Ladies Special

Let’s celebrate Women’s Day by celebrating the women we admire and love

As you may well have noticed, today is International Women’s Day. Yes, yes, we’ve all heard that tired old refrain: Every day is Women’s Day. And no, it wasn’t funny a decade ago, and it’s not funny now. Nor are the annual fulminations of how Women’s Day is a farce because we really haven’t come a long way (baby) very helpful.

So, this year, I decided to celebrate the day by listing some of the women I think are worth celebrating.

Nora Ephron

Her most famous saying was: “Be the heroine of your life, not the victim.” But I have to confess that Ephron is the heroine of my life, and has been ever since I first read her in college. She had the brilliant knack of tapping into her own life to come up with universal truths that every woman could identify with (take the title of her book, “I Feel Bad About My Neck”, for instance). So, her story became our story, and our stories became hers. There could be no greater tribute to any writer.

P.D. James

There is much to admire in Phyllis Dorothy James’ fiction: her intricate plotting, her mastery of suspense, her writing style, and her ability to create characters (Adam Dalgliesh, Cordelia Grey) that we fell in love with. But there is even more to admire in James’ life. A civil servant whose husband died early of a drug and alcohol overdose leaving her to bring up their two young daughters, she published her first book at 42, having written it while working full time. And then, there was no stopping her. She wrote 14 books featuring Dalgiesh, two featuring Grey, and wound up her writing career with a Jane Austen tribute novel, Death Comes To Pemberly, at ripe old age of 91.

Smriti Irani

If a fiction writer made up a story like that of Irani’s, she/he would be accused of over-egging the pudding. She left the family home after finishing school, heading to Mumbai to make a living (where she famously worked at McDonalds). She participated in the Miss India pageant, and then hit the big time with her role as Tulsi in the TV serial, Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. In 2003, she joined the BJP, and had such a meteoric rise that 11 years later, at 38, she became the youngest Cabinet minister, in charge of the crucial portfolio of Human Resources Development. That’s an impressive resume by any standards. But what is even more impressive is Irani’s amazing ability to shrug off the many unpleasant personal attacks on her and concentrate on doing her job.

Mamata Banerjee

I can hear those gasps of disbelief all the way from Calcutta to Delhi. But bear with me a moment and let me tell you the story of a young woman, born in the most humble of circumstances, who took on the might of the Communists in a state which they had ruled for decades, without a thought for her own personal safety. She stuck to the task until she had driven them out of office. But even after assuming office as West Bengal chief minister, she never forgot where she came from. She still lives in her old, two-room house, wears the same crumpled cotton saris, and has the same fiery zeal that she displayed as an activist.

Mary Kom

It takes a special talent to excel in a sport at an international level. And Kom’s achievement is even more special because of the many obstacles she had to overcome to become a champion boxer: her early life in the disturbed area of Manipur, the lack of training resources, the paucity of support for her chosen career. But not only did Kom triumph, she also made a comeback to boxing after having twins, shutting up all those who had written her off.

Sania Mirza

Her achievements in tennis are there for everyone to see, but what I admire most about Mirza is the way she has chosen to live her life completely on her own terms. She wore short skirts on the tennis court despite the attacks by Muslim conservatives. She stood firm by Shoaib Malik, the Pakistani cricketer she fell in love with, marrying him amidst a swirl of controversy. And she showed both grace and courage, standing up to the bullies who would deny her Indian identity post her marriage.

Madonna

What an absolute trouper she is! She took a tumble down the stage at the recent Brit awards, landing on her head and shoulders with an almighty thwack. Lesser beings would have been rushed straight to hospital after that. But not Madonna: she stood up, shook off the dust, and carried on with her act as if nothing had happened. No wonder the Material Girl has been a star longer than most pop stars of today have been alive!

Farah Khan

Say what you will about Farah Khan’s school of filmmaking (yes, it’s full on escapist masala fare, but so what?) but there is no denying that she is one of the most bankable names in the movie business now. Her last release, Happy New Year, was the biggest grosser of 2014, raking in a record-breaking Rs 350 crores. And with it, Khan proved that while it may be hard to gain entry into the Big Boys Club that is Bollywood, it is not impossible to beat them at their own game.

The new celebrity circuit

When the A-list drops into India, where does it go?

