Kangana’s open letter to Saif: How can you compare racehorses to artistes?

The war between Kangana Ranaut and the three artistes who yelled 'nepotism rocks!" at te recently concluded IIFA awards – Karan Johar, Saif Ali Khan and Varun Dhawan – doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon. After Varun’s apology and Johar's regret, Saif wrote an open lettern, where he said he apologized to the actress but also went onto explain his meaning of nepotism. 

Now, Kangana has hit back at Saif by penning an open letter to a daily, sharing her own views on every point in Saif’s letter. 

What made heads turn the most in Saif’s letter is the part where he linked genetics with star power. To prove his point, he gave an example of race horses who are made to mate with the ‘right’ mate to make a ‘grand national winner.’ 

Kangana got back refuting this analogy, “In another part of your letter, you talked about the relationship between genetics and star kids, where you emphasised on nepotism being an investment on tried and tested genes. I have spent a significant part of my life studying genetics. But, I fail to understand how you can compare genetically hybrid racehorses to artistes!” 

The Rangoon actress gave her own example to emphasize: “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. I wonder which gene from my gene-pool gave me the keenness to observe my environment, and the dedication to interpret and pursue my interests,” she said. 

Saif also gave an example of eugenics (the science of improving a population by controlled breeding). To this, Kangana said, “You also spoke of eugenics - which means controlled breeding of the human race. So far, I believe that the human race hasn't found the DNA that can pass on greatness and excellence. If it had, we would've loved to repeat the greatness of Einstein, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Vivekananda, Stephen Hawking, Terence Tao, Daniel Day-Lewis, or Gerhard Richter.” 

Kangana ended her letter by slamming nepotism. “So, should we make peace with nepotism? The ones who think it works for them can make peace with it. In my opinion, that is an extremely pessimistic attitude for a Third World country, where many people don't have access to food, shelter, clothing, and education,” she signed off.