Two sisters, worlds apart. One Royal family that bridges the distance. This week’s essay is read by Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Princess Margaret in Season 3 of The Crown.
ELIZABETH:
Hello you.
MARAGET:
Hello you.
ELIZABETH:
Sorry to disturb. I know you're on holidays. You don't want to hear this.
MARAGET:
What?
ELIZABETH:
We've had an invitation from the White House for you to go to Washington and have dinner with the President and the First Lady and we'd like you to attend.
MARAGET:
When?
ELIZABETH:
This Wednesday.
MARAGET:
Ah, can't.
ELIZABETH:
Why not?
MARAGET:
I'm going to be in New York. Teddy's book launch.
ELIZABETH:
Perhaps I should make it clear. There's rather a lot riding on it and everyone is keen, very keen for you to go.
MARAGET:
Perhaps I should make it clear that nothing is going to stop me from supporting my husband just like you asked me to.
ELIZABETH:
Margaret?
MEREDITH:
So maybe you guys are a little better at communicating than say Elizabeth and uh Margaret were a lot of the time.
MEL:
Just a little bit.
MEREDITH:
But you know, maybe if they had Snapchat maybe things would've been different. Who can say?
MEREDITH:
I'm Meredith Goldstein, longtime advice columnist for the Boston Globe, host of the Love Letters podcast, and very enthusiastic television watcher. And this is Because I Watched, a new podcast exploring how real people's lives have been changed thanks to their favorite Netflix shows and movies. Each week we explore amazing stories from across the world, influenced by your favorite series and read by the actors who helped make them.
MEREDITH:
I've always said television can be a lot of things. A way to entertain, to unwind, to connect to a partner. And I love television. I talk about it all the time. Probably way too much. So when I was thinking about how television affects me and my relationships, I immediately thought about my sister. My sister and I are really close. In fact, she jokes to people that we are "sister wives". And of course, I don't think she knows what sister wives actually means. The problem is is that my sister lives in New York and I live in Boston. That means it's harder to keep in touch every day and one of the best ways to keep the lines of communication open is to talk about our favorite shows. We'll send quotes to each other all day. We'll send memes and gifs. It's just a way for us to stay close and in touch. But today's story isn't about me and my sister. It's about two different sisters who bonded over a well known family from across the pond.
MEREDITH:
Today's story is about two sisters with miles in between them, both emotionally and literally, brought together by The Crown. This essay is written by Christina Tucker, read by the incomparable Helena Bonham Carter who plays Princess Margaret in season three of the show, which you can watch now in its entirety.
HELENA:
There were two sisters. One is younger and bubbly, with a voice that is always on the verge of breaking into a laugh. The older one is reserved. She listens quietly and then unleashes full elegant paragraphs when compelled to speak. It's no wonder that Jasmine and her sister Camellia, or Mel as she prefers, saw themselves in the Crown's portrayal of the complicated and often prickly relationship between the young Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. On the surface, it might seem odd that two Indian sisters have such reverence and respect for a story about British royalty, and they understand that. But for Jasmine and Mel, finding a deeper understanding about the way England and the monarchy shaped their lives is a large part of what makes the show so satisfying. While the stunning costumes and attention to detail might've been what drew Mel and Jasmine to The Crown initially, it was their own history, both personal and cultural, that kept them wrapped.
Growing up in Kolkata, India, the sisters always had a passion for the Royals. As children, their grandparents told them stories about living in India just after the 1947 division of British India into Pakistan and India. The girls spent their days flipping through books with pictures of royal gowns and architecture in Buckingham palace and photos of the Royal Family. They watched movies about Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth and fell in love with the stature and grandiosity of it all. It's not that their family wasn't critical of the British empire for it's role in the diminishing of Indian culture, but the girls were also taught about the ways that Indian society developed under British influence, the introduction of the English language and the establishment of better school systems. Mel even admits that she and her sister both daydreamed about what it would be like to marry a Royal.
HELENA:
Eventually the two of them grew up and left their childhood fascination with the monarchy behind. Jasmine, who Mel describes as her guiding stick, pushed her older sister to consider studying abroad in the United States. Mel knows that she tends to be the one who sticks to the rules, the one who loves tradition and stability. She's the Elizabeth of the two. Jasmine was only 10 at the time, but much like princess Margaret. She urged her older sister to try something new, to take risk.
It worked. Mel left India at 17, moving first Iowa for her bachelor's degree and then to New York for graduate school. But while Mel credits her sister with pushing her out of the nest, her move to Iowa also changed the dynamic between her and her sister. They stayed in touch while Mel was in college, but the distance made it hard to maintain regular contact. Suddenly, they were more aware of their seven year difference in age. Their closeness began to evaporate.