By the time you read this, the great starship Oprah will have departed our shores after getting a taste of India (‘it’s life Gayle, but not as we know it’). The Winfrey whirlwind started in Mumbai and then tore through the rest of India with a breathless intensity. Oprah partied with Bollywood, was serenaded by children, went shopping in quirky little stores, stopped by a temple, attended a literary festival, and even managed to squeeze in some paparazzi-bashing (quite literally, as her bodyguards manhandled the media entourage waiting to greet her in Vrindavan).

But while nobody got a real sense of what Oprah Winfrey is all about – except that she is an expert manipulator of her own image – by the end of her visit one thing was clear: India now has a new celebrity circuit in place. Sure, the old delights still feature and Oprah dutifully dropped by to be photographed open-mouthed at the Taj Mahal in Agra, but there is a brand-new itinerary in place for visiting celebs.

First up is Bollywood. It is now a truth universally acknowledged that any A-list visitor to India has to hook up with some Indian film star or the other. Hugh Jackman danced with Shah Rukh Khan at an event when he visited Mumbai. Tom Cruise was shadowed by his MI 4 co-star Anil Kapoor during his recent visit. And Oprah’s first stop in Mumbai was at the Bachchan residence where she renewed her acquaintance with Aishwarya and Abhishek (who have appeared on her show) and met their new-born daughter.

Next up is Parmeshwar Godrej. You clearly don’t rate as a bona fide celebrity unless Parmesh throws a party for you. And her guest list is pretty eclectic taking in everyone from Imran Khan and Jennifer Saunders to Richard Gere and now – yes, that’s right – Oprah Winfrey. The beach shimmers, the champagne flows , the stars shine bright and the conversation sparkles as Mumbai’s A list queues up to have its picture taken with the guest of honour.

And then, there’s Gregory David Roberts of Shantaram fame, who is to Mumbai what Mother Teresa was once to Calcutta. If there is a celebrity in town, then Roberts won’t be far behind, organising a visit to the Mumbai slums that featured so prominently in his book. Madonna and Oprah were only the latest celebrities to have been given the grand tour, but you can be sure that they won’t be the last.

In fact, poverty tourism itself has become quite the rage as visiting celebrities vie with one another to visit the ‘real’ India (you know, the one that featured in Slumdog Millionaire). Cue, trips to deprived neighbourhoods, shanty towns, orphanages, crowded railway stations, even sleepy villages. The entire entourage descends on the chosen spot, wearing horrified expressions, SPF factor 50 sunblock and baseball caps, clutching bottles of mineral water in their sanitized hands and trying very hard not to inhale. Some go back home and write cheques to assuage their guilt, others just wash away the grime under the power showers in their 5-star hotel and move on to the next stop.

Those whose sensibilities are not quite up to all this hard-core stuff, get their ‘slice of Indian life’ stuff from the temples. Ever since the Beatles fetched up at Rishikesh to stay at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram in the 60s to learn a bit of transcendental meditation (and a spot of levitation while they were at it) India has been the favoured destination of spirituality junkies. Pushkar, which has the only Brahma temple in India, is a favourite stop as are some of the more famous shrines in south India like Tirupati.

But the recent success of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat Pray Love and its movie version featuring Julia Roberts has given a fresh fillip to this industry. Now, there is a new influx of celebrities descending on India, keen to find themselves through fasting, meditation and some light chanting. Madonna was seen at the Nathdwara shrine in Rajasthan, Mick Jagger is said to be a regular visitor to temples in and around Jaipur and Udaipur, and Oprah herself put in an appearance at the Ma Dham in Vrindavan to film the widows (without permission, as it turned out, but that – as they say – is another story).

On the scenic front, too, things have changed. Rajasthan is still a great draw, but the celebs are increasingly plumbing for small, off-the-beaten path, family-run properties like Deogarh over the big hotel chains. Goa is now officially passé. Kerala is where it’s at, with the backwaters scoring effortlessly over the beaches. And Dharamsala is the new Rishikesh, with the Dalai Lama proving to be an irresistible draw to all those newly-minted Buddhists in Hollywood with Richard Gere (yes, him again!) leading the way.

Yes, there is a new celebrity circuit in India now. And once Oprah airs that India special on her cable network, I’m guessing that it’s going to get a tad crowded.

