This was followed by pop icon Britney Spears’s tell-all memoir, The Women In Me. Spears revealed accusations of betrayal, rejection, and trauma against her boyfriend Justin Timberlake whom she dated in the 2000s. And to put a cherry on the breakup cake, Meryl Streep announced that she and her husband of 44 years, sculptor Don Gummer, have been separated since 2017.
How do I know all this? Because all news outlets have been putting out interviews with Smith and Pinkett. They announced the Streep split with more despair and enthusiasm than they wrote about the war in Gaza.
But just as we were looking down our noses at all this ridiculous washing of dirty laundry in the US, we decided to show Americans that India is no less adept at dirty laundering. We now have our own scandal, and a lesson in why one must choose one’s partner wisely. Because if you break up with the wrong kind of person, he/she won’t limit himself/herself to telling friends how heartless you are.
If they and you are well-connected, he/she might could take the fight public, make allegations and release personal photos on social media to show what a fallen woman – yes, I am talking about the Mahua Moitra case here – you are.
Our media has been busy and salivating since the Trinamool MP’s former partner, Supreme Court lawyer Jai Dehadrai, made serious bribery allegations against her. Moitra refers to Dehadrai as her ‘jilted ex-lover’ in public documents and on social media. After a three-year relationship – which included co-parenting of their Rottweiler, Henry – our non-musical version of Lucy and Desi called it quits. Dehadrai is miffed. But what has followed is a slew of cropped photos of Moitra from parties at her home, showing her, like a ‘scarlet woman’, sitting next to – horror of horrors! – Shashi Tharoor in a dress that ends mid-thigh, holding a cigar here, a wine glass there. Jeez, what a Jezebel! In a letter to BJP Lok Sabha MP Nishikant Dubey, Dehadrai alleged that Moitra received cash and gifts from businessman Darshan Hiranandani for asking questions about his business rival Gautam Adani in Parliament, and that she provided her Parliament log-in credentials to Hiranandani to even write the questions (corroborated by Hiranandani). While the Parliamentary Ethics Committee is quite rightly probing these serious allegations, it is the character assassination of MM through the release of photos on social media that is telling.
In a country like India, where even rape victims are often shamed in public, it is pathetic that one of the main criticisms of Moitra is that she was drinking and smiling next to a man she is not married to and wearing something other than a sari. One cannot turn on any news channel without being deafened by screaming moral high ground-standing anchors conflating Moitra’s fraternising with a man while drinking, with the cash-for-question case.
Both Moitra and Dehadrai have accused each other of kidnapping Henry, which makes you believe the dog might indeed have more pedigree and class than most of the players in this tawdry saga.
I am not getting into the merits or demerits of the corruption charges against Moitra, which, I repeat, are serious. Still, one must wonder why her partner didn’t think her ‘unethical behaviour’ should have been revealed while she was with him.
This is as close to a living example of ‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned’ – made especially delightful for the misogynistic masses, since it encourages the eyeball-catching character assassination of an outspoken – yes, accused of corruption – female politician in 2023 India.