When they did talk to each other, they found themselves sitting in awkward silences they didn't quite know how to fill. The normally bubbly Jasmine was often quiet and reserved with Mel. And Mel didn't know how to talk to the young woman who'd replaced her baby sister. She felt guilty, like she'd abandoned the little girl she was supposed to protect.
HELENA:
In 2016, Mel returned to India nearly a decade after she left. The night before her arrival, Jasmine remembers keeping her mother up with questions about her big sister. "Will she be a stranger to me? What will we say to each other?" She was worried they no longer had anything in common. How do you talk to someone you were once close to when you've changed so much?
As for Mel, she was shocked when she arrived and discovered Jasmine had a boyfriend. In her mind, Jasmine was still 10 years old. How could this be possible? When Mel showed up accompanied by a female friend, Jasmine didn't know what to say or how to react. She remembers Mel asking her point blank if she was okay. It was like they had to remind one another that they were sisters. Over the course of the visit, Mel kept having to fight her impulse to treat Jasmine like a child, realizing she no longer had to play the role of caretaker. She had vivid memories of her parents telling her that it was her job to watch over her little sister, but she had missed out on so much of Jasmine's life. Now that Jasmine was a young woman with a boyfriend and her own set of interests, Mel knew she needed to find a new way of connecting with her.
Perhaps it was kismet, then, that The Crown was released on Netflix later that year. After watching one episode, Mel knew it was something she needed to share with Jasmine. Here, she thought, was something that could reconnect them to their childhood, back when they were just two girls flipping through picture books and listening to their grandparents' stories. Mel's plan worked. Jasmine was instantly hooked on the show. And before they knew it, the sisters found themselves talking effortlessly with each other again. And as they did, they began to realize that as adults, they had the ability, through the lens of the show, to view their own lives in a new context. The crown helped Jasmine and Mel feel a connection to the past. They got to see a visual representation of a period in history they'd only heard about from their grandparents or studied in school. They were fascinated by Elizabeth's struggles with her marriage and her friendship with Billy Graham, but they struggled to reconcile the bloody history of India's battle for independence with the dazzling gowns and Royal palaces.
They understood now that they were taught to speak English in Catholic primary schools, all because of the long shadow of England's control over India. Watching The Crown, Jasmine and Mel felt like they were seeing the individuals behind the decisions that led to the realities of their upbringing, and it gave them a sense of great empathy for the people who had to make those difficult choices. There was so much they never learned in their history classes. But what kept them interested was the story of Elizabeth and Margaret. Jasmine saw a lot of the young queen in Mel and much of herself in Margaret. She's always been the one who pushes her sister to move outside of our comfort zone. And not long ago, Jasmine gave Mel her biggest push yet.
The woman who'd accompanied Mel on her visit home in 2016 was actually Mel's partner, but Mel wasn't ready to tell her family that. At the time, Mel introduced her as a friend. Then the next year, Mel and her partner were photographed walking in the New York City Pride Parade. When the family saw the picture on Facebook, they started asking questions. Mel was tired of lying. She didn't want to hide this integral part of her identity from her family anymore. She knew it was time to come out. She wasn't worried about Jasmine, even when their relationship had grown distant her little sister had always accepted her in full. Mel asked if Jasmine would be in the room on the video call when she came out to her mother and Jasmine agreed readily. Mel was terrified and Jasmine assured her that everything would be okay. But their mother was devastated. Mel did her best to explain that she was still the same daughter that she'd raised, but Mel and her parents didn't speak for a long while after that. Mindful of the lessons they'd learned from The Crown about people faced with difficult choices, Mel urged Jasmine to maintain empathy for their parents as they worked through their feelings.
Mel and Jasmine did their best to stay patient. Mel had come out to their mom on the video call in part because she was too scared to tell her father, but ultimately he was the one who finally realized that Mel's sexuality wasn't going to change. It's taken two years, but slowly, surely Mel and Jasmine's parents have begun a slow process of acceptance. They talked to Mel weekly on the phone now, and they've even started asking how things are going with her partner. When the couple got engaged, her parents even sent engagement gifts. Mel was touched beyond words. She doesn't take these small gestures for granted, and she knows that the progress they've made could never have happened without Jasmine's unshakable support. She's doing everything she can to return the favor.
