I loved Meghan Markle since Suits. I did feel sad when I read about she will have to discontinue her acting career to marry into the Royal family. And that fact alone reminds me of the phrase ‘things people do for love.’. I haven’t fallen in love to know how strong love makes one take such sound decisions. And let go of things that are important to you. But watching Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey does give me a teaser of it. We did get to know more about the impact the royal family has on its members and their mental health by watching The Crown. The interview did confirm some of the assumptions I had about the royal family and the couple.
The phrase with which Meghan begins her conversation about the misalignment of perception and reality struck me hard. The fact that the internet and the perception of the majority form the basis of decisions of not only the royal family members but the lives of everyone around here is tragic and unfortunate. Before we take any step, any decision of our lives, we take a step back to check how the actions would be perceived by the majority around us or at least thought to think about it even if we don’t care about the majority of the people. A majority of the millennials might not relate to the construct of thinking through the perceptions, and I feel they are growing with that privilege.
It is sad how the internet has reacted the way it has to post the interview, with silly, forcefully made funny, and senseless memes and remarks. It might have taken a lot of courage for the couple to come out and give their side of the story, a perception the media doesn’t allow us to have. With this, I understand perception as a one-dimensional construct. As and when another dimension is being added, the perception changes. It is never a whole. When it is whole, it becomes truth or a fact. Perception is always associated with interpretation. Perception is just an assumption considered as truth without considering other dimensions. It is just sad that we consider perception as the truth and turn blind to the other dimensions after we have made up our minds about the truth.
While listening to their story, we got to know more about how the royalty has impacted the lives of the family members, how they have to consider how their actions would be perceived by other people, how they couldn’t do things they longed for, and so on. For one moment or at least the duration of the interview, we did feel the pain of loneliness and not wanting to live anymore. That pain of being privileged enough to live in the palace, like a bird trapped in a golden cage but not being able to access help is what kills me. That helplessness, of wanting to give yourself one more chance, but how? No one deserves that. This episode shows us why we shouldn’t ignore our mental health and that of people around us. The importance of having someone by your side through the process, the importance of one statement we all long to hear most of the time “you are not alone in this. I am there with you”. The couple is brave of leaving things behind and starting afresh. It is difficult to leave a life behind with people you love and have grown up with and always looked forward to the future with them. But you have to do that to live life with sanity and not just survive, living two lives, one in front of the media and one behind the doors.
The phrase “behind the doors” reminds me of the lives of several women I have come across in my life. Women being in a place they are not wanted by the majority of others. Be it at work, in the family they are married to, and many a times family they are born into. They are never stopped from being challenged. They have to keep proving themselves always. The women living with an abusive family, women married to abusive husbands and in-laws, or in an abusive workplace. This abuse is not only physical violence but being violated mentally and socially. They live a different life in front of everybody else, and another life behind the doors. But they do not have a Harry who would take the brave step of leaving everything behind and starting afresh. And what if that Harry himself is the harm? The fame and their history does give them a voice loud enough or will brave enough to act upon the injustice that happened to them and tell their story. But what about the women who do not have that voice? Who doesn’t even realize they are a victim, they are suffering? Who doesn’t know there is always an option of ‘a way out’? We see so many Meghans around us, but not all of them have Harry. But my question is, should it always be that prince charming Harry?
This episode does remind me of something I will always keep in mind, “make decisions for your sanity and not for other’s perceptions.”.
Aarzoo 