‘I would be a farmer if genes mattered’

Kangana Ranaut has finally broken her silence on the nepotism debate, which hit the headlines when Karan Johar, Saif Ali Khan and Varun Dhawan brought it up on the IIFA stage, and said she would be “a farmer” if the point about family genes were true.

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The three stars chanted ‘nepotism rocks’ in New York during the IIFA awards last week and Johar took a swipe at Kangana, who had called him ‘flag bearer of nepotism’ on his chat show.

While Johar and Varun apologised, Saif claimed in an open letter that he had personally said sorry to her. The debate and exchange of thoughts on nepotism is “exasperating, but is healthy”, Kangana responded, also in an open letter.

Quoting a part of her Rangoon co-star’s letter, where he “emphasised” on nepotism being an investment on tried and tested genes, Kangana said, “I have spent a significant part of my life studying genetics. But, I fail to understand how you can compare genetically hybrid race horses to artistes! Are you implying that artistic skills, hard-work, experience, concentration spans, enthusiasm, eagerness, discipline and love, can be inherited through family genes? If your point was true, I would be a farmer back home.” 

While she enjoyed some of the perspectives on this subject, she did find a few of them disturbing, she said. “Saif, in your letter you mentioned that, ‘I apologised to Kangana, and I don’t owe anyone any explanation, and this issue is over.’ But this is not my issue alone. Nepotism is a practice where people tend to act upon temperamental human emotions, rather than intellectual tendencies,” Kangana wrote. — PTI