Beauty and brains

The sex symbols of our age don’t just rely on their bodies; they use their heads as well

By now, all of you reading this column will probably have seen Dirty Picture. And whatever your views on the merits of the movie itself, you will agree that Vidya Balan was outstanding in her portrayal of a south Indian sex symbol who may or may not (for legal reasons) be Silk Smitha but is called Silk in the movie.

I have to confess that I haven’t seen the movie as yet but I did watch Vidya Balan captivate the audience at the recent Hindustan Times Leadership Summit. And the one phrase among the many witty one-liners she cracked has stayed with me. Talking about Silk and whether it was easy to identify with such a character, Balan confessed that what had really annoyed her at times was the fact that Silk was really only about her body. That she didn’t seem to use her head at all. And that, said Balan, made no sense to her. As Balan famously declared at the Summit, she liked to ‘celebrate and enjoy her body’ – but she always used her head as well.

If you ask me, that one phrase encapsulates the difference between the sex symbols of previous generations and the sex symbols worshipped by our own. Unlike the femme fatales of yore, who were all about the body, the sex symbols of our times use their brains as well.

Perhaps the difference is best explained using the example of Silk Smitha herself and contrasting her with a latter-day equivalent like, say, Mallika Sherawat or even Rakhi Sawant.

Silk Smitha may have been the break-out star of her generation, she may have sold a movie on the basis of her name alone, she may have made more money than she ever dreamt of, she may have been desired by millions. But for all her fame and her success, in the ultimate analysis she was a victim. She was exploited by the men close to her, she seemed to have no control over her own destiny, and in the end, she was in such despair that she took her own life.

In many ways, her life mirrored that of the greatest sex symbol of them all: Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn too was the biggest box-office draw of her time, her name sold a million movie tickets, and every red-blooded man in the world was in lust with her. But despite the power she exerted over men – including the most powerful of them, John F Kennedy, then President of the United States – Marilyn seemed strangely powerless when it came to staying in charge of her own life. She drifted from one disastrous relationship to another, sought comfort in drink and drugs, and in the end, when nothing seemed to work to numb the pain, she killed herself (or was killed by the Kennedys because she was An Inconvenient Woman, if you believe the conspiracy theorists).

Now take a look at the life of Madonna, who modelled herself on Monroe during her Peroxide Period. Even though she had launched herself as a singer before branching off into acting, it was sex that Madonna used to sell herself to the audiences. Her stage performances were more about raunch than rhythm ; she mimed masturbation on stage; wore outfits that left little to the imagination; hell, she even produced a book of soft-porn images of herself, titled Sex which rapidly became a best-seller.

But in all this, there was only one person in charge: Madonna herself. She had absolute control over her career, she decided just how titillating each stage show be, she decided which movies to sign, and she personally cleared every sexually-charged image of hers before it went out to the public. And every dollar that the Madonna machine earned went to Madonna herself.

Today, Madonna may be on the wrong side of 50 – though you wouldn’t think so to look at her – but she remains one of the wealthiest entertainers in show-business and firmly in charge of her own fortune which has only multiplied over the years. If you’re looking for a contrast to the image of sad victimhood that Marilyn Monroe projected in her last years, it really doesn’t get better than this.

In India, too, there are several contrasts to the Silk Smitha stereotype in our entertainment industry. First up is Mallika Sherawat, who has founded an entire career on her breast implants and the ability to churn out shocking quotes about sex on demand. She knows that all she has to offer is an in-your-face sexuality, but boy, does she make it work for her! The same goes for her small-screen equivalent, Rakhi Sawant, who has become a reality television superstar because she goes boldly where no TV starlet has ever gone before.

But while Mallika and Rakhi are really fringe players at best, even mainstream Bollywood heroines have taken control of their sex symbol tag and run with it. Take Bipasha, for instance, who made her debut in Jism and then went on to excel at what Hindi cinema euphemistically dubs ‘bold’ roles. Or Priyanka and Deepika, who see no shame in making the most of their sex appeal. And then, of course, there’s Balan herself, who has no problems ‘celebrating’ and ‘enjoying’ her body.

But unlike the sex symbols of the past, who never really seemed in control, these women are in charge of their own lives. And tellingly, it’s not their bodies that define them, but their body of work.

