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Actor Twinkle Khanna has commented on King Charles III’s coronation and joked how it didn’t have one of the British crown jewels: the Kohinoor diamond. Buckingham Palace had announced that the controversial gem would be left out of the coronation ceremony following Queen Elizabeth’s death.
The diamond, which weighs 105 carats and means “mountain of light” in Persian, is believed to have been found over 800 years ago on a bank of the holy Krishna River in southern India. After passing through several empires, it ended up in the hands of Queen Victoria in the mid-19th century. However, legend has it that the diamond is cursed and that it only safe for women, particularly queen consorts, to wear it.
Writing in her columns for Times of India, Twinkle said the coronation brought up the old Kohinoor controversy, as Indians started demanding the United Kingdom to return the diamond that belongs to the country.
“Traditionally, the Queen’s coronation involved wearing the crown with the infamous diamond. On this occasion, the palace issued a statement that the Kohinoor would not be used in the ceremonial proceedings. This didn’t stop Indians from once again asking for the return of the Kohinoor. I would just like to ask the Brits to return not just the Kohinoor, but as requested earlier, our two other anmol ratans, Vijay Mallya and Lalit Modi as well,” she quipped.
The Kohinoor diamond, which has become the focus of anti-colonial anger, is kept on display in the Tower of London. In recent years, the Indian government has repeatedly asked the British government to return the Kohinoor diamond.
In her column, Khanna also mentioned about Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle ditching the royal coronation. The actor quipped that she joined the celebrations in her own way: by wearing a mask of Meghan Markle.
“I promptly bought a Meghan Markle cardboard mask, put it on and started walking all over London so I could do my bit towards making up for her absence at her father-in-law’s coronation,” she added.
The actor, in her piece, also spoke about the United Kingdom’s first Indian-origin prime minister- Rishi Sunak. “His ascent may have surprised many people but not his mother-in-law. In a recent interview, Sudha Murty, one of India’s most beloved writers, quipped, ‘‘I made my husband a businessman. My daughter made her husband Prime Minister of the UK.’ Her comment provoked immediate backlash but her light-hearted comment did have a certain verisimilitude. After all, standing beside every great man, there is often a woman constantly telling him what he is doing wrong. And she is usually right,” she added.
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