in their future. And that, if you ask me, is the real tragedy.

Are you being served?

The snooty sales assistant is alive and well, and ignoring you at that unfriendly neighbourhood designer store

We’ve all been there at one time or another. You walk into a designer store where every item on sale has a stratospheric price tag attached. As you browse through the shop you realize that a sales assistant is beadily tracking your every move. You ask if you could get a closer look at a certain item on display. Instead of handing it over, he snootily informs you that it costs, say, Rs 3 lakh.

Technically, of course, he has done nothing wrong. You asked to see an item in his store and he told you its price. But you know exactly what is going on. The sales assistant has weighed you up, calculated the cost of your handbag, your watch, your shoes, and whatever jewellery you are wearing, and decided that this item is definitely not within your budget. Having decided that, he sees no point in wasting time showing it to you. He’s a busy man you know; he can’t be bothered with window shoppers like you.

Now, there are three ways you can deal with this. You can act as if you didn’t get the subtext of his reply and ask to see the bag anyway. Or you can call him on his rudeness and ask why he felt obliged to tell you the price when you hadn’t asked the question. Or you could just walk out and take your custom to another store where the sales assistants are a tad less snobby and a little more helpful. (Always choose option three.)

But if you are Oprah Winfrey, one of the richest women in the world and a global media superstar, you could also mention this experience in an interview. You can recount the time you walked into a store in Switzerland – which you are careful not to name – and asked to see a handbag. You reveal your amazement when the sales assistant refused to show it to you, despite your repeated requests, and steered you towards some cheaper bags instead. “This one,” she said, “is too expensive.”

Of course, being Oprah, you lay this down to the insidious racism that prevails in much of the world; a world which sees a Black person as being too poor to afford pricey goodies like these. And because you are Oprah, all hell breaks loose after your interview.

The Swiss Tourism Board offers you an apology on behalf of the whole country and says it’s a shame you were treated that way. The media track down the store in question and the owner is forced to clarify that it was all a huge misunderstanding because the sales assistant’s English is ‘not so good’. The sales assistant herself tearily explains that she is not a racist and that she was just trying to explain to Oprah that there were cheaper versions of ‘that’ handbag on sale as well. She adds, for good measure, that she cannot understand why Oprah is making such accusations. “She is so powerful and I am just a shop girl. I don’t understand why someone as great as her would cannibalize me on TV.”

At which point, Oprah backs down, and says that she wishes she had never raised the issue, and she regrets how it has all got so out of hand.

All this kerkuffle about being snubbed (or not) in a designer store…I know, it beggars belief, doesn’t it?

But while all this sounds very silly indeed, I have to admit that there is something about these fancy-schmancy stores that brings all our insecurities to the fore. I know women – otherwise completely rational human beings – who never venture into these shops unless they have at least one designer item on their person. And when I scoff at them, they regale me with stories of their ritual humiliation in such stores when they don’t quite look the part.

This can take several forms. The sales assistants may studiously ignore you, offering no help at all even if you indicate that you are looking for it. Or they will shadow you assiduously as if they are afraid you will slip an expensive item in your capacious handbag the moment their back is turned. Or they will be unbearably patronizing when you ask questions about the merchandise. Or they will resort to that tried-and-tested insult of telling you much a thing costs even before you ask the question.

Speaking for myself, I have noticed that service in such stores dramatically improves if I am carrying an easily identifiable label handbag, or wearing what looks like a designer garment, or even better, an expensive piece of jewellery. I can feel the sales assistants clocking up the value of every item in their internal computer and placing me on that sliding scale of costumer preference. And their disappointment is almost palpable when I leave without buying anything, as if I had somehow tricked them into serving me under false pretenses.

But while this is fun on a slow afternoon, I must confess that I would never ever set foot again in a store where the shop assistants had been snooty and rude. If I’m not good enough for you, then my money most certainly isn’t either.

The new celebrity circuit

When the A-list drops into India, where does it go?