The cougar effect

Why do older women always end up being dumped by their much-younger spouses?

Cast your mind back, if you will, to the televised proceedings of the British House of Commons committee that was grilling Rupert and James Murdoch about the phone-hacking carried out by their newspapers. Remember the most compelling image that emerged from that meeting? Yes, it was the moment when Rupert, the ageing patriarch of the Murdoch clan, was attacked by a man who pushed a ‘foam-pie’ into his face.

But it wasn’t the sight of a powerful media mogul subjected to public ridicule on international television that enthralled us. It was the image of his young wife, Wendi Deng, seated behind her husband, leaping to his defence like a protective tigress and hitting his attacker flush in the face. The look of murderous intent in her eyes said it all: she would kill, if that’s what it took, to protect her man.

In an instant, all those who had scoffed at their December-May pairing when they wed in 1999 – Rupert, 37 years older than Wendy, is now a sprightly 80 to her youthful 43 – were forced to eat their words; or should that be humble (foam) pie? This was no gold digger out to make her fortune by marrying a rich old man. This was a woman who loved her husband and would do anything to defend him – yes, even use her powerful right hook.

Now contrast this with another portrait of a marriage. Demi Moore was 41 when she fell in love the 25 year old Ashton Kutcher. They married a couple of years later despite their 15-year age difference. Predictably, the sceptics scoffed and prophesied that the union would not last. But Demi and Ashton seemed determined to prove them wrong, with their endless public displays of affection, and avowals of eternal love. Demi went by Mrskutcher on twitter and Mr Kutcher did such playful things as snap her white-bikinied bottom as she ironed his shirt (ah, the joys of domesticity!) and post the picture on Twitter as if to prove what a fit wife he had.

Fast forward to their sixth wedding anniversary and what do we see. Demi’s husband is far away in San Diego, cavorting in a hot tub with a bunch of 20-something, near-naked girls, one of whom he ends up in bed with (apparently, after having failed to persuade her friend to join them for a threesome). Not surprisingly, Demi announced that she was filing for divorce soon after.

Not that Demi is the first older woman – or cougar as we are told to call them these days – to be publically humiliated by her much younger husband. Even the ageless Madonna had to suffer the same ignominy when Guy Ritchie celebrated his impending divorce by telling his friends that his wife was so skinny that sleeping with her was like ‘cuddling a piece of gristle’ (charming man, right?). And then he did one better by running off with a much younger model and having a baby with her (that’s one in the face for the much-menopausal Madonna, then).

Courtney Cox hasn’t had much joy out of her marriage to a younger man, David Arquette, either (though she did manage to have a daughter, Coco, after years of trying). Arquette has been in and out of rehab throughout their 11-year marriage. And no sooner had they separated than he was calling in at shock jock Howard Stern’s radio show to announce that he had sex with a bartender/actress while still married and how Courtney (sob!) just didn’t fancy him anymore. And then, like most men fresh out of a relationship he moved on to another girlfriend with the speed of light (or should that be neutrino?)

Perhaps the only celebrity older woman whose marriage with a much-younger man seems to have remained on track is Joan Collins who is now 78 to her husband Percy Gibson’s 46 (yes, you read that right). The pair still appear devoted to one another and when asked about the huge age gap between them, Collins famously declared: “Well, if he dies, he dies.”

Other than Collins, I think of a single famous woman who has managed to live happily ever after with a much younger man. Sooner or later, she ends up being cheated on, publicly humiliated, and then traded in for a younger model. Rich men, on the other hand, have no problem holding on to much younger wives. And some of them, like Murdoch, are lucky enough to inspire absolute devotion in their much younger spouses.

Why should this be so? Why is it that older men are more successful at this younger spouse gig than older women?

Well, if you ask me, it all comes down to these ladies choosing to marry little boys – and here I am referring to their mental as well as their chronological one – perhaps in an attempt to re-capture their own youth. But then these boys refuse to grow up – and the problems begin. As Courtney Cox famously declared to David on their 11th anniversary: “I don’t want to be your mother any more”. Well, in that case, Courtney, you should not have married a child.

In fact, that’s probably a salutary lesson for all older women out there. If you don’t want to play Mummy, ladies, then don’t marry little boys – or men who behave like little boys. Pick someone your own age instead. You’ll probably be much happier in the long run.

