At a recent promotional event, Kangana Ranaut spoke eloquently about the brutality of ridiculing a human being’s letters to their lover, because such letters “expose their soul” and “hold a lot of vulnerability”. In a reference to her alleged affair with Hrithik Roshan, Ranaut said that she was ridiculed by people after her private sentiments were disclosed to the public, leaving her in a vulnerable situation. She also said that Roshan had rejected her because she was open about her desires, something he found threatening and not “normal” for a girl.
She said, “There was this young girl in the mountains. Extremely brave, naive, impractical and stubborn. This girl, when she was walking she saw a picture of a man and she fell is love with him. And that picture led her to cross oceans, deserts, mountains and landscapes. She is standing under stars with the man and this man kisses her and he says I love you. The worlds meet and it becomes a trap between the real world and the world which was supposed to be future and to be reached, but one manages to reach there. What happens is that this man says that she is not a normal girl, that she has a lot of fire in her belly. And she isn’t even a woman, she is a lion in a woman. So, the man gets scared of this woman and that’s when the whole love story becomes a tragedy.”
Ranaut also talked of facing “extreme brutality”, and said that many nights she had cried herself to sleep, even though as far as the world was concerned, she had put up a strong fight.
“But the thing is I cannot help if I have fire in my belly. To make myself worthy of an individual or my lover, I have crossed mental landscapes, human landscapes and all sort of distances covered. But what happens when these worlds meet and you are faced of extreme brutality? I am saying this because people have seen how I have put up a strong front to fight but nobody has seen what I feel as a woman, when I am subjected to that kind of brutality. The letters that I might have written, which were brutally exposed to the world. How did I feel as a human being? Because every letter that you’ve written to your lover holds a lot of vulnerability. You are exposing part of your soul or yourself, not to the world but to an individual. I felt extremely naked in front of the world. I cried for nights in my room.”
Following the alleged affair, Ranaut and Roshan were involved in an ugly legal spat. While Ranaut insisted that she had an affair with Hrithik, he in turn claimed that Ranaut was delusional and suffering from a mental illness. After much legal wrangling, the case was recently closed with the police finding no evidence of email tampering as per Roshan’s claim.
Throughout, Ranaut was mocked on social media. She also faced intense scrutiny around her private life.
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“People make fun of me. But I never answered to that brutality in the same spirit. I think that makes me see myself as a winner. I can’t help if I am not good enough for an individual but I think what’s not justice is to make fun of a woman’s vulnerabilities and embarrass her for her desires. As far as letters are concerned, I’ve gone ahead to tell my side of the story but the only thing I want to say is, Jinko duniya ki nigaaho se chupa kar rakha, jinko ek umar kaleje se laga ke rakha. Teri khushboo mein base khat main jalaata kaise, pyar main doobe hue khat main jalaata kaise (The one I hid from the eyes of the world, the one I kept close to my heart for a lifetime / How could I burn the letter set in your fragrance? How could I burn the letter steeped in your love?).”