Dear Sanjay Dutt, We know why you wanted to break your daughter Trishala’s leg!

Some time ago I was not at all alarmed and shocked to read Sanjay Dutt’s confession that he wanted to break a leg (hers, not his own) when his elder daughter Trishala expressed a desire to become an actress. On the contrary I was impressed by his honesty. Dutt knows better than most what young heroines have to go through in this film industry.

And the way heroes talk about their leading ladies…..would make even the most misogynistic pervert blush. I remember a top leading lady of the 1960s telling me about this he-man hero, a pukka ladies man who would sit with his cronies on the set discussing his amorous exploits. One of them would turn the pages of a film magazine and point quizzically at the picture of every heroine featured. The he-man would nod in the affirmative or shake his head in the negative to indicate whether he had done her or not.

Things haven’t changed. For all the talk of gender equality among the heroes, there is still that backroom boys’ talk about women that goes on in secret. There is a topnotch action hero of today, married to one of the most distinguished actresses of our times, …read more