By the time you read this, the great starship Oprah will have departed our shores after getting a taste of India (‘it’s life Gayle, but not as we know it’). The Winfrey whirlwind started in Mumbai and then tore through the rest of India with a breathless intensity. Oprah partied with Bollywood, was serenaded by children, went shopping in quirky little stores, stopped by a temple, attended a literary festival, and even managed to squeeze in some paparazzi-bashing (quite literally, as her bodyguards manhandled the media entourage waiting to greet her in Vrindavan).

But while nobody got a real sense of what Oprah Winfrey is all about – except that she is an expert manipulator of her own image – by the end of her visit one thing was clear: India now has a new celebrity circuit in place. Sure, the old delights still feature and Oprah dutifully dropped by to be photographed open-mouthed at the Taj Mahal in Agra, but there is a brand-new itinerary in place for visiting celebs.

First up is Bollywood. It is now a truth universally acknowledged that any A-list visitor to India has to hook up with some Indian film star or the other. Hugh Jackman danced with Shah Rukh Khan at an event when he visited Mumbai. Tom Cruise was shadowed by his MI 4 co-star Anil Kapoor during his recent visit. And Oprah’s first stop in Mumbai was at the Bachchan residence where she renewed her acquaintance with Aishwarya and Abhishek (who have appeared on her show) and met their new-born daughter.

Next up is Parmeshwar Godrej. You clearly don’t rate as a bona fide celebrity unless Parmesh throws a party for you. And her guest list is pretty eclectic taking in everyone from Imran Khan and Jennifer Saunders to Richard Gere and now – yes, that’s right – Oprah Winfrey. The beach shimmers, the champagne flows , the stars shine bright and the conversation sparkles as Mumbai’s A list queues up to have its picture taken with the guest of honour.

And then, there’s Gregory David Roberts of Shantaram fame, who is to Mumbai what Mother Teresa was once to Calcutta. If there is a celebrity in town, then Roberts won’t be far behind, organising a visit to the Mumbai slums that featured so prominently in his book. Madonna and Oprah were only the latest celebrities to have been given the grand tour, but you can be sure that they won’t be the last.

In fact, poverty tourism itself has become quite the rage as visiting celebrities vie with one another to visit the ‘real’ India (you know, the one that featured in Slumdog Millionaire). Cue, trips to deprived neighbourhoods, shanty towns, orphanages, crowded railway stations, even sleepy villages. The entire entourage descends on the chosen spot, wearing horrified expressions, SPF factor 50 sunblock and baseball caps, clutching bottles of mineral water in their sanitized hands and trying very hard not to inhale. Some go back home and write cheques to assuage their guilt, others just wash away the grime under the power showers in their 5-star hotel and move on to the next stop.

Those whose sensibilities are not quite up to all this hard-core stuff, get their ‘slice of Indian life’ stuff from the temples. Ever since the Beatles fetched up at Rishikesh to stay at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in the 60s to learn a bit of transcendental meditation (and a spot of levitation while they were at it) India has been the favoured destination of spirituality junkies. Pushkar, which has the only Brahma temple in India, is a favourite stop as are some of the more famous shrines in south India like Tirupati.

But the recent success of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat Pray Love and its movie version featuring Julia Roberts has given a fresh fillip to this industry. Now, there is a new influx of celebrities descending on India, keen to find themselves through fasting, meditation and some light chanting. Madonna was seen at the Nathdwara shrine in Rajasthan, Mick Jagger is said to be a regular visitor to temples in and around Jaipur and Udaipur, and Oprah herself put in an appearance at the Ma Dham in Vrindavan to film the widows (without permission, as it turned out, but that – as they say – is another story).

On the scenic front, too, things have changed. Rajasthan is still a great draw, but the celebs are increasingly plumbing for small, off-the-beaten path, family-run properties like Deogarh over the big hotel chains. Goa is now officially passé. Kerala is where it’s at, with the backwaters scoring effortlessly over the beaches. And Dharamsala is the new Rishikesh, with the Dalai Lama proving to be an irresistible draw to all those newly-minted Buddhists in Hollywood with Richard Gere (yes, him again!) leading the way.

