“I Am The Most Important Person In My Life”, Says This Superstar Actress!

Sexism is one of the burning problems in the film industry right now. No matter how much our female actors have grown, they are still behind the male actor in terms of pay, time and respect. Kangana’s video for AIB was one form of showing the way industry performs. We hear female actors telling they are grateful the male co-star treated them with such respect, why thank for something mandatory. Because the industry had made them feel they don’t deserve it and when someone does it, they feel grateful. Such is the condition, even in the current scenario. Leading actors who have achieved far more than any of their male counterparts still face the same problem.

In a Times of India interview, Vidya spoke how when they called her the hero of the film, she started feeling vindicated and how sexism runs wild in Bollywood, still. She said, that “when people tell me that you do women-centric films, I keep saying that I am the centre of my universe and I am a woman, so I am drawn to these films. I really believe that I am equal in every way. And it is not about saying. I really believe it, deep down. Which is why, after a while, even the set-up of the conventional film began to bother me.”

She soon shared what bothered her,

“There was a film, in which I was playing the bigger role, and the male lead was getting paid more. And that bothered me. Because I am playing the bigger role! I am putting in more effort! I am not asking you to pay me for nothing, but you can’t pay him double of what you are paying me. I am not putting in any less effort if at all, I am putting in more effort.”

 

 

 

“These things – like waiting for an actor endlessly, while I am ready on the set – bothered me. Doesn’t matter if I am a woman or a man, but I take my job very seriously. So I will report on set on time, if you tell me 9 o’clock for an interview, I will be ready at 9. Now if someone walks into the set four hours late, by which time I have lost steam, I have to pull myself up again, to give a performance where I am not looking disinterested or angry.”

Vidya strongly believes that sexism is rooted in Bollywood. She said, “I do think there is an inherent sexism when you say you are the hero of the film, but I also know where it is coming from. Considering that all this while, heroes have been the centre of every film for decades. So I let that be. But what bothered me was when I was told multiple times for several films that the hero has given the dates so you have to adjust, we won’t get his dates later. Khoon khaulta tha mera. I might be committed to some other film, but I would have to change things around.”

She believes that men are not to be blamed because they are brought up that way. It is true. Marriage, breakup, or anything at all does not reflect on the man, it only dawns upon the woman’s life. Being a married woman herself in Bollywood, an industry where men at 60 romance ladies decades younger than them, and the ladies they once romanced become their on-screen mothers, because they got married, Vidya still manages to stay on top and shares what marriage has taught her,

“In interviews, I get asked about my marriage and when I am having a child, time and again. There are other actors, male actors, who have gotten married. Obviously, they are not asked, ‘when are you impregnating your wife?’ They are not even asked, ‘how is your married life going?’ For me to be asked that all the time – it is excessive. Because I do have an identity outside being a married woman. And that does not compromise or mitigate what I feel for Siddharth. But I come back to say – I am the most important person in my life. And that is the most valuable lesson that marriage has taught me. To still value myself.”

Not many in the industry would have the guts to call a spade a spade. But our Balan babe sure does!