Let’s get the basics out of the way first: The concept of privacy in showbiz was thrown out of the window a long time ago. Today there’s a new and pretty brazen openness about going public with affairs, break-ups, make-ups, divorces, proposals, propositions, flirtations, one-night stands... and, in extreme cases, even suicides and murders. If it’s not happening on Twitter, Skype, Instagram... it has not happened at all. And therefore, whatever it was, is entirely irrelevant.
So there. A few baffled readers and viewers have been asking why the Hrithik-Kangana relationship is occupying so much space. Here’s why: It involves the use/misuse/manipulation of today’s hottest communication tools. It’s Bollywood’s first cyber scandal. Reading their mutual charges, filed in lurid detail by lawyers hired by the former love birds, one wonders where their brains were when they were exchanging all those torrid messages. We know the location of their other body parts during the affair — again, thanks to their own disclosures. Reading their respective allegations, the whole messy affair sounds like a pretty virtual one, existing more in the imagination of the two than in a boudoir.
It’s been reduced to a feverish exchange of promises, declarations, accusations, lies and betrayals, largely conducted across continents with thousands of miles separating the couple. What sort of a love story is this Let’s call it a 21st century emotional wreck. Not all that uncommon. Even regular folk think virtual is good, virtual works. Virtual is all that matters. If you pose cleverly as a couple on Instagram, you’ve got to be a great pair in reality. Your friends will tell you how “awesome” you two look together. All your Facebook posts will be gobbled up hungrily by strangers who are your “friends”. You’ll tot up an insane number of “likes” and tell yourselves, you “rock”.
Being together in the same physical space poses a challenge to young professionals across the world. You don’t have to be movie stars like Hrithik-Kangana to discover how tough it is to keep it all together. He travels. She travels. There’s just so much Facetime one can deal with. After a point, even that wears down a perennially fatigued lover, rushing between appointments and airports. If you are a hugely successful star, there are even more multiple challenges involved.
In this case, Kangana was clearly at a disadvantage (rare for someone as feisty). According to reports, she was the one who had been instructed to keep the affair under wraps, given Hrithik’s marital status at the time (he was negotiating a divorce). Kangana, the free spirit she is, must have found it extremely trying to remain discreet and pretend there was nothing happening between them, especially after Hrithik had put a ring on her finger (he denies it).
All this is considered pretty normal in showbiz. The new angle to messy break-ups is technology. Today both stars are busy cracking storage problems in their laptops, talking about hacked accounts, impersonators, stolen identities and more. Cops dealing with cyber crime will have their hands full as the case progresses (if it does). But what the Hrithik-Kangana saga has brought into sharp focus is how potentially lethal our new addictions (social media platforms) can be. And how vulnerable relationships based on filters, photoshops and the number of hits they rack up... hits that are closely monitored every 15 minutes by those die-hard junkies.
I first met Kangana when she had just entered Bollywood. I liked her immediately. She was different. Significantly different. She hadn’t been Bollywoodised at that point. And thankfully, she is still her own person. But I’m sure those early years of struggle and dealing with rejection/humiliation, have left a few scars. Despite those traumas, combined with the standard horror stories film industry outsiders are subjected to, Kangana made it to the top of the heap.
Hrithik, on the other hand, had it good from the word go. Their alleged affair could have read as the stereotypical prince and the showgirl narrative, except that this showgirl was exceptionally gutsy. After Queen, Bollywood itself didn’t know how to handle Kangana. She became a gamechanger without really trying. She started calling the shots because she could! Right now she’s on top of her game. If she believes Hrithik has done her wrong, she is going to say it regardless of the professional consequences. He is in a far stronger position in Bollywood, which remains unabashedly, unapologetically, a male-dominated business. If he decides to damage her career by casting all sorts of aspersions on her mental state (Hrithik says she suffers from Asperger’s syndrome — psychiatrists have stoutly rubbished this), she says he has a dark side to his personality and, being very tech-savvy, spends hours working malevolently on his laptop! Who knows And does it matter
Movie star romances often help us to reflect on our own, less glamourous but equally complicated lives. With the grim revelations about this particular break-up, I’m pretty sure young couples will take stock of their own romantic relationships. Whether it’s hot, sexy texts they exchange with lovers, or explicit images they casually swap. They may be saying, if two such high-profile, highly paid, gorgeous looking movie stars are trading ugly charges publicly, what about all the dirty linen in our own closets
This has turned out to be a modern-day morality tale on how not to conduct an affair, even if you aren’t a Greek God movie star called Hrithik Roshan, or a Queen of Bollywood called Kangana Ranaut. The only people laughing all the way to the bank over this unholy mess are the lawyers. At this point it certainly looks like they’ll be in business for some time to come!
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