Yes, there is a new celebrity circuit in India now. And once Oprah airs that India special on her cable network, I’m guessing that it’s going to get a tad crowded.

That’s what friends are for...

When it comes to friendships, it takes all sorts to make your life just a wee bit easier

I’ve written in the past about 3 am friends – people whom you can call in the early hours of the morning when you are in the middle of a crisis, with complete confidence that they will listen instead of biting your head off – and how we should consider ourselves lucky if we have even a handful of them. But as I looked at pictures of Maria Shriver, the estranged wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who left him after discovering that he had fathered an illegitimate child with their housekeeper (what a gent, eh?), walking the beach with a few friends looking miserable and near tears, I began to wonder about the nature of friendship.

Yes, it’s all very well to have some people in our lives who will drop everything and listen to us when we are in a funk. But sometimes, that’s not enough. You also have to be sure that afterwards you will feel better about yourself, not worse. You need to believe that your friends are completely on your side. That there isn’t a tiny part of them that is judging you – and finding you wanting. Or even, that at some subliminal level, they are enjoying the sight of your come-uppance.

Which is why, in my book, you need to have four kinds of friends tucked away for such emergencies.

First up is the Sympathetic Listener who, as the phrase suggests, is brilliant at allowing you to let it all out. She doesn’t say very much, sometimes she even refrains from making sympathetic noises. Instead, she just creates a vast stillness between you, a safe space where you can deposit all your fear, your anger, your sorrow and your despair.

And then, by some mysterious process, she gathers all these negative emotions into herself, leaving you feeling strangely unburdened. Spend time with this sort of friend, or even speak to her on the phone, and you end up experiencing a curious lightness of being that leaves you feeling much better about yourself, even though nothing has really changed in your life.

Once you have achieved this sort of closure, you need the services of your Cruel to be Kind Friend. This one takes no prisoners. She is not afraid to tell it as it is, no matter how fragile you may be feeling at that point. And she will not allow you to wimp out even when all you want to do is curl up and die.

No, she will berate you for letting life get the better of you. She will inform you sternly that you have much to be grateful for – a good job, lovely children, your health – and that you need to snap out of it. Stop wallowing in your misery, is her essential message. As the Eagles sang so presciently many decades ago, Get Over It. And there comes a time when all of us need to hear that message.

But while friends like these work like a charm when you are feeling badly about yourself, when you have had a bad break-up for instance, or lost a job, you need a different approach when guilt – rather than sorrow and anger – is the emotion you want to overcome.

We all have moments when we feel that we have screwed up badly; that we have hurt the people we love the most through our thoughtless behaviour. And at such times, all you want to do is hit yourself on the head with a shovel over and over again so that you can wallow in the same pain that you have inflicted on others.

That’s when you need to spend time with a friend who has perfected the quality of being non-judgemental to a fine art. In other words, you need the services of the Whatever Floats Your Boat friend. As far as she is concerned, it’s all good, it’s all a part of life; and you don’t need to beat yourself up over it.

She is never shocked by your worst confessions. Cheated on your boyfriend while on a business trip; yeah, it happens, don’t make a big deal out of it. Feel that you should never have had kids because they make you miserable; hey, everyone feels that way sometimes. Hate your mother-in-law; duh, that’s the way of the universe.

No, none of this takes away the guilt about behaving badly, but you do feel a wee bit better for having shared these feelings – and having had them dismissed as banal rather than shocking.

But, if by some mischance, any of this leaves you feeling a bit rubbish, like you can’t get anything right no matter how hard you try, you need to call in The Eternal Optimist.

She is programmed to always look on the bright side of life; to see the glass as half full rather than half empty. And at times of stress, this relentless optimism can be rather invigorating. It helps that she always has a feel-good story to go with the advice; with the additional homily that if it happened to someone else, there is no reason it can’t happen to you

I just hope that Maria Shriver has at least one such friend in each category filed away in her Rolodex (apart from her ubiquitous celebrity chum, Oprah Winfrey). Or else the months ahead are going to be very challenging indeed.