A tale of two women

Sunanda Pushkar and Valerie Trierweiler; and the many parallels between their stories

Two women have dominated the headlines over the last couple of weeks. One of them is Valerie Trierweiler, the now former First Lady of France, whose first public appearance post her separation with Francois Hollande at a charity event in Mumbai created quite a stir. The other is Sunanda Pushkar, the tragically deceased wife of Union minister Shashi Tharoor, who graced the columns of page three while she lived and was splashed all over the front pages after being found dead in a five-star hotel room days after she had ‘outed’ what she believed was an affair between her husband and Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar.  

But while their stories played out many thousands of miles apart, the parallels between the two women are all too apparent.

Both had been married twice before, had kids from their second marriages (three sons for Valerie and one for Sunanda), before finding love a third time around. Both were strong independent women who took pride in being successful professionals, Valerie as a senior journalist for Paris Match magazine and a television presenter and Sunanda as a businesswoman (her declared assets included several flats in Dubai valued at 93 crores; and that was just part of her wealth). Both resented being perceived as arm candy for their powerful husbands. When Paris Match put Valerie on the cover calling her Hollande’s ‘charming asset’ she tweeted her outrage “Bravo Paris Match for its sexism. My thoughts go out to all angry women”. Sunanda, for her part, ascribed the IPL scandal in which she became embroiled as an emblem of the sexism and misogyny of the Indian media.

Both wanted a strong identity for themselves in public life. When Hollande was elected President, Valerie declared that she was not going to be ‘une potiche’ (French for trophy wife) and would have her own agenda in the ‘Madame Wing’ of the Elysee Palace. Sunanda, too, didn’t believe in mincing her words while going against the declared position of the Congress party on such contentious issues as Section 370, which she maintained discriminated against Kashmiri women, both Hindu and Muslim, on property rights.

Unfortunately, the central irony of the lives of these women was that despite their best efforts to project themselves as public entities in their own right, both found fame only because of the men they married/lived with. It is hard to believe that national TV channels would have interviewed Sunanda Pushkar and sought her views on political issues if she hadn’t been married to Shashi Tharoor but was just another attractive, successful, late entrant on the Delhi social scene. And certainly, Valerie Trierweiler would not have been invited to Mumbai to promote a charity if she was just another French journalist and not the partner of the President of France.

Another striking parallel is how both suffered, albeit in different ways, because of Twitter. Valerie sent out that now-infamous tweet, supporting a rebel candidate in a French election against Francois’ previous partner, Segolene Royal, because of her pathological jealousy of her former love rival. Segolene lost the election but Valerie lost in the court of public opinion, and many now believe that may have marked the beginning of the end of her relationship with the President.

Sunanda’s indiscretion on Twitter was even more explosive. She sent out a series of messages on her husband’s Twitter account to ‘expose’ his alleged affair with a Pakistani journalist, Mehr Tarar, whom she dubbed an ‘ISI agent’. Tarar responded in kind. Tharoor hastened to clarify that his account had been hacked. Sunanda was having none of that. She gave interviews to insist that she had sent out the tweets in question. And a messy situation got messier and messier.

Sadly, both Sunanda and Valerie found their private lives unraveling in a spectacularly public fashion around the same time. But while in Valerie’s case, it was Closer magazine that revealed that her partner had been cheating on her with a French actress, Julie Gayet, Sunanda’s privacy was invaded by Sunanda herself. And while Valerie survived her heartbreak despite being rushed to hospital after ‘taking one pill too many’ (according to some reports in the French media), Sunanda was found dead in the Leela Hotel of what was described (as I write this) as a possible drug overdose.

What lessons can we draw from the lives of these two women, who lived, loved, rose and then fell dramatically in the public gaze?

Well, first off, don’t hitch your wagon to a man, no matter how much you love him (as Valerie insisted to the end that she did) or how much he worships you (as Tharoor clearly did). Relying on or reveling in the status you derive from a relationship is a dangerous business, no matter how glamorous and desirable it may seem at the time. So, don’t sacrifice your career for a ‘job’ from which you can be fired at any time without any due cause.

And secondly, remember that it’s called ‘private life’ for a reason. It is not supposed to be for public consumption. Because while people may express faux sympathy for you, once your back is turned they will be pointing and laughing. Until, of course, the laughter turns into tears.

