The Nude (Re)Bomb? Ranveer Singh could wear his birthday suit again, for the vegan cause this time
The Nude (Re)Bomb? Ranveer Singh could wear his birthday suit again, for the vegan cause this time
When Ranveer Singh posed in the nude for Paper, a New York-based arts and culture online magazine that not many Indians (including his 40.7 million Instagram followers) would have even heard of, he must have expected the fur to fly once the photos were posted. It is not often that a man who is known to be a passionate over-(the-top-)dresser consents to appear in nothing but his birthday suit, so the decision to shed must have been a hard one.
After all we Indians tend to get offended for the barest of reasons and this was as bare as it could get. And despite the avalanche of articles imbuing his act with all sorts of motivations, including many drawing on scriptural evidence to defend or berate him, the fact of the matter is that he tempted fate — if not women or men — by doing something that is only condoned by most Indians these days when seen carved in stone on the walls of centuries’ old temples.
In addition to indignant accusations and denials on social media of him offending women (or men) by going starkers, the equally numerous references to the ‘non-veg’ — a quaint Indianism for anything carnal or sexual in nature — aspect of his photo-shoot were par for the courts, er, course too. What is man but an amalgam of flesh and bone, after all, especially when splayed out sans cladding for (visual) consumption? And what are his viewers if not non-veg, then?
Such spiritual, philosophical and dietary dilemmas notwithstanding, what Singh may not have accounted for is the invitation from PETA India to become the new face — body! — of their long-standing campaign with the tagline ‘All Animals Have the Same Parts – Try Vegan’. The invitation is not for their other (and some might think, more appropriate in the current context) campaign, ‘I’d rather go naked…than wear fur’ which was ‘retired’ in 2020.
This could, of course, be a bum deal given that many of the staunchest supporters of Singh’s Paper shoot have implied that most of the criticism stems from an abstemious conservatism that is also usually manifested by eating (and forcing others to eat) shakahari. It is also further complicated by the fact that PETA itself has a strained relationship with the aforementioned conservative vegetarians in India who regard its animal rights campaigns as selective.
But the lure for Singh is obvious. By doing the Paper shoot he followed in the (bare) footsteps of Kim Kardashian, who went au naturel in 2014 for the magazine with even her famous derriere all oiled for maximum shine. And if Singh says yes to PETA’s invitation to strip again, he could, in his inimitable way, reprise an image associated with Pamela Anderson since 2010 when she appeared in a bikini with parts of her body marked like cuts of meat.
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The only kill-joy could be PETA’s letter citing Kartik Aaryan as a star who has already endorsed the PETA campaign, besides Joaquin Phoenix, Natalie Portman and Anoushka Sharma. After all, Aaryan’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 has been a hit in 2022 while Singh’s Jayeshbhai Joardar has flopped. And Singh mimicking Aaryan to the accompaniment of cackles from Alia Bhatt and Karan Johar on the latter’s chat show may have been a catharsis of sorts.
However, the synergy between Singh and PETA is obvious. Both love to shock. Overkill may be an odd word to describe a pro-animal organisation but it is apt as it has often used revulsion as the motivation to go off meat. And for Singh, over-kill is his fashion and public-persona mantra, though he has indicated in interviews his private space is quite different. If PETA can convince him to pose for them, there is no telling what he might agree to do!
This extract from his cover story in Paper appears to reiterate this: “I feel like I’ve got FOMO about life. Something might happen if or when I’m sleeping. It’s not sustainable, and I realize that. Here’s the key,” he whispers, ‘I’m in an experimental phase. I want to see how much I can push myself. I want to see how much I am capable of doing — physically, mentally, emotionally. How fast can I go?” The “before I crash” is implied.”
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed are personal.
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