God Save The Queen

The story of the British royal family is a soap opera to beat all soap operas

 

I found out about Queen Elizabeth II ‘s passing when I landed in Sydney after a 12-hour non-stop flight from Delhi. Switching on my phone, I saw that The Queen was trending on Twitter and clicked on the hashtag with some trepidation. And saw, to my immense sadness, that she had died, two days after she had shaken hands with her outgoing Prime Minister, Boris Johnson and welcomed the new one, Liz Truss. Queen Elizabeth had promised many decades ago that her life, be it long or short, would be dedicated to the service of the nation. And, true to her word, she served her people and her kingdom till her very last breath.

 

What a woman! What a life! And what a funeral…

 

Even though I was attending an event in Sydney, I found myself sneaking away ever so often to watch the proceedings as the United Kingdom, over which she had reigned for 70 years, came together to say goodbye to her. In fact, so long and protracted were the proceedings that the last leg – the funeral service at Westminster Abbey and the committal service at Windsor Castle – took place after I had arrived back at my home in Delhi. 

 

As I watched that tiny, lead-lined coffin being lowered into the vault at St George’s Chapel, I found myself thinking about the remarkable arc of the Queen’s life. And then, on a sudden impulse, I found myself tuning into the first season of The Crown on Netflix, to watch the fictional depiction of how she first came to the throne.

 

That’s the thing about the British royal family, you see. Yes, they are real flesh and blood people with real lives that they live in the real world. But they are also the best soap opera that has ever been put on for the delectation of the watching world, a sort of royal The Bold And The Beautiful that takes in everything from adulterous spouses, tragic princesses, traumatic deaths, problem children, and every other daytime TV trope.

 

Watching the first ever episode of The Crown ever aired, I began to wonder how the show might depict the events of the past few years, and which elements of the royal story would get picked up for a fictional re-telling.

 

I mean, how could you resist the dramatic possibilities of Megxit? The beautiful biracial American divorcee sweeps the dashing but dim ginger Prince off his feet – and then sweeps him off to America, because it is impossible for them to ‘thrive’ in the royal fold. Cue, a heart-to-heart with the Queen of Hearts of the American people, with accusations of racism and cold neglect flying around, with the added frisson of figuring out which Duchess made the other Duchess cry. Admit it, it would be compelling viewing, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to resist. 

 

Then, there is the Pervy Prince Plot, starring Andrew, whose association with Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Guiffre (who, it must be said, he denies knowing but paid many millions of pounds to) led to his exile from royal life. Imagine the dramatic possibilities of fleshing out the scene as Andrew goes cap in hand to the Queen to ask for a handout to pay off the woman he allegedly had underage sex with. (“And what do you need the money for, darling boy?”)

 

If this gets to be rather heavy going – not to mention, downright icky – you could introduce a comedic sub-plot, starring King Charles and his legion of leaky pens. Every time the new King is asked to sign a visitor’s book or a new piece of legislation, he would be handed a pen that would then explode in his hands, staining his stubby little fingers. The King would then, in turn, explode with rage and frustration. Enter: the only woman who can calm his righteous anger, his wife, Camilla, now miraculously transformed from Wicked Mistress to Stately Queen Consort. (Now that’s a backstory worth exploring!).

 

And I haven’t even got to the melodrama surrounding the Queen’s funeral yet. Would Harry be allowed to wear his military uniform? Would Meghan and Catherine exchange as much as a smile – or a word – in public? Would the warring brothers, William and Harry, reconcile at this sad time?

 

It’s a soap opera to beat all soap operas – especially since it is hard to tell fact apart from fiction.

 

Tears in heaven

Since when did we start deriding people for crying at funerals?

You couldn’t possibly have missed the brouhaha that erupted when George Osborne, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, let one solitary tear escape down his cheek at the funeral of Margaret Thatcher.

The Internet went into instant meltdown. Some derided him for this show of ‘weakness’ (you know how ‘real’ men ‘never’ cry, right?). Others dismissed his tearing up as a cynical ploy to show just how good a Thatcherite he was (after all, what was he weeping about, given that he had met the Iron Lady on less than a dozen occasions?). There were those who agreed that yes, the tears were not genuine, but put them down to the Tory leader trying to create a more ‘caring’ image for himself (remember, this was a man who was booed at such a feel-good event as the London Olympics). Amidst all the jokes, jabs and jeering, there were only a few who said what I was feeling: what is the world coming to if you can’t even cry at a funeral?

Full disclosure here: I am one of the blubbers of the world. And yes, I cry at funerals. It doesn’t really matter how well I have known the deceased, or how many times I have met them. There is something about funerals that brings out the tears – well mine, at any rate. Sometimes it is a particular bhajan being sung as part of the service; sometimes a tiny detail that evokes memories of funerals past (of those I was particularly close to); sometimes it is the thought of how I would feel coping with a loss like this one; and sometimes it is just the sight of close family members of the deceased trying to pull themselves together even though they are clearly falling apart.

At a time like this, sympathy segues seamlessly into empathy, and you can’t help but cry for the universal sorrow that is bereavement. This is not something any of us can escape. At some time or another, we will have to mourn our grandparents, bid farewell to our parents, experience the loss of a sibling, see a close friend succumb to illness. If we are very lucky, we will never know the gut-wrenching sorrow of losing someone of the next generation, who should by rights have been the one to mourn us. But no matter how life pans out, bereavement that is something that all of us will have to bear, sooner or later.

As the saying goes, grief is the price you pay for love.

But what is the acceptable face of grief when you lose someone you loved, or even just admired from afar? And has it changed over the years?

In India, at least, I would have to say yes. Growing up in a traditional joint family, as a child I was witness to the spectacular outpouring of grief that everyone indulged in when there was a death in the extended clan. There was weeping; there was wailing; on some occasions, there was even some beating of breasts. It was loud, it was disturbing, it was even melodramatic at times. But everything said and done, it was undoubtedly cleansing.

After such an outburst of grief, you felt that you had really mourned someone. There was no buttoning up of your feelings. There was no concession made to sparing the feelings of others. There was no embarrassment about letting it all hang out. In a sense, you were given permission to grieve as publically as you saw fit; as loudly as you wanted to. And nobody judged you or condemned you as an incontinent so-and-so.

In the old days, certain Indian states like Rajasthan even had professional mourners, called Rudaalis (the subject of an eponymous movie that earned lead actress Dimple Kapadia a National award). These were lower-caste women hired to mourn (as loudly as possible) in an explosive public display of grief. This worked at two levels. One, to express the sorrow that the family may have been shy of exhibiting in public and two, to goad them into have a proper cry. Because sometimes there really is no better catharsis than tears.

But that was then. Now, tears at funerals are seen as bad taste. It is considered somewhat repellent to make a public exhibition of your grief. If you must cry, then cry in private. You must not shed tears in public in case you make other people uncomfortable. So, chin up please (and make sure it’s not quivering). And let’s see what the British so delightfully describe as a ‘stiff upper lip’.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being told that a display of emotions or the appearance of tears at a funeral (or anywhere else, for that matter) is something to be ashamed of. That we must present a stoic façade at all times, or stand condemned – as George Osborne was – of everything ranging from emotional incontinence to hypocritical cynicism.  

Honestly, it’s enough to make a grown man – or woman – cry.