Arjun Rampal and Mehr Jesia chose a dignified way to end their 20 year-long marriage and released a joint statement. Their relationship was under constant scrutiny from both press and public. It will be a struggle for Rampal and Jesia to face the gossip and speculations from the common public all the while dealing with personal and legal aspects of their decision. But instead of blaming each other in the press to gain public sympathy or staying mum and letting people draw unnecessary conjectures, they have decided to start on an amicable note.
Rampal and Jesia are among the increasing number of celebrity couples who have managed to bring some sanity to their disheveled personal lives by opting for a dignified separation.
Celebrity marriages have a very public end
It is never easy for a couple to end a marriage. Unlike a break-up, a separation or a divorce comes with a legal and personal tussle. It becomes uglier when kids come into the equation. But what if a couple has to do all this from dividing assets to dividing time they spend with their children, right with the general public and press breathing down their neck?
Be it their hook ups, weddings or separations, no aspect of celebrities’ lives is free of public scrutiny. Their affairs get splashed over page 3 columns and their break ups lead to speculative threads on social media. Everyone knows how, why and when about their separation. And it doesn’t matter if what they know is true or false.
Most Indian celebrities have learned from their foreign counterparts, and now try to control the buzz surrounding their separations.
In the recent past celebrity couples like Farhan Akhtar- Adhuna Bhabani, Kalki Koechlin-Anurag Kashyap, Malaika Arora-Arbaaz Khan and Konkona Sen Sharma-Ranvir Shorey opted to issue joint statements to acknowledge separations, asking the media and fans to respect their privacy.
Most of these couples have remained on friendly terms and are snapped together every now and then.
Divorces and separations are still seen by most as a failure. For people, divorce is a crack in the porcelain like smooth and perfect lives these men and women lead. Much as we love them for what they are, people loathe celebrities for leading such seemingly perfect lives. They have every material comfort, money, fame, expensive cars and houses and then they have beautiful partners. How could someone’s life be so perfect?
So while celebrity weddings restore our faith in fairy tales, their separations draw a guilty smirk on our faces. Their failure to keep a marriage going is like a flaw which makes them more human, than demigods. It makes them ordinary and vulnerable just like the rest of us.
Only those who know the kind of effort which goes into toeing a marriage year after year, know how easily it can crumble right in front of your eyes.
But by putting a dignified end to a marriage, these celebrities somehow still manage to redeem their relationship. It helps them give their attention to where it is needed the most- their individual and familial healing.
These statements and public appearances after a split may or may not impede the gossip, they give consumers of such news some food for thought. If a couple is asking for you to leave them alone so that they can sort their lives out, will you still keep prodding them? Will you still encourage media into publishing rumours about them by lapping it up?
While these stars show dignity in separation, how many of us are willing to be equally dignified and back off to let them live their lives?
Picture Credit: Twitter
Also Read : The strong case for the sleep divorce: Kiran Manral in The Married Feminist
Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section. The views expressed are the author’s own
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