Kareena Kapoor Khan turns 41: On the actress’ special day, let’s take a look at her famous firsts that have made her a trendsetter in Bollywood.
In a career spanning over two decades, Kareena Kapoor Khan has shattered plenty of glass ceilings by taking on daring roles, expressing gutsy opinions on issues like pay disparity and breaking pregnancy taboos, and ultimately established herself as one of the most important women in Bollywood.
The actress has never shied away from being vocal about parts of her life that most celebrities tend to hide- be it openly discussing her love life or fearlessly addressing her fallouts with her colleagues. This quality has always set her apart in Bollywood.
Kareena has been outspoken and assertive long before it was in vogue, so to speak. In fact, she was one of the first mainstream Bollywood actresses who demanded equal pay as her male co-star in the early 2000s. And in the years since, the actress blazed a trail of many firsts. On her 41st birthday, let’s take a look at Kareena Kapoor Khan’s famous firsts that have made her a trendsetter in Bollywood.
Asking for equal pay
Bollywood’s problem with the gender wage gap has received more and more attention over the last few years, with many top actresses raising their voices on this issue. But Kareena had demanded equal remuneration as her male co-star when the pay gap was not even a hot topic of discussion in the industry, not that it didn’t exist at the time. Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar, in his autobiography The Unsuitable Boy, had revealed that Kareena asked for the same amount of money as Shah Rukh Khan when he offered Kal Ho Na Ho to her. Karan eventually cast Preity Zinta for the role. Last year, in an interview with Pinkvilla, Kareena recalled how she was replaced from films for charging a certain fee. “I did demand a certain fee and I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. You put in an equal amount of time and effort so obviously, you want a certain amount. Now there is a lot of discussion about pay disparity, but when I said it earlier, no one really paid attention to it.”
Going public about relationships
While most celebrities prefer to keep their life away from the public eye, Kareena has talked about her past relationships like nobody’s business. Her romance with Shahid Kapoor was quite the talk of the town during the initial years of her career. Shahid and Kareena were together for almost five years and they both were very vocal about their relationship. The former couple had also made a joint appearance on Karan Johar’s Koffee with Karan, where they spoke at length about their romance. The two parted ways during the shoot of Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met. Following their breakup in 2006, Kareena went public with her relationship with her now-husband Saif Ali Khan, who she met on the sets of Tashan. “A lot happened in the making of Jab We Met and Tashan and our lives… We all kind of went our separate ways… This (Jab We Met) changed my career and that (Tashan) changed my life. Because I did meet the man of my dreams and I did marry him. And this (relationship with Shahid) kind of took its own course in which both Shahid and me went our separate ways,” Kareena had told Film Companion last year.
Size-zero
13 years ago, Kareena introduced Indians to the concept of size-zero, courtesy her film Tashan, where she flaunted her killer abs in bikinis. The actress had lost 20 kilos to acquire the particular physique for the movie. Though the film failed terribly at the box office, Kareena’s slim figure became the talk of the town, sparking off a national debate. “The size zero phase was a result of a combination of yoga and Rujuta Diwekar’s (nutritionist) meal plan. I was 68 kilos, and she brought me to down 48, which is when I gave that bikini shot for Tashan. I took up that project as a challenge. Adi (producer Aditya Chopra) told me, ‘You need to be super fit to be in this movie. Will you be able to do it?’ And I said, ‘Of course.’ I was ready to challenge my genes, stand there in a bikini and show him that I can have amazing abs,” Kareena had told Mid-day about how she lost weight for her ‘size-zero’ figure.
Romancing younger heroes
Kareena was never content to buy into the sexist status quo set by the powerful, male-dominated industry. So she took it upon herself to challenge the long, inglorious Bollywood tradition of pairing older men with much, much younger female co-stars by working with relatively younger male actors such as Arjun Kapoor (Ki and Ka) and Sumeet Vyas (Veere Di Wedding). Acknowledging the age discrimination towards women in Bollywood, she had told us, “Now when I am older, I will definitely do that kind of part (an older woman romances a younger man), and break the norm. People do fall in love. Look at Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, they are from different generations. Saif (Ali Khan) and I are from different generations but we fell in love. What is the big deal? But yes, producers’ mindsets need to change.”
Working while pregnant
From working throughout her first and second pregnancies to resuming shoot one month after giving birth, Kareena didn’t leave any chance to defy stereotypes about pregnant women in the workforce. When Kareena was expecting her first child in 2016, many assumed that the actress’ best days were behind her. Instead, she roared her way onto the public stage, sashaying down the ramps confidently and giving some of her strongest performances. Talking about the same, Kareena recently told The Guardian, “Most Bollywood actors, when they get pregnant, don’t leave the house because they are stressed about how they look, that they are no longer this glamorous diva, worried if they put on some weight that people will judge them. There’s still a lot of those taboos. But I just wanted to own it.” Kareena and Saif share two sons together. They welcomed their older son, Taimur Ali Khan, in 2016 and had their second child, Jehangir, earlier this year.
