Vikram Johri: About the man

The camera zoomed on her as her beau arrived on the pitch. For the 10-odd minutes that Virat Kohli was on the crease during the India-Australia semi-final, we saw Anushka Sharma repeatedly, as she watched the match intently and cupped her face in her palms. Fresh from the success of the hard-hitting NH10 and looking ahead to several important films this year, the actor had obviously taken out time from her busy schedule to be there for her boyfriend.

But then Kohli got out, and the Indian innings slipped badly. Fans back home, some of them, went on the rampage. Times Now wanted us to trend #ShameInSydney. And then, there was Kamaal Rashid Khan, the man who has an unconsidered opinion on everything, asking his Twitter followers to pelt Sharma's house with stones.

Yes! You read that right. According to this narrative, Sharma is Kohli's lucky charm or lakshmi or dhan or property or whatever. As a woman, she must obviously bear the cross of her paramour's destiny and must be condemned if that destiny does not burst out in light and sound. She has no say in any of this; her own agency in the matter is beyond the point. As long as she is present in the stands, she better align her stars to ensure that the man on the pitch keeps hitting centuries.

Understand that this is happening to someone like Sharma, one of our more cerebral actors who has clearly forgone typical Bollywood temptations to do films that are not crass but still commercially viable. In Band Baaja Baraat, she played an ambitious Delhi girl who mistakes a business partnership for love. In PK, she balanced Aamir Khan's gravitas with a breezy touch that was nevertheless well-thought-out. And in the upcoming Bombay Velvet, if the trailer is any indication, she will serenade the audience as the stylish, sexy Rosie. She put in her own money to make a film that juxtaposes the two Indias: one of bright, if fragile, modernity against one steeped in darkness. And she has come out in support of her co-stars, most recently by lauding Deepika Padukone's move to talk about her depression. Phew!

If this were a man we were talking about, he would be lauded for his courage and generosity. And, of course, we would hear nothing of his wife/girlfriend. But Sharma is not a man, so what do we do to her? We reduce her to a symbol, a token, one of the many strands to Kohli's personality that give him that delicious edge. Kohli will sledge the Australians back, we tell ourselves. Kohli will hit a century.

The conversation is always about him, and Anushka Sharma is a tiny blip on the radar whom we tolerate only because it gives the whole business a vicarious thrill. Don't we Indians just love a spot of glamour? A cricketer and an actor! Wonder what they get up to before match night, we joke among friends. We do this with a total lack of empathy for the relationship; we assume, because it involves celebrities, that the relationship is fair game for our slights; we strip it of all dignity and we pile the burden of that disrespect on to the woman, because well, that's how we roll, don't we?

Not to mention that we do this to one of our most talented female actors, and then we wonder why India is so backward when it comes to women's rights. Seriously, what hope for the common woman who must jostle and push her way about a man's world that is sexist to boot? As a friend would say: "So much misogyny win, can't breathe!"

So to all those who made the World Cup semi-final about Anushka Sharma, listen: she is just a woman who happens to be in a relationship with a man, that's all. It's to her credit that she made the effort to be by his side at an important time, while perhaps forgoing her own duties as a rapidly rising star. Virat Kohli played badly; he might have played well - none of that has anything to do with Anushka Sharma, just as the success or failure of her films has nothing to do with him. So KRK and others like him, please stop spouting nonsense about a woman's role in a man's life. This is not a woman's role in anything; this is a relationship between two fairly - and equally - successful people.