The age divide

Men get away with dating younger women; but older women are laughed at for dating younger men

You’ve probably heard about the incident as well, given that it was splashed all over the entertainment media. At an after-party at the Oscars, Madonna finally came face to face with former husband Sean Penn, one of the victors of the night. The couple – known as the Poison Penns in their heyday – was meeting for the first time since their spectacularly acrimonious break-up. And nobody was laying any bets on it being an amicable meeting.

And of course, it wasn’t. Sean took one look at Madonna’s new boyfriend, the 22-year-old model named Jesus (honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up), who was accompanying the Material Girl to the event and sniggered, “What Madonna? Another kid already?”

Yes, I know, hilarious, isn’t it? How incredibly funny to see a 50 year old woman cavorting with a man in his 20s, right? I mean doesn’t the woman realize that she shouldn’t be going to bed with someone she could have given birth to?

I mean, really, when you do this kind of thing you’re just asking to be sent up – and not just by bitter ex-husbands, but by the rest of the world.

Ask Demi Moore, who has been the butt of jokes ever since she took up the much-younger Ashton Kutcher. Much mirth was occasioned by the fact that her boyfriend was closer in age to her daughter, Rumer, than he was to Demi herself. And when Kutcher posted a picture of his wife’s bikini-clad bottom on his Twitter feed, everyone duly tut-tutted that this was what a woman got for marrying a child.

In fact, the jokes got so bad at one point that the couple even appeared on Saturday Night Live to mock themselves in a skit. Ashton joked about being married to a much older woman and the camera panned to where Demi was sitting in the audience, kitted out as an old crone in her 90s.

Oh my, how we laughed!

But when you sit back and think about it, what is truly funny is how men with much younger wives are never made the target of such low-brow humour.

Look around you. The world is littered with examples of old (in some cases, very old indeed) men who are cavorting with women young enough to be their daughters, hell, even their granddaughters. But this is somehow seen as proof of their sexual magnetism, their virility that survives even into old age.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has a wife about three decades younger than him. Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood left his 50-something wife for a 20 year old Russian waitress. Donald Trump’s wives get younger with every decade. Hollywood star Tom Cruise’s wife Katie Holmes is much younger than him. And now Mel Gibson has to give away half his billion dollar fortune to his 50-something wife after being caught canoodling with a 30-something called Okasana (honestly, what is it with these Russians?), with whom he now has a child -- his eighth, in case you're wondering.

But these men never become the target of tired old (no pun aimed at) jokes the way that the women do.

Have you ever asked yourself why?

Well, I’ve been thinking about it since I read that the Madonna-Jesus coupling is a thing of the past. Why is it that woman in their 40s and 50s stir up such strong sentiment when they go out with younger men? Why are we so unfazed at the sight of an older man squiring a young woman? And why are we rendered so uncomfortable at the thought of an older woman dating a younger man that we have to seek refuge in humour?

If you ask me, it’s because society demands that women above a certain age – once they’ve got married and had their babies – should become invisible to the predatory eye. Once they’ve served the purpose of procreation and have crossed their early 30s, they should retire gracefully into Mommyland and never be seen again as sexually active creatures with desires and cravings of their own.

And God forbid, that they should ever be seen with younger boyfriends. That is the last taboo, and one which can only be dealt with by a steady dose of humour.

Popular culture mimics this prejudice. You can have a 60-something Amitabh Bachchan romancing the 30-something Tabu in Cheeni Kum, and nobody thinks much about it. In fact, the audience is encouraged to think of her crusty old father, who opposes the matches, as a stupid spoilsport who doesn’t seem to get that true love trumps age.

But there’s shock, horror, all around when the gender roles are reversed in Hindi cinema. When Akshay Khanna falls in love with the much-older Dimple Kapadia in Dil Chahta Hai, everyone from his friends to his mother to the disbelieving viewer is outraged. What can he see in that old wrinkly anyway?

And I find it telling that while Amitabh gets his happy ending with Tabu, Dimple Kapadia is killed off at the end of the movie so that order can be restored to the universe.

Older men can get away with dating younger women. Hell, we probably even admire them for it. But an older woman who lays her eyes on a younger man, must be taught a lesson – and shown her place in the natural order.

Clearly, when it comes to sexual politics, the gender divide is as strong as ever.