When Eddie Met Wallie

There is no reason for Queen Elizabeth II to have any apprehensions about Prince Harry marrying Meghan Markle, an American, a divorcee with a living former spouse (not that he would come and claim a royal alimony or just plain royalty). In fact, she is counting her blessings that the monarchy, the church, the government and the taxpaying (and taxed) general British plebeians are totally cool with the idea.

Glad the establishment has come a long way, considering a similar situation in 1936, at that time called a predicament, faced by Harry's great grandfather. Otherwise, this matrimony would be a prepaid mobile phone for Harry to abdicate in the future, when and if his time comes to be king, from being the fifth in line to the throne (might as well be in the line at Mirpur 10 to get into the Mirpur Stadium with a standby ticket).

Now, this great grandfather is really the bro (no, not the "yo what's up" type) of Harry's direct great grandfather, the father of Queen Elizabeth II, King George VI. Grandma remembers the turning of fate very well. For, it is a mere chance that King George VI's brother Edward VIII, the king prior to him, is very much alive and kicking when passing on the buck, er, crown to George VI, for Eddie boy doesn't have a boy or a girl (that he knows of) to pass the monarchy on to when he decides to follow his heart rather than what Prince Charles has been waiting for since propeller aircrafts.

It is at a party that King Edward VIII meets the charming American socialite Wallis Simpson. Love knows no bounds and in this case, no ponds, and the love from across the pond is as strong as the Rock of Gibraltar. But so are the convictions of the Church of England about a divorcee (second time around) with a living husband marrying the king. The government threatens to quit and King Edward VIII abdicates.

Surely a windfall for George VI. It's a win-win—love, no Game of Thrones and voila, "Oi chhuree tor biyey!", putting Elizabeth II directly next in line to the throne. So, When Harry Met Meghan, Queen Elizabeth is just fine. And if anyone dares bring up "oh, she's a foreigner", think again. For Prince Philip is no pure-bred, mash potato and Yorkshire pudding eating Englishman, or a Welsh, or a Scot. He is scot in the middle of being Greek and Danish. His love for Liz II prompts him to gladly change his name to Philip Mountbatten which otherwise would have remained Philip Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. So glad the trend doesn't take on, otherwise we would see Brad Jolie, Michael Zeta Jones, Will Pinkett, William Jefferson Rodham, President Donald Knavs, Saif Ali Kapoor, Asif Bhutto, Shakib Biswas and of course, Naveed Chowdhury.

Oh, there may be one final point of contention with When Harry Met Meghan that is not in the case of When Eddie (Edward VIII) Met Wallie (Wallis Simpson). Meghan is African American. So? It's a minor karma at best and let's just move on. Ok, karma in the sense that now Buckingham Palace, after centuries of ruling Africa and America, will now know what it is like to be ruled by Africa and America.

Are we done now with the matrimonial balance sheet? Yes? Good! May we now focus on the USD 43 million wedding? Oh by the way, 94 percent of that budget goes into security. Makes sense—it's no easy task to ward off individual, even worse, collective strikes by Prince Harry's seventeen former girlfriends, all fueled by lost opportunities.

It is a beautiful wedding. While many fashion police women and men comment on the simplicity of her get-up, nobody misses the 16 feet of trailing white, something that in Bangladeshi weddings is called a shamiana. What is not readily noticeable are the 53 hand-stitched flowers representing the 53 members of the Commonwealth, the flowers bought under an offer you can't refuse—buy (just take) 53 and get 1 Kohinoor free.

Bangladesh does have a presence there—one of the 53 flowers on Meghan's dress. Neighbouring India has more than a stitched flower as Meghan hitches her friend, the other flower, Priyanka Chopra to the royal wedding, who, immediately after the wedding, comes straight to Dhaka from London. Can't blame her, she craves for something that was not on the royal menu, thanks to the budget being swallowed up by security—Fakhruddin's kachchee biriyani! And not only that, she makes a beeline for Cox's Bazaar to see the Rohingya crisis first-hand, which puts many Bangladeshis to shame for not having trekked the mere 45-minute flight to see for ourselves the misery of so many. And it is perhaps the presence of this star in the area that gets Aung San Suu Kyi to soften up on her tough stance on the Rohingyas. After all, the lure is for ASSK to come to Cox's Bazaar and be allowed to take a selfie with Priyanka.

The royal wedding, all said and done, captures the imagination of the world. We want to just subliminally forget Iraq, Palestine, Yemen, Syria, ISIS, Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, global warming, recession, racism, the arms race, cancer, suicide attacks, Guantanamo, hunger, disease, drugs, murder, school shootings, domestic violence, sexual harassment… to be immersed in the simplicity of:

"Once upon a time, there was a prince and a princess. There was a h-u-g-e (Donald Trump tone) pond between them. He flew choppers and she flew the ranks in Hollywood. They flew to Botswana, fell in love, got married without inviting Donald Trump and then they lived happily ever after."

Naveed Mahbub is an engineer at Ford & Qualcomm USA and CEO of IBM & Nokia Siemens Networks Bangladesh turned comedian (by choice), the host of ATN Bangla's The Naveed Mahbub Show and ABC Radio's Good Morning Bangladesh, the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club.

E-mail: Naveed@NaveedMahbub.com