A very French affair

As President Hollande is caught between two lovers, do the French people care? Not a bit!

You’ve got to love the French. Their President, Monsieur ‘Normale’ Hollande, is photographed trysting with French actress, Julie Gayet, a stone’s throw from the Elysee Palace, where he lives with long-time partner, Valerie Trierweiler. He exits the apartment, disguised (or so he thinks, poor sod) by a motorcycle helmet, climbs on the back of the motorbike driven by his bodyguard (who had, earlier in the morning, delivered croissants to the amorous pair) and goes back home to Valerie and his many duties as President of the Republic.

The photographs duly appear in a French magazine called Closer, and the entire world is agog at the sight of a head of state behaving like a love-struck adolescent. Not so the French. They simply shrug and say the French equivalent of ‘A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do; and what does his private life have anything to do with his public role?’ As for the President himself: not for him, denials of a love affair or anything quite so puerile, thank you. He just puts out a statement condemning the magazine for having intruded into his privacy, to which – like any other French citizen – he is entitled.

Meanwhile, the First Lady (or First Girlfriend, as some cruelly label her) checks into a hospital and lets it be known that doctors have advised her a ‘cure de repos’ (rest cure) to recover from the shock of learning about her partner’s affair (which she likens to being struck by a TGV, or high-speed train). But ‘friends’ of her let it be known that she is ready to forgive and forget so long as she gets to stay on in her role of First Lady.

You’d think by now, the French would have their juices flowing. Mais non. A survey conducted soon after shows an overwhelming majority of 74 per cent reiterating that President’s Hollande’s domestic life and love affairs are entirely his own business, and the media should steer clear of reporting on it.

And sure enough, when Hollande arrives to address his annual press conference at the Elysee Palace, in a room heaving with French and international media, there are just a couple of questions about his tangled love life. Hollande responds that this is neither the time nor the place, and that he will clear up any doubts about who France’s First Lady is before he embarks on a state visit to the US in February. And then he begins droning on about his economic vision for France. A few days later, Valerie checks out of hospital and moves into La Lanterne, the Presidential weekend residence in the park of Versailles, to recuperate in quiet while Hollande decides whether he will stay with her or move on with Julie.

Can you imagine events unfolding quite like this in any other country?

How do you think it would work for President Barack Obama if he were to be pictured sneaking out from a secret tryst with, say, Scarlett Johansson? He would either be doing the full Clinton in a televised press conference (“I did not have sex with that woman”) or he would be writing his resignation after a few left jabs executed by Michelle (she of the perfectly-toned musculature). And all of America would be up in arms at the moral turpitude of their President. (God alone knows how President Kennedy and his harem of women in the White House would have fared in today’s multimedia age; fortunately for him, his Presidency was played out in front of a more deferential world.)

Or let’s say that David Cameron was rumbled having a bit of nookie with a famous model like Kate Moss. The British tabloid press would go into full meltdown mode. There would be editorials asking for Cameron to go, given that he had betrayed the family values the Conservative Party stood for. He would be expected to make a statement clarifying whether he and Samantha were still a couple and intended to remain so. Kate would be door-stepped at her residence. Her friends and family would be harassed for a quote on the affair. Columnists would write endlessly about the fairy-tale union of David and Samantha and how it had come to such a messy end.

There would be none of that Gallic shrugging and saying that this was a private matter between two people (okay, three) and that it was no one else’s business. That a politician’s private life was nobody else’s concern so long as it did not impinge on the performance of his public duties.

As you can probably tell, I am a fan of the French approach. And so far at least, back home in India, we have taken our cue from the French rather than the Americans or the Brits. We have allowed our leaders their privacy when it comes to their love lives, unless of course, it explodes into the public space as it did with N.D. Tiwari’s paternity case. But so long as our leaders have behaved with discretion, we have been content to look the other way and let them get on with it.

And if you ask me, that’s the best way to go. A person’s private life is just that: private. We can judge them by their public conduct but as Francois Hollande put it so elegantly, “Private affairs must be dealt with in private. With respect for the dignity of all involved.”

Vive La France! Vive La Vie Privee!

Storm in a T-cup

Given the amount of squabbling on its timelines, should we just rename Twitter as Bicker?

