I’m not going to pretend that I’m uninterested in the Hrithik-Kangana saga. I’m your average person who’d rather read all about who is dating whom in Bollywood than the depressing drought situation in the country, Donald Trump’s vision for America, and the gifts that the ISIS sends to Sri Sri Ravishankar (I’m not even sure if that’s the right number of Sri-Sris). I can’t deal with too much bad news delivered too fast. My feeble brain tends to switch off.
Every day, I wake up and take a look at the articles that people are sharing on Facebook. I’ve had enough of analysing the rights and wrongs of the motherhood dare (has it not occurred to anyone that most people did the darned thing only because it would have appeared rude not to respond to a tag?) and such like, so the Hrithik-Kangana story was a welcome distraction. I really like Kangana. Towards the end of Queen, I felt like Rani was my best friend and I could totally do a Euro-tour with her. It was one of those rare films where a woman gets drunk, has fun and doesn’t get raped. Unlike Angry Indian Goddesses, India’s first female buddy film, that will dissuade any girl-gang from going anywhere other than the local supermarket…sigh…but I digress.
On the other hand, I’ve no emotions towards Hrithik Roshan. I was a schoolgirl when Kaho Naa Pyar Hai released and though many of my friends couldn’t believe that such a handsome man could exist on the planet, I was rather unmoved. The movie was mehh and Hrithik’s perfect muscle mass didn’t affect me in any way. I’ve watched a few of his movies after KNPH and my opinion remained the same. So when the rumours of the Hrithik-Kangana relationship began, I was surprised. In my head, Kangana could do way better than Hrithik. Since neither of them knows me, they obviously couldn’t care less that I had such strong views on the subject.
Was Kangana the reason for Hrithik’s split from his wife? Then what about Susanne’s alleged fling with Arjun Rampal? Wait, where does Barbara Mori fit into this? And the other female co-stars? The mind boggles. There are so many subplots and threads to this story that one needs to draw a complicated Game of Thrones type of family tree with timelines to understand it. Who was obsessed with whom? Who leaked the photos? Who wrote the love poems? Who sent too many emails? Who is still going, ‘Kaho naa pyaar hai’ to the other? There are so many allegations in the air – one breaking every day – that it’s hard to keep up. The latest news is Kangana’s ex, Adhyayan Suman (who?!), claiming that Kangana practised black magic on him. Woh my gawd – I must admit that Kangana and Bellatrix Lestrange do have similar hair but I never made this connection.
It’s starting to get old though. After all, we’re at a time when Virat Kohli publicly shames trolls for having a go at his ex, Deepika Padukone stars with Ranbir Kapoor after their much written about break-up, and even Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor can stand to appear in the same movie (though not opposite each other). Ex-wife Suzanne Khan offering her support to Hrithik over this sordid affair is the only ‘modern’ aspect of this story. We’re maturing as a country when it comes to relationships. Our films reflect this – the 90s were all about killing yourself if your lover ditched you. The new millennium is all about moving on gracefully. I can’t help but think that Hrithik and Kangana are conspiring to impair this progress. What do you guys want, a throwback to the days when running towards a moving train to prove your love was considered heroic and not downright moronic? Enough of the melodrama already.
I hope something more exciting happens in Bollywood real fast and we can give the Hrithik-Kangana story the backseat. Or I swear, I’ll actually end up reading the books that I pretended to have read in the Facebook BookBucket challenge just like y’all.