At the dinner hosted by Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesperson and Maharashtra treasurer Shaina NC earlier this week to celebrate her father's birthday, even in the presence of heavyweights like Sharad Pawar, Adi Godrej and Chhagan Bhujbal, the cynosure of all eyes were on two relatively unknown faces - Hitesh Jain and Mrunalini Deshmukh, lawyers for actress Preity Zinta and industrialist Ness Wadia, respectively.
From the outside the Zinta-Wadia imbroglio has all the makings of a pulp fiction blockbuster, the kind Sydney Sheldon would have penned in the good old days: a beautiful actress, a handsome eligible businessman, joint owners of a glamorous cricket team, who fall in love and then out of it very publicly and who are now in court over an incident that occurred on the May 30 in a stadium crammed with 37,000 people, including the police, camera people and cricket board authorities.
As if this were not enough to provide for a best-selling plot or fodder for a cornucopia of rumour mills jangling with stories to keep all of India awake, enter the underworld angle, with alleged threats to the boy's family!
We get the scandals we deserve and in many ways Zinta's case has once again - and from a completely different angle - brought the focus back on women's right to dignity and safety.
By bringing to the surface nuances of what a woman can find offensive and her Constitutional right to be protected and receive justice -whether in the top echelons of Mumbai society or the wastelands of Uttar Pradesh - it's open season on the issue.
As far as the Mumbai chattering classes go, Zinta's motives range from the cynical (publicity, an out-of-court settlement and even, as one theory goes, a carefully worked out plan to offload her shares in the IPL team she owns) to the stereotypical hell-hath-no fury revenge. It is hard to find too many people who support her in the drawings rooms of Mumbai's elite hills: Malabar, Cumballa and Pali.
"When women are being raped and abducted, how could she trivialise this issue by taking a small spat to court!" is an oft-heard remark. Another, more offensive one, smacking of the misogyny that Zinta faces, questions: "How can one's modesty be outraged if one doesn't have any?"
But in other parts of the city, many other women - working women, housewives, mothers of daughters and even their fathers - are not so sure how trivial this issue really is. At a high-powered women's soiree on Thursday, attended by many from the media, film, politics and business worlds, women were more forthcoming about why they felt Zinta's case was important. "A woman can feel that her modesty is outraged or be offended even in the absence of sexual abuse," said one woman.
"If what she has alleged did happen and the accused gets away, it's going to send out a wrong message," said another.
More vociferous was these women's disgust at the lack of support to Zinta from Bollywood in general and her two male actor friends, both amongst the most powerful men in the film industry - Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.
"Did you see how Salman responded when he was asked about the case by reporters?" a media maven remarked about the star's bizarre choice of communication. "He did a taunting jig at the reporter!"
"Why should we be surprised at Bollywood's response?" said a grande dame. "When has it supported a fading star? If it had been Deepika Padukone, things would have been very different!" said a politician.
Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com
