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No love stories for Bollywood’s married heroines. Only guns, revenge and trauma

From Rani Mukerji to Deepika Padukone, wives and mothers get to play cops and spies, but no longer the object of desire in a love story.

There was a time when a marriage certificate was a death sentence for Bollywood’s leading ladies. It was often even treated like a dirty little secret. But that was a different time. Marriage doesn’t end an actor’s career anymore. It just ends her romance career.

For decades, the Hindi film industry openly punished women for getting married. The assumption was that audiences wouldn’t find a married woman desirable, and definitely not if she is a mother. Today, the industry congratulates itself for being progressive because married actors, even after becoming mothers, are still leading films. But it’s time we look closely at the kind of work they get.

After setting up a home and having a child, Rani Mukerji returned as Shivani Shivaji in the Mardaani franchise, and she has since played a version of the same character. Kareena Kapoor Khan moved into mysteries and thrillers like Talaash (2012), Jaane Jaan (2023), The Buckingham Murders (2023) and more recently, Daayra (2026). Deepika Padukone became an action star in Pathaan (2023), Fighter (2024), and Singham........

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