Suhana Suffer aur yeh...

Unless you have been living under a rock, you would know that Vogue India is the new Chetan Bhagat of social media. With two successive covers featuring Janhvi Kapoor and Suhana Khan, the fashion bible has found itself at the unlikely receiving end of no-holds-barred attacks questioning the editorial team’s integrity and calling out its ‘sycophancy’.

Whether you think Vogue is simply playing to the gallery by putting a ‘future star’ and ‘student’ whose claim to fame is her ultra famous father, is matter of a different debate. But you certainly cannot miss the photographs of 18-year-old Suhana Khan’s heavily sexualised avatar. She looks less like a fresh-faced 18-year-old kid, ready to take on the world, and more like a 30-something who has been there, done that, and could not care less. In some of the images, one could see glimpses of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who had taken pride of place on these very pages with her ‘smouldering hot’ makeover. Suhana exudes a similar body language, and that appears to be a bit problematic.  

Suhana, much like other star kid growing up in the US, Trishala, has been an Instagram sensation. Despite her father’s early attempts to use his influence with the media and stop some of her candid, bold images from circulating, Suhana, has been part of a different world order. Despite her routine, sedate appearances with her father at cricket stadium and the Mannat ‘cage’ from where she waves out to his fans, she belongs to that .5 percent of modern day Indian aristocracy. The rainbow world yacht parties with ultra-privileged kids looking ‘wasted’ in the tinniest bikinis and thongs are the norm. 

But if there is a disconnect, it is here. From the looks of it, Suhana has been primed for Bollywood. To cater to an audience that is largely conservative. They love to see their heroines in a bikini alright, but certainly not their kids. One of the biggest lessons in the future debutante’s life lies right here.

If she is about to step into the film industry, it may well do her good to study its history just a wee bit. This is the film industry that had pushed child stars into the limelight, making young girls look older than their years. She need look no further than her peer Janhvi Kapoor, whose mother had reportedly lost out on the best years of her life to greasepaint and padded bras. 

But off screen, the most sensational of women, stuck to self-censorship. Sharmila Tagore was never pictured in a bikini other than a magazine cover and a film shot. Zeenat Aman never wore a sheer saree and nothing else to any function. These women managed their screen-tested sexuality with the finesse of an acrobat.   

Suhana is a product of a different sensibility. But the vicious trolling that she has had to face, ever since her first bikini shots made it to social media, tell us that the more things change, more they remain the same. Unless Suhana is simply prepping for a Hollywood debut, she may have to learn the hard way, that her audience judges. And how!

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