'Control your wife': Mira Rajput trolled, Shahid Kapoor tagged for anti-cracker post

BEauty products enterpriser Mira rajpoot Kapoor, who is married to doer Shahid Kapoor, faced seemingly misogynistic and otherwise disconfirming comments after she made an appeal to people not to burst crackers since they pollute the air, referring to Diwali celebrations.Sharing a screenshot of her Instagram story from five days ago, X user Ashutosh J Dubey tagged Shahid Kapur and told him to “please handle your wife”.“Every year, the same debate resurfaces: banning crackers is called ‘progress’, and those celebrating are lectured about air quality. But Diwali is, and has always been, more than just a festival, it’s a celebration of light, tradition, and community spirit,” wrote Dubey, whose bio says he is a lawyer and an office-bearer in the Maharashtra BJP's social media cell, in his post on October 26.“Firecrackers have been a part of the Diwali experience for generations,” his post read. He also claimed people overlook industrial emissions, construction dust, and lack of civic responsibility the rest of the year. “Why single out a single night of tradition while ignoring the real contributors to our cities’ AQI?” he argued.“If you drive luxury cars, enjoy air conditioning, and frequent air travel, shouldn’t you be self-aware before policing others’ once-a-year happiness?” he further said, and shared also a photo of Mira and Shahid with a luxury car in a separate post.He claimed he was all of “honest conversations about sustainable celebration (green crackers, limiting hours, and local bans if necessary)” but decried what he termed attempts to shame people for following their faith and tradition.Mira had written on Instagram: “Why are we still bursting crackers? It's not okay even it's ‘just for the kids to see once’ or 'we're just doing it once for them to have the experience'. Neither is it okay for your pataka aesthetic to hold a phuljhadi for (Insta)gram. Let's please stop normalising this. If we normalise it so will our kids and this will never stop.”She argued that "say no to crackers" should not be merely a poster for kids to make for Earth Day “and then forget about it when Diwali comes along… AQI news is not just for the next Instagram story. It's the air our children breathe,” she wrote.“This is not a tradition I wish to indulge in,” she wrote pointedly, addressing also those like her who have “privilege, education, awareness and affluence” but “what lacks is common sense”.She got some support.Reacting to Dubey's X post criticising her, a user named Dr Aratrika Ganguly wrote: “Your wife should be pitied if you have one that is or manage to find one. ‘Handle your wife’ reeks of patriarchy and misogyny but definitely not uncommon from Sanghi men. Pity is the word for the women of your home.”Another user named ‘HandleWithDare’ wrote: “It’s festival of lights. Not burning crackers. As human evolution happens we need to look forward (and) leave behind many age old practices with time. If we continue selling forest to corporations we need to even stop many burning practices which we do as part of our cultural rituals.”But Dubey had others chiming in with support.A user with display name ‘NoMayaHere’ wrote: “Mira Kapoor please use your millions to take your family to whatever island you people go to. Or cover your house in air purifiers. You can request people to burst less crackers or not burst crackers. You’re confusing the population of India with your househelps to use such a rancid disgusting tone ordering us around.”