Tag: royalty

Royal Life: A Light-hearted Perspective

Being Royal

“I take it all back, my dear. I think I want to be Royal. You know? Just have all the means, and have everyone do as I say!” I said to the children, who were milling around in the kitchen for lunch.

 “Everybody already does whatever you say! I don’t know what you mean!” said the daughter.

“No they don’t! But that’s going on the blog.”  I said, to which the son pips in his share.

“Oh my god Amma, you’re literally a content farmer, you know that? Full of dictums on using social media, instagram, etc, and here you are totally content farming.”

“True! True!” agrees the husband, who is also enjoying this far too much. “She is the Queen! Content Farming. Royals do it too, don’t they?!”

I laughed loudly at that, and said, “Seeing as none of you bowed to me while meekly accepting that you did not get the yogurt out of the fridge, I contest your claim.” 

Wealth, Fame, Fashion

The daughter and I have been watching a few episodes of The Crown on Netflix, and our commentary changes depending on the episode in question. 

Generally, having to not worry about wealth, ways and means, is a thumbs-up seeing as career discussions are a constant hum for those from middle class families. “I wouldn’t mind attending charity balls, and deciding where my money goes. “

“Exactly! Mental Health – yes! Global warming – yes! Improving chocolate wrappers – no! See?!”

One night, we were watching an episode where Lady Diana was being hounded by the press.  

The press scrutiny, and the unrelenting demands of living in the public eye earns a commiserating, “Must be awful living like that. Watching how often somebody talks to you, or who has their left toe turned away from you! Sheesh! People need jobs!”

“And – there we are back to jobs again! We must not be a very good royal family then, huh?!” we cackled to one another slurping the icecream sticks in our hands in a plebian manner. 

One day, we swooned over the fashions – the elaborate hats, and the colors that we wouldn’t wear to work everyday. The queen’s words to Prime Minister Blair then made sense. In that episode, the Queen is agonizing over the future of the monarchy, and has several polls taken to consider what they need to be doing, what they could do better: etc. Finally, predictably, she embraces the has-been, but shows growth by seeing the point of the can-be. She says something to the effect of the monarchy  existing to show us another world, transport us to another world. That, she is determined to do well. So if there are swan keepers of royal swans, royal buglers and bagpipers, and each of them providing a bit of a dip into that world, so be it. (Season 6 Episode 6, Ruritania.)

Sea Sense

One day, the daughter floated downstairs wearing something that looked like it had been discarded by Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man after a trying day at sea. I gave her one of my scathing looks that affected her like water on a whale. Then, I tried adopting a pleading tone. “Do you honestly want to wear this to a party in which other people will be present?”

“It’s summer! Relax. Besides, I like the fraying edges – it’s supposed to be like that.”

“So, it wasn’t ripped by an angry shark?!”

She gave me a look. Frozen. Piscene – in keeping with the theme of the evening.

“But think of the fashions!” 

“I am thinking of fashion. Clearly you’re not! What is this Mother? Fashions from last century?!” 

“Long skirts were rather popular in the 1990s, but they continue to be fashionable in 2025, don’t they?!” 

It reminded me of a good old book by Miss Read: Changes in Fairacre. Miss Read is musing on what to wear for dinner to her friend Amy’s house. Her Aunt Clara’s seed pearls would have to do with almost everything. And she says:

“Did other women fuss so much about their clothes, What did women do who had twenty outfits to choose from? Went quite mad, I supposed, worrying about shoes and jewels and so on to go with the right clothes. How did Royal ladies cope?”

I looked down at my well-worn skirt, a jewellery set my friend had gifted me a few years earlier, thanked the stars that aside from our modest circle of friends who were also our friends on social media, nobody really bothered about us.

“Royal life must be such a hassle, huh?! “ we chuckled as we settled into the back seat in our comfortable clothes. 

That evening, I sighed happily to myself, glancing up at the full moon glowing in the skies. We may not know what it is like to have a dip into another life, like the Queen says, but I am grateful there isn’t a dull moment in the house with these characters.

Royalty – No Thanks! RoyalTea Please!

I had the opportunity of visiting Jaipur and while there, a friend was kind enough to take me to the Ajmer Fort. It was a beautiful day for the fort and after the initial haggling and nuisance of guide badgering, we managed to find a guide who could explain things in English to us. 

The visit was a welcome one. For all of us are mired in our daily lives, our problems looming large over the horizon, sometimes enveloping us. However, a short sojourn into the lives of those who lived a couple of centuries ago is revelatory. A spot of time travel is all it takes: Our problems do not go away but something shifts in our perspective to handle them. 

Standing there, atop a hillside and looking down at the Queen’s palaces, the guide told us about the political rivalry between the queens themselves. The king, he was telling us about, had 12 queens. Each queen had her own staff (each had at least 38 maids according to the maids quarters), and obviously had diplomatic relations with her fellow queens. A delicate balance of power, respect, and information exchange ought to have existed in these very spaces. The queens were leaders in their domains: their aristocratic birth and training only able to account for their fate till they got to become queens of the raja. After that, they had to keep up their image, fight their own battles, live with the fact that they could lose their sons & husbands to war anytime, and figure out a method of survival or not if they found themselves at the mercy of the invading army. 

I suddenly felt overwhelmed at the problems of their day. I am sure they received the best guidance available to them at the time, but nevertheless, they lived hard, admirable lives. To ensure that one received the right amount of attention from their king was part of the puzzle. How could you be just enticing enough for the king, and continue to be liked by the other queens? Budgets, staff management, administrative duties, leadership training for the young princes’ and princess’s . 

As we stood there taking in the stories of the guide, I felt a shift in perspective with respect to my own career. It is life after all. Every one had trials and tribulations to carry on. I understood vaguely what people meant when they said that each life is an illusion (not that we suffer any less because people tell us this).

As our guide marched on through the palace quarters, he told us about various aspects of royal life. The scented waters, the mechanisms used to keep cool in a desert, the entertainment choices, the staff who protected them and finally the baths where they could relax and rejuvenate. As I peered into the bath-tub of centuries ago, I could imagine them being waited on by their female attendants, and getting dressed with 42 different pieces of jewellery, before they could present themselves in public. 

That evening, when I stepped into the shower for a quick rinse off, I felt a wave of gratitude. The water was hot, and the plumbing perfect. The clothing I had ensured I made it for dinner downstairs in the hotel in 10 minutes. What’s more? There were no diplomatic connotations to the color of the jeans I wore.

I felt an enormous sense of how far we’d come! Royalty may have been all well, but I think we have it better. My Royal Tea awaited downstairs and I bounded downstairs with no queenly dignity.