‘Growing up’ as an individual can be a tricky process as one starts conceptualizing one’s individuality in a direction of being more mature, independent, figuring out who exactly he/she is and getting confident. However, for a girl it’s not just the same because during her teenage years while she is growing up physically the society expects her to shrink emotionally and to be cautious about hundreds of trivial things like how she looks, how she behaves, what she should wear and to whom she should talk and then throughout her life she’s judged on this predefined illogical parameters and social norms which presents her more as an elaborate object and less as a human. She strives for acceptance by means of living life as per societal norms and not the way she wants to. We will find such women everywhere ranging from our family to saas-bahu serials and Bollywood is no exception.

However, Bollywood is changing by bringing films where females are not stereotyped, they are breaking stereotypes and taboos through their characters and one such catalyst in a process of change is Kangana Ranuat. She is among those actresses in Bollywood who has carved a niche for herself by enacting bold, unconventional roles and different characters on celluloid. She chose the roles where she was presented as an individual who goes through ups and downs and tells her story and not just one who is there to look good and please everybody by the way of conformity. She is a queen of Bollywood who redefined the fashion. She hasn’t done dozen of films which framed her in one image rather she did films where shades of womanhood were sometimes mystified and at a times shown with more transparency.

Here is how she defines her journey of being woman on her blog in her words with which most of us will be able to relate with:

“At 16, she was just a girl who was trapped in a stranger’s body, more often than not that body seemed possessed by alien forces like menstrual blood, cramps, stretch marks, acne, shameful desires and regretful deeds. Neither did she want that body nor that person.

At 19, the seed was bursting and an artist was trying to sprout from it, did it make it? Did it not? That seed might have not made it and many others after that didn’t either but one seed eventually did, the price and the pain both were unbearable.

At 23, when she looked into the mirror she was faced with a bundle of contradictions, she contradicted herself but she didn’t lie not even to herself. Her honesty was endearing and for the first time I liked her.

At 27, I‘d fallen madly and deeply in love with the mountain woman who speaks with clouds and butterflies.

I can’t wait to grow old and meet her when her eyes will sparkle with wisdom and her voice will quiver with kindness and here another thought hits me, how much more time do I have with her?

Time is slipping from my hands just like sand does and I know one lifetime won’t be enough for us.

Can I close my eyes and breathe this beautiful spring day in and let it flow through my blood and make it a part of me?

Can I stay in this moment for a little longer before 27 deserts me like a lost love affair and before 28 conquers me like a conquest.”

– Kangana Ranaut