Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh appeared on the Koffee With Karan show and unleashed a social media storm. Their one hour long talk featured some incredibly wholesome revelations while the two were cozying together on the couch.
Ranveer recalled that he was blown away when he saw the actress walk into a room. Karan broke the formality of the interview to confess how their strong love and commitment made him feel lonely because he wanted the same.
A viral clip showed Deepika talking about the begining of their relationship, confessing that the two were casually dating. Deepika and Ranveer met at Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s house, while prepping for the shoot of ‘Ram-Leela’. The ‘Piku’ actress confessed she had just gotten out of an abusive relationship that traumatised her, and she didn’t want to commit to another one. So the two actors casually dated, since Deepika was not ready for something serious after her failed relationships.
But social media went off on a tirade, labelling Deepika a ‘slut’, ‘toxic woman who uses men’, and also saying that the two are trying to romanticise ‘open relationships’, therefore relationship standards have fallen.
I’ll take my sweet time to explain to the nay-sayers why they’ll continue to look like losers while Deepika is laughing away with the love of her life.
Open relationship or casually dating? Let us break down the difference
Open relationships are when two partners who are committed to each other, choose to continue being in separate relationships with other people while remaining together. It requires both partners, who are in most cases married couples, to equally consent to the relationship and keep each other in the loop about the partners in their life. Deepika and Ranveer were not in a confirmed relationship at the time, so they could not have been doing this.
Casual dating on the other hand is what gen-z calls today ‘situationship’. It’s when two people do not confirm they’re in a relationship and continue to see each other casually, while also seeing other partners. Since there was no commitment label on them, they are not cheating on each other.
Got the difference? Now let’s unravel the misogyny behind this whole backlash to the ‘casual dating’ revalation.
‘Casual Dating’ say gussa hai, or the fact that a woman exercised free will to choose how she wants to live?
A lot of the backlash surrounding this topic is pitting Deepika with her ex, Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor, and saying he would have been trolled for doing such a thing. Several users on X complained how Alia was trolled intensely for revealing Ranbir tells her not to wear lipstick, compared to the silence of feminists when Deepika admits she was casually dating.
There is a huge difference between the two, dear reader. The backlash to Ranbir and Alia was justified by all means because it was a grown man, married to a woman ten years his junior, who was dating her while she was in her early twenties and ordering her not to wear lipstick. Had this been Alia’s personal choice, it was acceptable but the fact that she chooses not to wear it because her husband doesn’t like it, is absolutely wrong and can never be defended.
While here are Deepika and Ranveer, two professionals who are financially independent and clearly stressed that this was a joint decision they had made, not enforced by Deepika. Several times in the interview, Ranveer says he is well aware of Deepika’s mental health state, and he did want to ensure he could help in every way he can to make his wife feel better. Therefore, them choosing to casually date would have helped Deepika heal from an abusive relationship, but most importantly this clip proved how Ranveer was ready to do everything to prove he was the right man for Deepika, and she knew that.
But why did social media find this clip particularly triggering? Is it because of just the label ‘casually dating’ or because we can’t handle a woman taking things at her own pace? In particular, this has more to do with our culture of romanticising the ‘sati savitri’ trope of a woman who never cheats, never loves anyone but one man for the rest of her life, and most importantly, never dictates her own needs to a man. Here is Ranveer, an accomplished actor whose recent film ‘Rocky and Rani’ made millions around the world, admitting that his biggest dream was to ‘marry Deepika Padukone’ and is getting trolled for wanting his wife to take the lead in a relationship, which she was denied in her previous one.
This is not just about casually dating. Men are foaming at the mouth about ‘cancel culture’ and ‘double standards’ because a woman spoke about taking autonomy in a relationship. Relationship standards, family system yada yada didn’t budge an inch when Alia was openly body shamed (while pregnant!) by her husband Ranbir, who was ten years older than her while she was 22 when they were dating. But only when two equal partners open up about respecting each other’s space and trauma to let them heal before they choose to committ.
If praising Deepika and Ranveer means having lost ‘family morals’ then please let it die. Let it all go to waste. Because with how Ranveer kept consoling Deepika indirectly by rubbing her shoulder while she talked about her anxiety attacks in 2014 is getting him being trolled as a ‘run-mureed’ then okay. We’ll keep hoping more women find men like Ranveer who love them too much to listen to ‘family morals’ cynics.
