More than men, women tried to pull me down: Indrani

Two elements of the chargesheet stuck out—one, that I was an ambitious woman, and the other was that I remained on cordial terms with my ex-husband. Estranged couples are often cordial, even friendly, for the sake of healthy co-parenting. It is possible to be friends with an ex. As for a woman being ambitious, it’s an age-old story of how men perceive women who want to make it big.More than men, women tried to pull me down. After the first chargesheet came out, people from all corners of our social life descended upon me with their claws out. In all my years in Mumbai, I had never felt any animosity against me, maybe because I didn’t ever focus on other people. I was always that hardworking girl who left her home early in life and knew going back wasn’t an option. I had to hustle, work hard and make it on my own. I was working sixteen hours a day, some days even more. Peter (Mukherjea) was working equally hard. We had created our own comfortable life. I married Peter because I fell in love with him. And I left him when I felt our love had vanished.Of course, we had a busy social life. There were several invites that arrived home every day but Peter and I wouldn’t have the time to attend every party… Often, at these get-togethers, I would be chatty, but my mind would be preoccupied with work. Yes, if Mukesh Ambani or Anand Mahindra or Indira Nooyi spoke, I’d listen, because every conversation with people like them was a meaningful one. I don’t think anyone understood that in those evenings when I was out, I was mentally working or networking. I make no apologies for not having time for socialites.After my arrest, one interview said, ‘Within six months of being on the horizon, she was married to Peter Mukerjea. She burst into the scene as an attractive single mother and found a man besotted with her. The man had corporate power and influence and that’s how she dreamt of becoming a massive media tycoon.’I never understood Shobhaa Dé’s rant against me. She was a divorcee herself before she remarried so I don’t get why she would write a spicy column on my ‘quickie divorce’.When I was getting married, or even for the years I was married to Peter, I never felt that I was in any way an outsider. I came to Mumbai to establish my HR firm in the city. I didn’t come to the city because I was getting married to Peter. I met Peter after my firm had opened an office there. All the people Peter knew in the corporate world, I knew already. The self-established socialites came into my life only after Peter was in it. I inherited his world. Mumbai was his city. I am a confident person, so I didn’t notice who was bitching behind my back.Medium108411010 For these socialites, it is necessary to be seen at events and then write columns about people they don’t know. The people who inhabit this so-called social circuit didn’t know me beyond a party—I had not met them for meals or gone out with them for a drink. Let’s just say, I wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation with most of these socialites. We had no common ground, because we were leading such different lives.When I walked into a room, people noticed me. I am a good-looking, intelligent woman who can hold a conversation with an industrialist or a CEO. I wasn’t a ditzy girl talking about fluff; I spoke business. The glitzy social circuit of Mumbai had issues with this newbie in town, walking in and inheriting a circle that they had been striving hard to get into.The moment I was arrested, it seemed like people came out and said everything they had been feeling about me for a decade and more. It felt like they were waiting for me to fall. And what was really jarring was that most of these people didn’t really know me, but aired their opinions freely about me, anyway.Queenie Dhody gave an interview to India Today saying: ‘She was never a part of Bombay society. She was too much of an outsider. Bombay society would not accept her, so she was creating a society that was clearly all in her head.’ But the fact is I didn’t ever strive to even belong in that society. I lived in South Bombay because Peter had rented the Marlow apartment next to the sea and later bought it when we decided to get married. I loved the view from our home. That’s it and that’s all.In the same chargesheet, three men stand as co-accused. But they were not branded as ‘ambitious’. In a now much-aired interview, my former colleague Vir Sanghvi talked about how he thought I had ‘delusions of grandeur and was obsessed with being a media baron’.Peter Mukerjea used to sell garments from the back of a car in a flea market in England. He worked hard and made his way up to the position of CEO of Star TV. But he isn’t faulted for his ambition. Peter has had a failed marriage (with Shabnam). He lived with a girlfriend for twelve years. He met me well after that. But those twelve years with his girlfriend, or the next, did not appear in his chargesheet. The socialite columnists also didn’t make much of any of that.My relationships and exes have been scrutinised to great detail. I have kids with more than one man and that was packaged in a way to make me look like someone with loose morals. There is no way to substantiate it but the character assassination was subtly put in between the lines playing to the deep-seated misogyny of our system.Every ridiculous thing about me was heard. I was an enchantress who does black magic. A lot was said about my crazy eyes. On Karan Thapar’s To the Point on India Today, Tavleen Singh said, ‘[Indrani] comes across as the most heartless woman known to mankind.’ She didn’t quite substantiate why I am the worst woman alive. Actor Rishi Kapoor dedicated one whole tweet to me and called me a ‘real weirdo’. There was an article that read ‘Sheena Bora murder case: Why Alpha men are putty in the hands of Alpha women.’ Someone called me a desi Don Draper and made a listicle about it citing that Don and I have similar pasts and affinity to the other sex. A Times of India article called me ‘The Great Gatsby of Mumbai’ and somehow knew ‘how I had Peter under my thumb’. A Twitter user even whipped up a conspiracy theory and wrote: ‘Is Mukherjea couple’s relationship the present & future of marriage as an institution among porn loving elites in India?’ It was like the sharks had smelt the blood in the water and there was a frenzied feeding.Edited excerpts from ‘Unbroken: The Untold Story’ by Indrani Mukerjea published by Harper Collins India