This week, Rhea Chakraborty‘s T-shirt marked a movement . The actress wore a tee to the NCB interrogation, with the inscription, “Roses are red, violets are blue, let’s smash the patriarchy, me and you.” When the actress was arrested this week in connection to drugs in Sushant Singh Rajput’s death probe, several Bollywood stars came out in her support mentioning “smash the patriarchy”. As per Mid-day, Tahira Kashyap has penned an open letter showing her support to the movement .
She expressed that the media coverage made her lose her poise. “Why would I choose to write about this much-trodden topic now? Perhaps my threshold of tolerance has been tested in the last week, jolted by this new wave of anger against patriarchy. All of the talk in the media, the chatter on twitter, the footage on my tv screen, re-awakened something in me,” she wrote. “In the last week when I had my usual share of experiences – the usual experiences that happen to every woman, every single day – I lost my poise,” she added. Kashyap shared personal anecdotes from her life to emphasise the need to cut through patriarchy. Tahira is currently in Chandigarh and she recalls an incident where a relative too a dig at her and remarked about her husband, Ayushmann Khurrana. She said the family member asked her “look after your husband, feed him more greens.”
Exasperated by the comment, Tahira informed the relative that Ayushmann was making her some salad and she would ask him to make an extra serving for himself before she walked off. “I was tempted to crush his toes as I made the speech, but held myself back and simply stomped out of the living room. After all, who wants to deal with name-calling? I mean with ‘vishkanya’, ‘gold digger’ and ‘Bengali women’ doing the rounds I don’t want ‘khoon ki piyaasi’, ‘toes crushing’ ‘Punjabi women’ to start another wave,” she wrote, referring to the names Rhea has been called on social media lately.
She revealed being taught on how to behave. “I agree I was being harsh but was amazed by the offence taken. Perhaps every time a woman is called ‘haramkhor’, ‘fucking m#$@#chod’ on live feed, we should go out protesting too…oh but aren’t we already?” she pointed out before adding that their stand against these statements has led to trolls sending rape and murder threats.
Tahira also expressed her views on gender inequality by sharing an example of how hard female trainers need to hustle to remain in the game while many male trainers sport unfit frames.
She concluded her letter by suggesting that every time a remark is made against women, attempt changing the preposition and place a man in that same perspective.
So until the equation becomes equal, “roses are red, violets are blue, let’s smash the patriarchy, me and you”, the director said.
