But by the end, I wasn’t persuaded that Meghan was a victim or that being a member of British royalty was a pain in the behind (well, I admit it became repetitious after four episodes and I gave up).
The first thing I noticed about the wildly successful 6-part Netflix documentary series Harry & Meghan is that this couple is unhappy for reasons that are known only to them, and they are telling the truth—their own truth and nothing but the truth.
Prince Harry and…yes…Princess Meghan, no longer prince and princess, are heard. Their admissions about what it was like to be the rebel in the royal family are filled with a lot of grief.
The prime rogue, to put it mildly. In my mind’s eye, Harry was virtually moving slowly toward Meghan in a field of flowers while humming the song Le mein tere vaaste sab chhodh ke aa gaya.
The documentary’s tone is frequently rhapsodic. Even the couple’s friends—who are each aristocrats in their own right and don’t associate with riffraff—appear to be in a euphoric state (a euphemism for whatever they are smoking).
But at the end of it (okay, I confess it got repetitive after four episodes and I gave up) I was not convinced that Meghan was a victim, that being inducted into British royalty was a pain in the nether regions.
Should she smile at the paparazzi when they accost her, or should she stay noncommittal? Should she wear red or purple when meeting her Lalita Pawar for the first time? Gosh, the existential dilemma couldn’t get more Shakespearean!
At some point, Meghan admits her bi-racism was never a problem while she was growing up, that it was pointed out to her only when she became Mrs ‘Prince Harry’. But she, the innocent naïve romantic, knew nothing about the real world. When she was introduced to Prince Harry she was like, ‘Harry who?’
Alice just expired in wonderland.
Screen shots calling Meghan the most abusive names are flashed on the screen. Admittedly abusers had a field day when she married British royalty. So did the British tabloids. But she knows as well as we do, that these do not define her relationship with Harry. Every high-profile celebrity marriage has its share of abuses and naysayers. Should they be given any leeway to cause pain?
Harry’s mother the iconic Princess Diana went through a lot more harassment by the paps and tabloids. To compare Meghan with Diana is laughable. Harry does just that. I know he does it just to please his wife. Just as Will Smith did what he did at the Oscars. Between the two of them, Harry and Meghan , we can very clearly see who wears the pants. In spite of knowing that Meghan very clearly plays the dominant part in the couple’s equation I still object very strongly to the comparison with Diana.
The best moment in this not uninteresting but by no means pathbreaking documentary on the royal harness, is when Diana is seen wading through snow to tell the photographers not to click her and her sons as they are on a holiday. Meghan should have stopped the comparisons after that shot.
Shots of young Harry and his elder brother William being hounded by paps all the way to their school will haunt you for a while. They made me think of Taimur and Jehangir, sons of Saif and Kareena Kapoor Khan, our own Harry and Meghan who would never know what a normal childhood is.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.
