Jaipur Diaries 2: Decoding Diana; Tina Brown talks to Vir Sanghvi

This was a session I was really keen on attending because, just before the literature festival, I had read Tina’s biography of Princess Diana, The Diana Chronicles, and wanted to talk to her about it during the event. Alas, that never happened because Tina was, literally, mobbed by the media. I do plan to send her the questions over email but before that happens, l’ll write about the session at Jaipur which was about the book.

Moderated by the venerable Vir Sanghvi, ‘The Diana Chronicles’ session was – quite obviously – a discussion about the book. It was published in 2007 and is a fascinating account of, not just Diana’s life, but also of the Royal family and of British society through the 80’s and 90’s. Meticulously researched and written with a trademark irreverence and panache, The Diana Chronicles is a revelation of just how complex the late Princess was.

But the question to be asked is ‘Why Diana?’ and that’s exactly how Vir Sanghvi started the discussion.

“The Diana story is one of the most compelling that one would ever have read. Beauty, vulnerability, fragility, ambition, loved, rejected, royalty, monarchy…is it death, is it murder? I mean, come on, there is every single element you could possibly imagine (in her life). So it’s just too interesting for it not to be re-examined”.  But was she worried that she was writing her book after all the principal characters – Diana’s secretaries, security officers etc – had written their versions?

“One of the things I’ve learnt as an editor is that, just when everybody’s had their say is when you don’t know anything at all; because so much information is recycled and rewritten thanks to journalism and so much garbage gets written. And there’s always more to find if you go back, re-interview everybody and those who’ve never talked before. So, I think it’s these big stories which get so much coverage that need to be re-examined.”

In India, Diana is seen as a tragic figure who married a man who just wanted an heir and was having an affair with his mistress. But the Diana in Tina’s book comes across as a much more complicated person.

“Well if Diana were to be canonised soon after her death, she’d be far less interesting than the vain, mysterious, scheming yet tender-hearted, yet very sexual. She was a very empathetic girl; there was no question about it. Her desire to help people was absolutely authentic; her connection to people was authentic. She could look in a crowd and identify a person who was lonely or sad and connect to him on a one-to-one basis; that was absolutely real. But on the other side, she was also very troubled and that’s what made her appealing.”

A startling revelation of the book was that Diana had an affair with Barry Mannakee, her protection officer, quite early on in the marriage. “Yes, she did. And it was quite early on in the marriage; within one and a half years of it.”

Talking about Charles, Tina said that he did get married in “good faith” but that his “heart belonged to Camilla and, from Diana’s point of view that was something she couldn’t take.” So is that the reason why Diana had so many lovers? Could she have been faithful to Charles if he had resisted Camilla? “I think that Diana was a highly starved and a very needy woman and it’s possible that no one husband could have ever been reassuring enough for Diana” she said. “Diana tended to stalk them (her lovers) while she was involved with them to the point that she drove them away. She would call them a 100-times-a-day, demand constant reassurance and men got really freaked out by this” added Tina. “She freaked out Gulu Lalvani, who was one of her lovers later in life, because she couldn’t stop calling him, going to his house, checking on him all the time. And she did the same with Hasnat Khan; calling him a 100-times-a-day in the middle of his operations. So there was this tremendous insecurity and it’s possible that no man could’ve been enough for her” Tina added that had Diana married a man who was “tender and re-assuring, it’s possible that she would’ve settled down.  But she married into the chilliest family in the world. She was looking for an elder woman to be a mother figure because her own mother had left her when she was six and who did she find? The Queen of England, who wasn’t the kind of mother-in-law you could say ‘let’s have a cup of tea and talk about the problems.’ She was quite aloof in a sense. So there was this massive insecurity which only made her very much worse.”

Diana’s choice of Gulu Lalvani and Hasnat Khan – both Asian men – is intriguing. “I think Diana wanted to be with someone who was outside the Royal family. She felt, at that point, that because she had alienated the Royal family, most of the people she might have been involved with from the outside world (Englishmen), believed she was from there (the Royal family).  And although the Royal family doesn’t have the same powers it feels it does and you are the sort of person Diana wants to be involved with, you just don’t want to alienate the Royal family” said Tina and added “the celebrity she hung out with wouldn’t give her the neediness. So, in a way for her, the Asian men provided her with a new culture to explore; also the kind of men who were more willing to respond to her without the anxiety an Englishmen would”. Her choice of Lalvani was understandable – a playboy, rich and a member of Anabelle’s – but Hasnat Khan seemed to be an odd choice.

