Journalist-turned-filmmaker Pritish Nandy, who is actually born on 15th January, was being wished birthday wishes yesterday, on 21st February. Among others, media personality Raj Nayak took to Twitter to wish him as well.
Many many happy returns of the day dear @PritishNandy ! Have a splendid one ! Cheers ?
— Raj Nayak (@rajcheerfull) February 21, 2019
However, actor Neena Gupta was not too happy to see the wishes.
U don’t know raj what horrible thing pritish nandi did to me and i have a proof so do not wish him happy anything if u r my friend https://t.co/Zl82aJZcFl
— Neena Gupta (@Neenagupta001) February 21, 2019
Reacting to Nayak’s tweet, Gupta said how Nayak does not know of ‘horrible thing’ Pritish Nandy did to her. In the cryptic message, she added that she also has proof of that. And that if Nayak was her friend, he would not wish anything happy for Nandy.
Read also: #MeToo : Pritish Nandy’s son Kushan Nandy accused of harassment by actor Chitrangada Singh
Curious, we tried to find out what was it that Nandy did that has hurt Gupta so much that she does not wish anything happy for him.
We came across multiple tweets where it was accused that Nandy had ‘stolen’ the birth certificate of Neena Gupta’s daughter Masaba to publish in a report and ‘prove’ that Masaba was former West Indies cricketer Vivian Richards’ daughter.
I have read it somewhere that He got the birth certificate of Masaba and made it public about her father !
You know how it’s difficult for a single mother to raise a child and specially a girl child !— Indomitable Indians (@Indomitable_ind) February 21, 2019
.@chitraSD @PritishNandy as an editor, he chose to publish the name of the father of Neena Gupta’s child, hitherto unknown.
— Nayanika (@nayanikaaa) July 22, 2015
We decided to dig a little deeper. In 1989, Neena Gupta gave birth to a girl. Newspapers were ‘aghast‘ since she had not told the world the name of the father. She kept her lips tightly sealed over who the father was, until Pritish Nandy hounded her and published a copy of Masaba’s birth certificate in The Illustrated Weekly of India, a magazine he edited.
At around 5:45 minutes mark in the above YouTube clip, Gupta speaks about a ‘journalist’, ‘editor of a big mazagine’, who went and stole the birth certificate from the registrar’s office. She says she called him (presumably Nandy) a ‘bas*ard’. Since he (Nandy) got Masaba’s birth certificate by sending his associate to steal it.
Turns out, Gupta’s aunt had submitted the documents at the registrar’s office, and the registrar asked her to come after a week to collect the certificate. A week later, when her aunt went to collect it, the registrar said that the certificate was already collected by Neena Gupta’s relative. Nandy had sent his associate to collect the certificate and he then went ahead and published it in his magazine.
Essentially, Nandy infringed Masaba Gupta’s privacy along with Neena Gupta’s and tried to shame Neena on a national and international platform for having a child as an unwed mother. In a society where a child born to an unwed mother is still stigmatized along with the mother, this is an extremely shallow and perverse thing one could do.
Ironically, Pritish Nandy regularly dishes out gyaan on privacy and laws related to privacy on Twitter.
We live in truly wicked times when under the guise of national security the State wants to hijack our privacy.
— Pritish Nandy (@PritishNandy) June 21, 2013
Our privacy has been protected. It is a fundamental right. Thank you Supreme Court.
— Pritish Nandy (@PritishNandy) August 24, 2017
Read also: Statue of all ironies: Pritish Nandy uses example of fake news to spread fake news
While writing this article, we actually discovered that Pritish’s birthday actually falls on 15th January and not on 21st February. Yesterday, he was replying to a 15th January wish by abusive troll Swati Chaturvedi when the avalanche of belated birthday wishes came through.
Hey thank you.
— Pritish Nandy (@PritishNandy) February 21, 2019
Perhaps it is time for Nandy to publish a copy of another birth certificate: his own.
