Taapsee Pannu Is In A Relationship, But Should That Even Matter?

Shouldn’t we focus on a celebrity’s work, and not their personal life? Taapsee speaks of this in a talk with her sister on an interview with Pinkvilla.

The media is furiously reporting on Tapsee Pannu’s love life following her speaking about it on a recent interview. What they seem to have missed in the same interview is Taapsee talking about how she wants the media to focus on her professional life instead.

Taapsee Pannu and her sister Shagun, recently did an interview with Pinkvilla, in the course of which they spoke a bit about their love lives.

Taapsee openly said that she is in a relationship but did not reveal the name of the person she is dating, saying that the media would probably not be interested as the person she is dating is not a businessman, cricketer or actor.

She was wrong. Following this interview all the headlines are about  her relationship and her marriage plans. Some have gone far enough to speculate about who she is dating.

On the one hand, it is great to see a woman being open about having a romantic relationship, and talking about having her own timelines for marriage and kids, separate from what her parents may have planned for her. It is also nice to hear about Taapsee and Shagun both wanting to have small, intimate weddings when and if that happens, as opposed to the multiple day mega-events that celebrity weddings generally are.

On the other hand however, is the point that Taapsee herself makes in the same interview – that her love life really shouldn’t be what the media focusses on. She said that the important people in her life, who are genuinely interested in her, and not in making gossip columns out of her life, already know about her relationship, but that she hasn’t spoken to the media at large about the same because they “make headlines out of it and that becomes the thing to be talked about rather than so much other stuff that I’m doing in my life.”

Taapsee spoke about an earlier interview in which she had spoken about a lot of things, but somehow the whole article was reduced to her relationship status in the headline. “When an actor has worked so hard to have a professional name, just don’t try to encash on my personal life,” she said, speaking about the media’s eagerness to report on the love lives of celebrities.

In an industry where people aim to gain mileage out of their personal relationships, sometimes even dragging “silly exes” into the conversation just to grab eyeballs, Taapsee’s reticence to speak in detail about her love life, is frankly quite refreshing.

Be it male celebrities or female, the amount of media attention devoted to talking about their personal lives does seem excessive. One may argue that being in the public eye means that they have lost a right to privacy, but I beg to disagree. They are in the public eye as professionals, and so with respect to their professional lives, they can be questioned and they are answerable. At the end of the day however, they are human beings with emotions and are entitled to keep that aspect of their lives secret.

While all of us are a little curious by nature with respect to others personal lives, it does not actually matter to us what the relationship status of our doctor/local shopkeeper/bus driver is, as long as they do their job to our satisfaction. Why then should it matter to anyone who their favourite celebrity is dating, as long as they continue to deliver on the professional front?

Image source: YouTube

Vijayalakshmi Harish

Vijayalakshmi Harish is a book blogger and writer. To paraphrase her librarian, she is a

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