HELENA:
After seeing Mel take a chance and move abroad, Jasmine yearned for a similar opportunity. Their father, having already let one daughter cross oceans for college, wasn't keen on the idea of letting his youngest do the same. But Mel was determined to convince him to support Jasmine's ambitions and argued that if she'd been allowed to leave the nest, Jasmine should have a chance to do the same. He reluctantly agreed and before long Jasmine had followed her older sister's footsteps and set off to study at Mel's Alma Mater. Jasmine loved living in the United States and being closer to her sister, but the family struggled to keep up the expensive tuition payments. Their father didn't understand why Jasmine couldn't get a job to pay for tuition, and again it was Mel who stepped in and explained how overwhelming it would be for Jasmine to work enough to both support herself and pay for school. Jasmine ultimately decided to transfer to a University in Canada, where the tuition costs are much lower. But this meant leaving school in Iowa and temporarily returning to India to apply for a new student visa, which upset their father all over again. He'd now grown attached to the idea of Jasmine getting an American education and was fearful she was abandoning her studies altogether. The whole situation was extremely stressful for Jasmine, but Mel had been her rock throughout the process, painstakingly clarifying the transfer process for their father and trying to reassure him.
While Jasmine waits patiently in India for her new visa to come through, she and Mel are back to talking like they used to. Of course, like any sisters, the two have their disagreements. Jasmine is quick to admit that she has a short temper and Mel concedes that sometimes the time difference makes it hard to communicate as often as you'd like. Thankfully, the sisters are better than the Queen and the Princess about acknowledging their differences. Jasmine concedes that her temper is as fleeting as it just short and she knows Mel will always give her the benefit of the doubt. They've learned the hard way that they can always trust their bond to see them through. Lately, the sisters spend their days trading photos of Queen Elizabeth's ballgowns through Instagram and WhatsApp. It's not just the beauty and spectacle they love. They swap admiring messages about how Queen Elizabeth holds herself during her most vulnerable moments, especially with old male counterparts who take it for granted due to her age and gender. And being in constant communication about the show means Jasmine and Mel are in constant communication about their lives as well. Among other things, Jasmine sends Mel photos of their mother's cooking, which Mel has been missing while living in the states. So much friendship and love has been rekindled over thousands of miles, not to mention a deeper connection with their family's history and the history of India, all thanks to The Crown. As the new season approaches, Jasmine is interested in seeing how Elizabeth and Philip's relationship changes as they grow older, and they both can't wait to see Prince Charles come into the story more fully. The crown is indeed a heavy burden to bear and the show does a great job in depicting that, Mel says. But most of all, she and Jasmine can't wait to check back in with Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.
In Mel's words, we're invested in the sisterhood.
MEREDITH:
Thanks to Helena Bonham Carter for reading Christina Tucker's essay. We sat down with Helena to get her thoughts on how important the crown is to Jasmine and Mel.
HELENA:
Um, it's very touching. I mean, you know, it's often been discussed as to why it's so widely watched, The Crown, like across the world. So it is touching to see how two people in India relate to it. And I basically, that's kind of what we always say, is that it is ultimately about a family of which the, you know, there are families throughout the world, whatever nationality you are, and whatever extraction you are.
MEREDITH:
What do you think princess Margaret would say to these two sisters?
HELENA:
Um... Come in, Margaret, speak to me. Um, what would she, I think she'd be very touched. Touched that on some level she's been, she's been understood. I think the problem with Margaret, if anything, I mean she did have great sense of humor about most things, is that she did feel somewhat misunderstood by the press. But, um, I think she'd find it all rather fun.
JASMINE:
And when she came in 2016, I told my mom that, Oh, she's a stranger. I don't know her. Like my mom was like, you have talked to her so many times. And I'm like, no, that's just a phone call. I don't know how she in person, what she is in person, what she likes, what she dislikes. I don't even know if she's my sister anymore. Like, is she going to accept me the way I am? Then she came home and she was like, as always, she was chirpy when she was talking, like the super talkative, talkative person in the family. And I was like so quiet because I didn't know what to say, how to react or anything. And slowly I was like, okay, no, like she is my sister, so she knows me. So, so yeah, things got back to normal again and I was again the same person. Like I treated her as my sister instead of just being a stranger.
MEREDITH:
Thank you for listening to Because I Watched. Next week we'll hear about how Queer Eye changed one mother's perspective forever. If you like what you heard, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It makes it easier for other people to find the show. Because I Watched is produced by Netflix and Spoke Media. Today's essay was written by Christina Tucker and read by Helena Bonham Carter. Special thanks to Mel and Jasmine for sharing their story. I'm Meredith Goldstein. We'll see you next week.