“Hasnat Khan for her was the ultimate person. As a doctor, he was a good listener, patient; Diana was inspired by his selflessness. Khan, in turn, loved the fact that Diana wanted to be associated with humanitarian causes and was quite proud of her. And that was the best thing about him” Tina said it was “rather tragic” that they broke up because “he was the best thing to ever happen to her”. “But then, like so many good things that happened to Diana, she drove them away. Also, it was very demeaning for a man to be the boyfriend of Diana; pictures in the papers, can’t lead a life without being hassled. Hasnat couldn’t take it and very few people can” claimed Tina.

But did Hasnat like her, asked Vir

“Yes, I think he loved her very much and perhaps loved her more truly than anybody did” said Tina. “But he also had his career and wanted to be a real, professional doctor and did not want to be Diana’s boyfriend. When I met her in July 1997 in New York, she said ‘everybody thinks I’m the most glamorous woman in the world but for me, it’s so hard to get a man in my life to put up with the celebrity status that I have and it makes me very lonely’”.

Tina added that Diana “dreaded” the following month because her children, William and Harry, were going to their summer retreat at Balmoral and that she would feel very “lonely”.

On the subject of Dodi Al-Fayed, Tina said that Diana was with Dodi because of the protection he offered her. “Diana kept referring to him and said that ‘he has all the toys’. By toys, she meant all the accoutrements of glamour, wealth and protection.”

Contrary to what Mohammed Al-Fayed said, her love affair with Dodi was very short and one which she embraced when she was very “vulnerable” according to Tina. “Dodi for her was a great blessing and at the time he invited her to the south of France, she was at her most vulnerable; it was a very tough time for her because she had to deal with the fact that Prince Charles had thrown a 50^th birthday party for Camilla Parker-Bowles at their former marital home in Highgrove. And that really, really upset her”.

Tina added that when she met Diana in New York, Diana was “obsessed” with the fact that she didn’t lose Charles to Camilla but that Camilla had had him. “Here was this woman who had always been there (in Charles’ life) and this is what irked her most.”

Tina said that while Dodi might have been a “sweet” fellow he was, essentially, “stupid”. But, Vir asked, did 

Diana seriously contemplate a future with Dodi? “She may have considered that as a many-solution option for her; slap in the face of the Royal family, the only person who could take them head on, slap in the face for Hasnat Khan. He (Dodi) was a good option in a sense but ultimately, it was only romance which would’ve helped”.

However, in the same breath, Tina also talks about Diana’s “other side”: as a professional who took her role very seriously. “She was a terrific executive and her secretarial staff loved her because she was decisive and organised. She did what she set out to do, never ever let anybody down, super committed and performed when she was asked to do it. And, she connected with people in a very real way. Dodi, on the other hand, never showed up anywhere on time. His staff said he functioned on ‘Dodi time’ which was nine hours later. He would drop into a restaurant any time he felt like it; Diana wouldn’t have been able to stand that.  So many, many reasons why the relationship would’ve ended soon”.

So there was a certain tension between the humanitarian Diana and the one who was on a yacht in the south of France?

“Well, that’s what made her interesting. Diana’s need for love and attention always interfered with her good side and that was the problem. Her marriage was so loveless that she had to keep looking for validation outside it. What she never got tired of was the attention so, in a way, the press became her lovers. She would treat celebrity coverage to believe that she was somebody of worth. And that’s a disaster because it (press coverage) was all fickle and invasive. In the end, she became very distraught, fragile and frightened”

But why would any man who married Diana want to leave her for someone like Camilla? Tina said that Charles’s marriage to Diana was “agony from the beginning”. She added “Here was a man raised as being the centre of attention; from the day he was born he had flunkies, courtiers and sycophants dancing around him. I mean, he would make a serious comment and people would roar with laughter and you’d think ‘that wasn’t particularly funny’. But how would he ever know? And then he marries Diana who he is enchanted by at first; this nice little, lovely girl whom he loves very much. But very quickly, it turned to rage and it began on their very first trip (a tour of Wales).  They were walking on a path and split up – Diana goes to the left and Charles to the right. Everybody on Diana’s side screamed, shouted and waved; people on the side were cold and seemed to be saying ‘we got him!’. By the time they finished their walkabout, he was in a rage”.

Among the many other things that were discussed at this session were the infamous “tampon transcripts”, Prince Harry’s paternity issue (Charles is understood to have said “I didn’t know what she was doing at the time!”), Camilla’s mistressy ways and Diana’s sexual inabilities. But I guess those are bits of salacious gossip that we’ve heard a lot about in the past and were injected into the session to add some spice to it . What really emerges out of the book and this session is that Diana was a very complicated person and that she remains an enigma till today.

Until next time, Ciao!

(Note: The statements which are not attributed to Tina Brown are either comment by me or by Vir Sanghvi, unless otherwise specified. The same statements have been rephrased and rewritten for this blogpost and every attempt has been to report them without diluting their meaning or accuracy.)