Australian DJs (l) and their victim (r)
The case of the royal hoax, which many must have heard already, is about a prank call cooked up by two Australian disc jockeys, Michael Christian and Mel Greig, who pretended to be England’s Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II.
The object of their cock-and-bull story was the King Edward VII Hospital in London, where on December 3, Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William, now better known as the Duchess of Cambridge, had been admitted for a severe case of morning sickness. The impostors just wanted to know how the Duchess was doing.
While this happened over a week ago and was treated by the world’s media with great fanfare for its successful coup, the hilarity brought about by the episode, however, turned melancholic, when on December 7, Jacintha Saldanha, an Indian-origin nurse and mother of two, who originally received the prank call, before putting them through to a colleague who divulged details of how doctors have been treating the Duchess, was found dead – a victim of suicide.
It has been deduced that Saldanha apparently felt so humiliated by falling for the ruse that she took her own life. Her being a foreigner, whose values are different from the citizens of her adopted country, added to the burden of shame she was carrying and, perhaps, the continuous ridicule she may be subjected to in the future for acting naïve and being easily conned. This, she could not face forever.
Death has been the price Saldanha paid for her innocence and for being a good nurse and a trusting person. She opted for it, rather than carry that stigma with her that she was afraid may hurt her family more than it pained her already. It is for this reason, perhaps, that in her suicide note she left behind, nothing was mentioned that her being a victim of pranksters was the reason for ending her life.
Apologies have been extended, even by the distraught DJs, but nothing will change the family’s attitude towards their odious act that led to Saldanha’s death.
What went wrong then or how could this be avoided?
To make practical jokes at the expense of people can be funny, but only if the intended victim is made aware of it later. This is just like some gags on TV, when some irate victims are appeased when they are shown the hidden camera.
In fact, this was the intention of the Australian duo, which pulled the trick on the Indian nurse – to be funny.
Unfortunately, they did not let her in on the caper, and worst still, they victimized the wrong person who happened to be a very sensitive person.
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