Kate weds Williams and the world goes crazy

Kate and William are now man and wife.

Add Duchess of Cambridge and Prince to the above mentioned names and the world goes into frenzy over what is termed as the Royal Wedding. Or at least the media makes one believe so.

The Royal Wedding showed the world in the modern era of democracy monarchy still has many takers when it comes to celebrations.

To everyone its own, interpretations of the wedding and the significance of hosting a lavish gala was debated by some, but for most in Britain and elsewhere the well marketed wedding was a get away from the daily dose of gloom.

Marketed to the hilt and planned to perfection, the event made into an extravaganza even in times of austerity.

The Guardian stressed how the Duchess of Cambridge was denied the title of Princess.

It reports:

“The Queen’s conferring of the ancient title of Duke of Cambridge on her grandson just hours before the ceremony deprived his wife of the title Princess Catherine. But she is a duchess, which is several rungs up the social ladder than her standing before entering the 1,000-year-old abbey this morning.”

A hint enough that class still matters in Quality press as in Zone 1-2 circles of London.

Its counterparts in Britain treaded similar lines and speculations depending on their inclinations and those some 7000kms away (read Indian media) though not much aware of the customs, traditions of the British royals were busy debating about the dress of Kate middloeton..err the Duchess of Cambridge, or whether or not she will make it on time and the best was saved for the guest list.

After flipping through some five Indian channels all I could understand that the only call it elite/celebrity guests invited were Sir Elton John and David Beckham with his wife Posh. Rest they and their overseas correspondents were clueless on the guest list.

Barring the report in TOI which talked about austerity and tries to put things in perspective no body in Indian media seems to have any clue, but were busy dishing out the Royal wedding in one of the most trash formats.

The best part of the coverage was when an English news channel anchor asked the guests on air to rest their voices for a while and let people see the Live images. That silence for me was golden, it shoed me what was happening on ground sans trash commentary.

Thankfully unlike the weddings of Indian celebs which last a couple of days, in a matter of couple of hours the Royalty wrapped the show and invited 650 of the 1900 guests for the reception, leaving the rest to devote the rest of airtime, fill reams of newsprint and people like me to blog.

Best wishes to the newly married couple, wake up in the morning and relive the frenzy this time courtesy scribes.

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Engagement Euphoria

Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday gets a note while he’s amidst a cabinet meeting, reads it, shares with his cabinet colleagues and there is a hooray in the room.

Gotcha!

Has he got the magic formula to take the nation out of one of the worst economic slump? No he hasn’t and even if he would have I bet the same would not have met this applaud.

Cameron comes out of 10 Downing Street and announces he’s delighted to hear the news and shares the expression of cabinet meeting reaction. The scribes get into the act and the news byte is splashed across the media.

So what’s it that is driving Brits crazy? From 10 Downing Street to the commoner on the streets everyone all through the second half of Tuesday was gripped in Frenzy.

Heir apparent Prince Williams announces his engagement with long-time girlfriend Kate Middleton and the nation goes berserk, at least for me.

Culture

(Let me make it clear that I hold nothing against the euphoria, but coming from a different culture it was kind of bit too much for me.)

I could gather that this was not just a wedding it was a part of their culture. The Royalty still rules here, though not governing the day-to-day life of its people, but it certainly occupies a lot of their mind space.

For me it was a feeling that though the people democratically elect their leaders, it’s the Monarchy which still rules.

There is a distinctively different connect which people here have with the Monarchy.  Back home in India, we too have erstwhile rulers, but they don’t create such frenzy, they are normal citizens like any of us and hold no decorative titles, have no special privileges and while they have a following, it is largely with the elderly. For youngsters they are just people.

Media

That was more to do with the cultural aspect and people’s perception. However, the kind of frenzy it generated in media reports did have a striking similarity with the coverage of any top of the league celebrity wedding in India.

In fact the coverage here did beat the Indian media hands down.

From the expected guest list of the mega upcoming event, the dates for which have not yet been announced, to the number of man hours will it involve for the couple to get dressed up for the occasion, to the arrangements, to security details and whole lot of possible permutation and combinations were analysed with utmost sincerity and detail. Some experts said, it might get London tourism worth 30 Millions? Nothing was left to imagination.

The public service broadcaster BBC did the best possible service going by the sentiments of people. The couples interview and related reports consuming around 12 minutes of airtime was shown bang every 30 minutes in the evening. This meant every 18th minutes they were hammering the interview in viewers head, but no one seemed to be bothered.

For a day at least all the pain of Spending Cuts, Ireland financial crisis, the Guantanamo torture settlement pay-out were forgotten. That probably was the best thing about this mega event.

A day after, life cuts back to reality, the Irish republic bail out, Cornwall storm, Taliban all form the day’s milieu.

Euphoria settles and it’s back to business and deadlines.