“She’s her own person. She is somebody who doesn’t need anybody to fight for her. She is not apologetic about who she is — physically or emotionally.” National Award-winning actress Kangana Ranaut isn’t speaking about herself, but these words describe her character in her latest film ‘Simran’, which was released in Pakistan on September 15 by HKC entertainment. In this Hansal Mehta-directed film, Kangana Ranaut plays divorcee Praful Patel, who has to move back home with her parents who live in Georgia in the United States after her marriage crumbles. Her existence isn’t blemish-free and the trailer indicates that she’s a kleptomaniac with a gambling habit and is back in the dating pool again. She’s a flawed-yet-fierce individual and that resonated with Ranaut, whose personal life has come under intense scrutiny after she spoke about her alleged affair and fallout with actor Hrithik Roshan, and her allegedly abusive relationship with actor Aditya Pancholi when she was young, during the series of press junkets for this film. The actress feels that Simran may nudge the movie-mad Indians to question their own prejudices against divorced, single women. “After a divorce, there’s always an unsettling environment for a woman where you ask yourself what is your place in that home and where do you belong. It’s hard to be in that place. In an Indian society, an unsuccessful marriage is equal to an unsuccessful individual and that’s so stupid. These are two different things and they have nothing to do with each other,” she says. Her words are eerily prophetic and can be applied to her state of being. The self-made actress, 30, doesn’t care for propriety and is the first one to call out the rampant sexism and nepotism that seems to be plaguing Bollywood. She has spoken about the gender pay gap in her workplace and isn’t shy about acknowledging her failed relationships. Published in Daily Times, September 23rd 2017.