By Sharanya Gopinathan
Just this tweet alone from self-confessed “devotee of Sufi Saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya and author Arundhati Roy”, writer Mayank Austen Soofi (@thedelhiwalla), posted on November 16th, would have been enough to bring us a fair amount of excitement the morning we stumbled upon it:
A Super-Rare Portrait of Author Arundhati Roy Smoking Wills Navy Cut… Long Before The God of Small Things… Photo by Carlo Buldrini pic.twitter.com/Z5cX1aQQgN
— mayank austen soofi (@thedelhiwalla) November 16, 2017
But the real joy, of course and as always, was in the comments. Folks chimed in with questions, clarifications and guesses about where and when the photo was taken, while others took the moment to draw some opportune and delightfully wicked comparisons, or sling some arbit mud.
how do you know it was Wills Navy Cut ?
— Sajith Pai (@sajithpai) November 16, 2017
Because I’ve read The Ministry of Utmost Happiness more than a dozen times!
— mayank austen soofi (@thedelhiwalla) November 16, 2017
Before GoST but after In which Annie Gives it those ones?
— vikramhegde (@vikramhegde) November 16, 2017
In Which Annie Gives It To Those Ones is, of course, a 1989 film written by Arundhati Roy, and directed by her ex-husband, filmmaker and environmentalist Pradip Kishen. The film won two National Awards, bagged by Roy and Kishen. And did you know it was also one of Shah Rukh Khan’s earliest film appearances?
It seemed to remind folks of some other excellent photos floating about the interwebs:
It’s Okay. All liberated women have experimented with life… pic.twitter.com/MpKZ6FrnTN
— Ātmaprajñānanda (@Atmaprajnananda) November 16, 2017
And yes, that is indeed MS Subbulakshmi and her bestie, dancer Balasaraswati, smoking in designer jammies so on trend in 2017 it’s almost eerie.
Some folks were enamoured by how good Roy looks:
Mysterious, dark, dangerous. Beautiful!!
— Nazia-Mallick (@nazianama) November 17, 2017
Others were just unable to process the fact that Roy was smoking, or that women smoke in general, or perhaps they just really hate smoking in general:
Soupy, how are you dealing with having seen this photo of our goddess roy
— rgb on point thank you (@amyoosed) November 16, 2017
— soutrik🐰 (@soupykaur) November 16, 2017
Wow women empowerment
— Parv× (@pcee19) November 16, 2017
That must be a photoshoot ! Calm down your tits guyz !
— Doberman◇Gang◇India (@pari_bravo) November 16, 2017
What then she can smoke she can sleep with any one but it should get her some fame n money
— Drpldhar (@drpldhar) November 17, 2017
But then there was this guy, always two steps ahead of the bhakts:
By god Sanghiyon aur Bhakton ki toh aish ho gayi….Arundhati ko Characterless batane ke liye ye pic toh bahut kaam aaygi unke.
— Logical Patriot (@ATruesec) November 16, 2017
While the original tweet indicated the photo was taken by Italian author and journalist Carlo Buldrini, folks in the comments are still debating whether it was from a photoshoot, or a still from In Which Annie Gives It To Those Ones.
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