On Tuesday, Soha Ali Khan posted a picture with her two-year-old daughter, who was sitting in a pram and being fed some sort of a drink. The photo was taken from a close distance, and whether it was the camera or the Instagram filter, we don't know, but the lines and wrinkles on the 40-year-old mother's face were quite prominent.
Soha is pretty regular on Instagram and you'll find both glamorous and no make-up photos on her feed - with husband Kunal Kemmu, sister-in-law Kareena Kapoor and daughter Inaaya. The Tum Mile actress isn't afraid of flaunting her age and posing for photos without succumbing to the pressure of looking perfect from every angle.
But who cares about honesty when social media is flooded with photos of women competing to outshine each other and going to great lengths to subscribe to unrealistic standards of beauty? How dare Soha Ali Khan, "even after having money in ur bank acc" (one of the comments on her photo) look like a real 40-year-old?
Sample some of the comments on her post:
* U look damn old just like a dead body has Alive-d.
* Yr tum kitni budhi lg rhi ho
* Y is she looking so old
* Totally changed stop taking tensions it's showing on ur face
* Omg wht the hell she is looking like y Soo old...even after having money in ur bank acc.
* Face app use kiya maybe
* Looking like dadi to that baby
* Size zero k chakkar me looking old. Please gain some weight.
The internet would rather have her spend money on fixing up her face, smooth out the lines, gain weight and slather on makeup to look 20 years younger because that's the staple diet social media thrives on. Will she be shamed then for using cosmetic procedures and trying to look younger? Won't there be comments giving her 'gyan' about how she should embrace her age? Probably. Because this is the Internet, only trolls win here.
This is the same Internet which has slammed Soha's niece Sara Ali Khan for choosing to study at Columbia University before becoming an actress. Soha herself entered the film industry at the age of 26 after finishing her education and working as a banking professional for a few years, unlike the Alia Bhatts and Ananya Pandays of the world who chose film careers over college education.
Several years ago, a 31-year-old Soha had said in jest to yours truly during an interview, when her age was mentioned, "Shh, you are not supposed to tell anyone! I am actually 16, eternally. I feel that I am small, petite and look young so my age does not matter." We'd shared a good laugh over it. But it looks like age might have caught up with her after all, and in the most ugliest, despicable sort of way.
On one hand, we celebrate actresses like Meryl Streep in Hollywood and Neena Gupta closer home for flaunting their wrinkles with pride. Freida Pinto, when she was 27, had said that she couldn't wait to grow old like Meryl Streep and Judi Dench as she saw their wrinkles as a reflection of their experience, something to be proud of. "I would love to have wrinkles like Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren because each wrinkle has its own story. I admire the amount of character their faces have now more than before," she had said.
Some of the comments on Soha's photo did counter the shaming with posts like "Mother hood comes with lots of responsibility...the exertion shows off sometime...she is beautiful as always and her baby is too adorable... please focus on it... (sic)" But these were vastly outnumbered by the "you look old" comments.
The cringe-worthy comments are proof that expecting sensitivity out of social media is pointless. Didn't Aishwarya Rai Bachchan get a lot of flak for gaining weight when she gave birth to her baby? It's part and parcel of being in the public eye, which is probably why Soha will never give it back on social media, even though the comments are infuriating enough. Let's hope she continues to fearlessly post close-ups of her face and give two hoots about trolls.
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