One random morning as I flipped through Times Life (a supplement of ToI), I came across this beautifully written article by Vinita Dawra Nangia and somehow it has stayed with me till date. Every young single woman must read this.
Even successful, beautiful Indian women cannot afford to pick the best men; at best, they do what they can do.
There was something about the Kareena Kapoor-Saif Ali Khan wedding
that didn’t ring quite right! Much as I looked for a glow on the bride’s
face and pride on the groom’s, all I saw was a ‘let’s just do this’
look! I was disturbed by an elusive, nagging doubt, an unreality to the
situation. What was so disturbing? An age gap of 10 years is no big
deal, and married men do go for younger, more beautiful women.
But there seemed a desperate edge to the situation, a kind of
‘have-to-will-do!’ A person as spontaneous and fun-loving as Kareena
deserved a wedding as blissful and fairytale as Kate Middleton’s, but
she seemed to have been caught in a situation! And her ‘Prince Charming’
Saif’s past loomed large at the wedding in the shape of his 19-year-old
daughter Sara Khan.
Sara’s presence served to highlight the fact that superstar Kareena
was marrying the father of another woman’s children, and the
high-profile celebrations seemed much like dancing on a family’s grave.
If it had been a quiet wedding like Aamir and Kiran’s, keeping in mind
the sensitivities of Saif ’s grown children and his own age, it would
have been a different matter; the high-profile event spotlighted issues
one would normally shove under the carpet. Saif was revealed as a man
who had turned his back on his own family, and Kareena a woman with
little choice.
Add to that the fact that never after Raj Kapoor and Nargis has one
seen the kind of sizzling chemistry that Kareena shared with former beau
Shahid Kapoor; it’s the stuff dreams are made of; a connect that
happens once in many lifetimes. Of course, you move on and life moves
on, but there are some things that just cannot be replicated.
Let’s face it, a formerly married man with grown children is hardly
any single woman’s dream dish. Yes, Saif is rich and belongs to an
illustrious family, but he comes with a lot of baggage! And ideally, a
successful, beautiful and talented woman like Kareena should have had
the pick of the best. However, the question is, if not Saif, then who?
Kareena’s choice is a sad comment on choices that lie before every
young, successful, beautiful Indian women — she did not have a pick of
the best; she made a compromise, and was compensated with status and
wealth. In Bollywood movies, the heroine never marries a divorcee, nor
does she chase a married man. However, the desperate reality is quite
different. It’s certainly not true that the sexiest and most beautiful
Indian woman will get the best pick. If she wishes to remain in the
reckoning and carry on with her profession, she needs to choose an
equally successful man who will let her follow her dreams; this itself
narrows down the choice so much as to make it almost impossible. So then
you forget the man of your dreams and just do what you need to do —
whether it is to settle for second best or break up a home!
It is now many years since Dream Girl Hema Malini made her desperate
choice to marry an already married man with grown children, but we don’t
seem to have moved on at all! Sridevi walked into Boney Kapoor’s
marriage and went into hibernation herself, only to emerge years later
with a grown daughter and a hit that showed us how much we missed her.
Another successful iconic woman, Sania Mirza, also had to make her own
compromises to get a man. Priyanka Gandhi too could have done much
better for herself.
Comments a single friend, “So, successful, beautiful Indian women are
not the epitomes of ideal emancipated womanhood after all. A person
like Kareena seems to be as desperate for choices as I am. The pity is
she was gutsy enough to go for a non-entity as boyfriend, but for
whatever reasons, has ultimately settled for the beaten path.”
