Actress Khushboo Shroff makes a bold statement on fat shaming

MUMBAI: &TV’s Laal Ishq has been ruling the prime-time weekend slot successfully for quite some time now. The show is an amalgamation of multiple creative producers who bring forth their creativity in the form of unique love stories with a supernatural twist. What sets Laal Ishq apart from its contemporaries is the novel stories that are showcased every week with some of the most known faces of the television industry. In an upcoming episode, the show will highlight a rather sensitive issue of fat shaming which will feature Khushboo Shroff, Umang Jain and Karan Sharma playing the lead roles.

For decades, plus-sized male and female actors have most often been relegated to secondary and sometimes demeaning roles, playing the dim-witted or food-obsessed sidekick, for instance. Moreover, body shaming on and off screen is cruelly a commonplace that has targeted many well-known Bollywood and television celebrities like Vidya Balan, Sonakshi Sinha followed by many others over the years. Of late, though, there have been some encouraging signs of acceptance, thanks to some courageous voices who have come out in the open and bashed such wrongful trolls and negative statements on plus size individuals, especially actors.

This episode of Laal Ishq will delve into the life of an obese young girl named Neha (Khushboo Shroff) who is tortured by the man she is married to named Sanjay for being fat. Sanjay who previously drove away a girl from his life because of his behaviour feels that he is now stuck with Neha who is a fat girl. The story takes a supernatural turn when Neha dies, and her ghost comes to haunt the people she blames for her misery.

Talking about fat shaming and getting offers to play characters of a fat girl actress Khushboo Shroff said, “I don’t mind playing a fat girl, because your body to a certain extent decides the type of roles you get. A fat girl cannot play the role of a thin girl, so I am completely fine with that. What is not acceptable for me is playing regressive roles where you see a fat girl used as a commodity for jokes. I make a conscious effort to not play a role where a fat girl is just seen eating a pack of chips and doing nothing else. We are in the public eye, so we might as well work on projects that talk about real issues that have a positive impact on people and society rather than working on mindless things like showing fat people in a funny and useless context.” 

This sure is going to be a Laal Ishq episode to watch out fo