Writer’s note: I have been writing on the negative mind-set against Aishwarya Rai for years. Years ago, when she was targetted for choosing a man younger than her, a story I wrote for a newspaper invited negative backlash. Some of my pieces on her have appeared on this website where I have tried to understand where does this relentless negation of her stem from. This piece reproduced here was published in The New Indian Express and got responses that none of my previous articles achieved…comments in defence of Ms Rai and her achievements! Very few readers seem to have got the tone of the piece or that it was written in her praise and to diss her critics. It appears that criticism and Internet trolling are the most delicious when the target is a woman, regardless of who she is :). Just for the record, this piece celebrates Ms Rai and the dignity and grace she has shown under fire all through her extraordinary career.
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The country can heave a sigh of relief. Aishwarya Rai has walked the red carpet at Cannes and vindicated her fashion chops but it is not over yet. Someone exclaims, “Finally!” An article asks, “She may be ready to come back to films…but will we take her back?” Someone jeers, “Is that all she does, the whole year?” So, as we have seen in the past too, not one moment in her 20-year-long career can completely vindicate her. She can’t win. Not Aishwarya Rai.
Yes, she won Miss World. But Sushmita Sen won Miss Universe! Yes, she is beautiful. But too beautiful and not talented enough. That giggle. The term ‘plastic’ that everyone uses like common currency despite Guru, Jodha Akbar, Josh, Iruvar, Kandukondain Kandukondain, Chokher Bali, Raincoat, Devdas and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. She performs only when there is a good director to mould her.
Who cares about the Padmashree and the unpronounceable French honour, the American talk shows, the film offers that won’t stop? Two years ago, she was too fat.
Now she is slimmer but somehow can’t compete with the histrionics of a Richa Chaddha or the youthful charm of an Alia Bhatt. Remember that headline in a serious broadsheet? “She has no Hollywood hits. She has no Bollywood hits!” That sums her up, doesn’t it? Then how did she outlast her contemporaries? How is she still relevant? Because of PR? Endorsements?
She is always dismissed but then somehow resurfaces much to our discomfort and perverse delight so she can be dismissed again. From her baby pounds to her baby, her husband to her gowns to her accent, we are consumed by her and yet pretend that she does not matter.
I remember writing after she was panned for her baby weight at Cannes, “She owes it to us to be Aishwarya Rai. Icy, distant, unattainable, impossibly perfect so that she can be hated. Not fat and motherly. Anyone can get to be that.”And yet, we don’t want her to be extraordinary because every time her pictures appear on the net, trolls lash out, “Why can’t the aunty stay at home and look after her baby?” Why the hell is she out there still? She is like the daughters-in-law in TV soaps who are constantly asked to prove themselves and never ever must say, “I have had enough of being micro-managed…go get a life!”
A woman must not disregard opinions about her and because Aishwarya Rai does so, we hate her even more. How can a woman be so beautiful, so successful, so self-sufficient that we cease to matter to her? How can she get away with it? It is only male stars who can be forgiven their age and even hit and run accidents among other indiscretions.
Not many women can afford to be as nonchalant. That even Rai has had to face so much negativity over her beauty, her talent, her weight, her relationships indicates how much worse things must be for ordinary women without a reassuring bubble of success.
Rai may be walking the red carpet but she is no different from you and me because though she may be judged by different yardsticks, she is being watched and judged still just like her nameless sisters. But while we talk, she walks and maybe that is the only way to be a woman in an unforgiving world.
with The New Indian Express ( http://www.newindianexpress.com/entertainment/hindi/Why-Aishwarya-Rai-Will-Never-be-Good-Enough-for-us/2014/05/28/article2249858.ece1)
Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be silent with her cats.
A highly refreshing take on a subject that has invariable received just a one-sided coverage by media and the public alike. A lady that is grace personified and a success in her own right, and yet forever expected to deliver and never quite acknowledged! Kudos to you for bringing out the true grit of this beautiful persona..
She does not cares about what the world bitches behind her back, nor do her true fans and admirers like me… I have been her fan since that famous ” Hi I am Sanju” commercial and would always remain one, even when she is playing granny 20 years down the line…
The woman lives her life her way … I guess some people can’t tolerate that … Hell with such people !!!
Reema,
This is so true!
You have said what many of us have felt for long !
India has never given her women their due be it aishwarya or bedi or smriti or shazia or durga shakti or just anyone. We always need a man to follow. Why we have only one Indira. I think our women are greater. If women don’t listen they are assaulted so Aishwarya has done a great job she respected herself by standing against violence on women and by doing what she wants . We should learn from her.