Ranveer Singh And Deepika Padukone© Getty Images and Instagram

This Viral Video Of Ranveer Singh And Deepika Padukone Has Uncovered A Real Problem With Bollywood Celebrities…

Salva Mubarak
Senior Features Writer

Listen. On any given day, I’m very happy with the fact that I’m a single, independent woman with a somewhat decent social life (does calling the local Internet guy to complain about lagging Internet speeds count as social life? Asking for a friend.)

I also pride myself on my ability to objectively look at the lives of celebrities on Instagram and not succumb to what the social media overlords want me to feel: aspiration.

I don’t aspire to eat avocado-laden toasts or the artfully decorated smoothie bowls that have started populating my feeds for some reason. Nor do I crave a thigh gap that the fitness coaches on my Explore page promise I’ll get if I could be bothered to get up from my position of being constantly curled on my bed with a screen of some sort in front of my eyes and a giant shark plushie curled around me. But I’m just a human being and human beings are essentially weak.

Whether you’re a fan of celebrity culture or not, it’s so pervasive that there’s no way you can spend even a few minutes on the Internet without passable knowledge of who is wearing what and who is dating who. As an occupational hazard, I’m entrenched in celebrity news at all times. And let me be the one to inform you that the celebrities are out of control, I’m afraid. Social media has granted a previously unavailable glimpse at their private lives and that has changed the landscape of parasocial relationships forever. So I know that Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas are the kind of couple that make the people around them constantly aware that they’re deep in love with each other.

Now I’m not Kevin Jonas, so I can’t confirm whether this is true or not, but one look at their respective Instagram accounts and it’s clear that they’re both that b*tch. Jonas never fails to leave a fire emoji on Chopra’s sun-kissed selfies and the actress is no better. She leaves no opportunity to declare how happy they are with each other with absolutely zero consideration of the fact that there might be people witnessing their flirting who have the personality of a beige wall and no hopes of finding true love in this universe.

I’m obviously not talking about myself here, I have the personality of a red wall: a bit unsettling and hard to get used to.

Back to the celebrities.

Moving a bit closer to home, Shahid Kapoor and Mira Kapoor are other offenders.

When they’re not busy promoting the concept of arranged marriage on national television, the two shamelessly flirt with each other on social media or indulge in couple-y banter in the comment section of each other’s posts. While these celebrities leave cute comments and emojis on each other’s photos, I get spammed by bots promising that I’ll get an iPhone 13 if I follow them within the next 10 minutes. How is that fair?

More recently, Ranveer Singh joined Deepika Padukone in the South Of France as she fulfills her duties as one of the jury members at Cannes Film Festival. A video of the two of them goofing around, as Padukone gets ready to do whatever Cannes jury members do, surfaced recently. Singh can be seen sitting on Padukone’s lap, as she calls him her trophy.

Do you see where I’m going with this? I don’t need to see adorable videos of good-looking celebrities being cute with each other? My life is tough as it is. I’ve just started watching Succession and there are so many spoilers already on the Internet because it has been around forever. My time on social media is already stressful as I have to avoid Succession memes and references. I do not need to see Singh commenting ‘QUEEN!!!!’ on Padukone’s red carpet looks.

Deepika Padukone comment section©Deepika Padukone

And don’t even get me started on Vicky Kaushal and Katrina Kaif. Those two make me feel every inch of the bitter 28-year-old that I am and it’s not pleasant. When photos of their wedding flooded the Internet, it was enough to make me consider giving in to my family’s demands that I give arranged marriage a chance.

I mean a 32-year-old software engineer who thinks Elon Musk is a God can’t be that bad, right? Wrong. Vicky-Katrina’s love did this to me and I’m not sure I’m ready to forgive them yet.

If it’s not the happily married brigade, it’s the ones who are dating and thriving by the looks of it. Hrithik Roshan and Saba Azad made their relationship red carpet official as they walked, nay glided, into Karan Johar’s 50th birthday celebrations looking unfairly good in black.

The two held hands, posed for the celebrities and constantly smiled at each other like they were the only two people on the red carpet. It was heartwarming and it also launched a 25-minute long discussion with my sister as we discussed Roshan’s relationship history and how good it was to see him in an apparently happy relationship after all this time. It also gave us the realisation that we need to get better hobbies in life.

If you’ve patiently managed to sit through my 800-odd words bitter rant about love and the expression of it in public, then maybe you should also join my sister and I in our quest to find something better to do with our lives. Maybe quilting?