There are questions in everybody’s mind as to why former Miss India and actor Tanushree Dutta chose to call out her once co-star Nana Patekar for touching her inappropriately during a dance sequence so many years down the line. She has also claimed threats to her family by goons unleashed by the actor and connivance of the industry in hiding his ugly truths back then. Ostensibly a lot of finger-pointing has begun now that she has quit tinsel town and settled into the regularity of normal life. What people fail to realise is that it is precisely because she is out of the stardust that she has mastered the courage to speak up for wrongful treatment on the sets. She had tried then but invested as her career was in a male-dominated industry, she knew she would not only stifled as a victim but shamed as a climber. Now that she has nothing to lose, she has decided to speak her mind in Bollywood’s #MeToo moment. This is the first time an actress has decided to name the errant actor and seek justice. 

Coincidentally, her revelations come at a time when the world woke up to Padma Lakshmi saying she was date raped 32 years ago, explaining why the trauma was so damaging how her mind took time to come to terms with it and expiate its guilt of harbouring the pain. One wonders how many Bollywood biggies would crumble to dust if Dutta’s cry gathers momentum. For, let’s not forget that studio head Harvey Weinstein is bankrupt after his dirty doings tumbled out of the can. Also, once dubbed “America’s Dad,” comedian Bill Cosby, 81, has been labelled a “sexually violent predator” by a US court, implying that he must undergo counselling for life and appear on the sex offenders’ registry. The Pennsylvania judge made the ruling ahead of sentencing the comedian for drugging and molesting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. And the US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is on the verge of losing a great career as he becomes the subject of a #MeToo referendum. Is it Bollywood’s turn next?