The last thing I ever want to do is to bring down the name of a film actor who has just passed away. I loved his charisma and admired the powerful screen presence he carried into every role. But admiration does not mean we close our eyes to reality.

And this time my blood boiled. It boiled not at the man himself, but at the millions who clapped and cheered him for what they praised as courage. The courage to marry again without divorcing the first woman who had already given the best years of her life to him.

I wonder if these adoring fans ever stopped to think what his first wife went through in all those decades.

The grief. The humiliation. The silence that must have crushed her spirit every morning and every night.

We Indians love to stand on pedestals we have built on shifting sand. We applaud behaviour that should instead have evoked discomfort. We gasp with delight at glamour. But we forget the real story. The pain of the woman who stood aside unseen.

And then we made him and the second wife members of parliament. Yes. We placed garlands. We raised slogans. We cheered this lovely couple on campaign stages. We stood in endless queues to vote. The cameras rolled. The crowds chanted. The leaders smiled. The screens sparkled. And the first wife sat somewhere in silence.

Now comes the delightful twist. The same people. The same party. The same cheerleaders. They have now tabled a resolution in Assam that polygamy will be punished with a fourteen- year prison sentence. Fourteen years. I want to ask a tiny question. What are you going to do with the last forty years of your silence when a woman cried alone in a house that once belonged to her. Is there a sentencing for that? Will someone pay fourteen years for that pain? Will anyone go behind bars for the applause given to injustice?

Because without that applause it would never have happened.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot, what about, the speeches about empowerment of women? But in the same breath I see a national leader who’s left his wife and walked away.

We pass laws with great flourish with cameras capturing smiles in parliament. But what about the hollow space where truth should stand.

I see two empty chairs of two loyal women, who once sat building dreams that were never returned to them.

If this is not double engined hypocrisy what is?

Picture two engines joined together. Both powerful. Both capable of pulling a nation forward. But one engine pulls east and the other west. They strain. They struggle. And the train goes nowhere.

That is exactly where we are heading.

Think also of two poor women in these stories and then maybe the term ‘double engine’ which is bandied around so much, will make sense to you..!

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