Just a thought. Do you think they should rename Twitter as Bicker? It certainly seems apt given how it has rapidly become a forum for people to squabble about everything in short bursts of 140 characters. Lovers quarrel bitterly; ex-wives and ex-husbands vent venom; new partners give full rein to their jealous rages; and everyone throws insults around in a no-holds-barred fashion. Nothing is private. Nothing is sacred. And nothing is off-limits.

A couple of weeks ago, we watched agog as French politics descended into soap-opera territory via Twitter. President Francois Hollande looked on helplessly as his current partner, the journalist Valerie Trierweiler targeted his former partner (and mother of his four children), Segolene Royal, in a vicious tweet that hit Royal just where it hurt the most.

Royal, standing for election to a parliamentary seat, was being opposed by a dissident from her own Socialist party. So her former partner and now President of the Republic, Francois Hollande, sent out a message of support to Royal to bolster her chances at the polls (after all, she had done her best to support his presidential campaign). That was enough to make his current partner (and now the Premier Dame of France), Trierweiler, see red. She allegedly called up Hollande to remonstrate and then said chillingly, “Now you will see what I am capable of.”

And thus went out the now-infamous tweet, motivated by what insiders called Trierweiler’s ‘blind jealousy’. In it, she wished good look and ‘courage’ to Royal’s opponent in the poll. All of France was appalled, the French Prime Minister publicly rebuked Trierweiler and asked that she be more ‘discreet’ and ‘know her place’. And Royal announced sadly, at an election rally, that she felt ‘wounded’ by the tweet and that she deserved respect as a woman, a politician, and a mother.

But the damage was done. When the votes were counted, Royal had lost the seat, and with it the chances of becoming President of the National Assembly, the third-highest post in the country’s political structure. A bitter Royal quoted Victor Hugo to say that “Traitors always pay for their treachery in the end” and her four children, for good measure, stopped speaking to their father’s current partner.

So what started out as a storm in a T-cup ended up taking down the reputations of all the protagonists in the drama. Valerie was exposed as an insecure, vindictive woman who could not control her insane jealousy of her partner’s former lover. Hollande was shown up as a man who could not manage the women in his life (so, how on earth would he manage France, ran the sub-text). And as for poor Royal, her political career imploded in the aftermath of Twittergate and looks extremely unlikely to revive any time soon.

But while nobody in their right minds can condone Trierweiler’s scorched-earth policy on Twitter, there are some political spouses who have gained from their tweet-wars. Most famously, there was Anne Romney who went on Twitter to take on political commentator, Hilary Rosen, who said in a debate on CNN that Mrs Romney “had never worked a day in her life”. Anne Romney was quick to retort, “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work”. Her tweet got her the support of every stay-at-home mom, and many other women besides.

Of late, though, Twitter wars have tended to be increasingly undignified, even downright tawdry at times. Take the current battle royale raging between British multi-millionaire Ben Goldsmith (son of Jimmy and Annabel Goldsmith and brother to Jemima Khan) and his estranged wife, Kate, a Rothschild heiress. Ben called his wife’s behaviour ‘appalling’ on Twitter (because she had called the police on him) while she responded with a series of tweets saying that there were two sides to every break-up. Meanwhile, Kate’s alleged lover, the rapper Jay Electronica (yes, really!) put in his two-bit worth by tweeting #LoveIsOnTheWay. Yeah, real classy, this lot.

In India, too, we have had our share of Twitter wars. The most famous was the one waged by Lalit Modi against Shashi Tharoor (about the now-defunct Kochi franchise of the IPL) which resulted in Tharoor losing his job as minister and being consigned to political wilderness while Modi lost control of the IPL and was banished from the Indian cricketing scene to languish in exile (in London, though, so it can’t be all that bad).

More recently, we saw Karan Johar take on Priyanka Chopra for a story she did or did not (depending on whom you believe) plant about how some star wives and certain directors who were close to them were giving her a bad time. A livid Johar tweeted about how some people were ‘lame and spineless’ and needed ‘to wake up and smell the koffee’ and not ‘mess with goodness’. Of course, he did not mention Priyanka by name, but the inference was clear – and Twitter-sphere was abuzz in a matter of seconds.

So, what do you think? Does Bicker work better than Twitter? Or do you have a better idea? All suggestions welcome at my Twitter handle (given below). And may the best name win.