India has lost its mind because Rashmika Mandanna proposed to Vijay Deverakonda “100 times”. Now, let’s get to what happened in the last episode of
Koffee With Karan. Actors and superstars, Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda, tied the knot this February after an almost decade-long relationship. In that time, they both acquired fame, wealth and were focussed on where their ambition took them. They are both at the top of their game at the moment.
Then there was the wedding this year. As always when a superstar couple is on a show together for the first time after the wedding, questions about proposals come up. The answer to the proposal question by Rashmika and Vijay sent the country into full-fledged rage mode. In fact, the trolling has become so bad that the couple filed an official complaint with the Cybercrime Police, Hyderabad, regarding targeted online harassment, fabricated content, manipulated screenshots, and false break-up rumours.
By now everyone knows about how this story the couple shared - albeit with hesitation. Vijay and Rashmika were at an airport after a holiday spent together, and Rashmika asked him, “why don’t we get married?” Somewhere along the conversation he joked: “Ask me 100 times and I will”. Rashmika says she asked for a whole year before the wedding in February 2025.
The actress also said she’s quite open as a person and once in love, she wears her heart on her sleeves.
Vijay said he’s the guy who builds barriers around him and keeps the rough exterior—even if he’s judged—because he is not someone comfortable sharing his deepest personal feelings openly.
His on screen persona is somewhat still Arjun Reddy, and Vijay is not all mush openly. Rashmika is. The question is what’s so triggering about the 100 times statement that now the Hyderabad police is involved and the story is refusing to get off anyone’s timeline?
Almost everyone has an opinion – and that opinion was summed up on X (formerly Twitter) as “Rashmika loves Vijay, Vijay loves Vijay” Because he came across as arrogant, narcissistic etc… depending on the degree of outrage. Social media erupted. Trolls labeled Vijay a “red flag,” claiming he was playing hard to get, while others questioned Rashmika’s dignity for pursuing him so persistently.
Now the irony here is that cinema, especially Indian, have always had the hero woo the woman with songs. In fact, some of the superhit Bollywood songs are of a man wooing a woman.
Mere saamne wali khidki,
Dhoop mein nikla na karo roop ki rani, O Maria, Jaane jaan dhoonta phir raha, Aaaj rapat jaaye… With Rashmika and Vijay, the genders are reversed. Is that the trigger point? Or, is it the “100 times” part? Because frankly, by now, when both of them had to come up with statements (on Instagram) of a TV show conversation and the ensuing online hate, the whole matter has become quite bizarre. So, the real question is…
… is it really about Rashmika-Vijay or does it say more about us?
Maybe it’s about the silent rules of romance we’ve inherited; and why we get so uncomfortable when a woman rewrites them. Traditional narrative says the Bollywood hero gets to want who he wants, but the heroine only gets to be wanted.
We celebrate endless movies where men refuse to take “no” for an answer, yet when a real-life woman takes the romantic initiative, she is put under a magnifying glass.
Vijay came across as “arrogant” to a lot of people. But when we fall in love, don’t we fall for all kinds of people? The good, the bad, the ugly, the complicated, even the arrogant? Falling for the “bad boy” is not merely an Emily Brontë (
Wuthering Heights) stereotype or a familiar cinematic trope; it happens in real life, too.
We all have girlfriends who have fallen for the “bad guy”, the one with the attitude, the man who seems a little too full of himself. Or we have been those girls ourselves. Attraction has never been a neat exercise in choosing the person with the most agreeable personality, and being madly in love does not automatically mean we have lost our ability to judge character.
If you watch the episode where this proposal story unfolded, what is striking is that Vijay anticipates the would-be public reaction even before answering the question. He knows how his response could come across – particularly in an age when celebrity lives are dissected under the relentless gaze of paparazzi and social media.
“Karan, you won’t judge us, but people will,” he says. He may not have anticipated the extent of the backlash, or that it would become serious enough for their legal team to be involved, but he clearly understood that a private moment, once made public, could acquire a life of its own. And people did judge.
Of course, a joke can sometimes reveal a deeply patriarchal attitude, even when it is delivered with a smile. But not every remark that sounds arrogant is necessarily a statement about the social order, and not every intimate exchange between a couple needs to be read as a referendum on gender equality. Context matters, as does the relationship between the people involved.
Here are two people who had been in a relationship for a decade, who shared a history and a private language that the rest of us can only glimpse. To interpret one teasing remark as proof that a woman has no self-respect is to assume that we understand her relationship better than she does. And it’s deeply condescending. Which says more about us than Rashmika.
The hard truth is that when a woman proposes even in the 21st century, the gesture unsettles familiar expectations because it reverses a script we have long treated as natural.
But the script was never universal, and it was never simply about romance. What we are witnessing is not the collapse of a social order, but the discomfort that comes when an old convention is mistaken for an eternal truth.
Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda tied the knot this February (Credit: Instagram)
Confusing self-respect with love-power tussle
Modern women are constantly encouraged to be bold, ambitious, and independent in their careers. Yet when it comes to love, old expectations often creep back in — “know your worth,” “never to show their cards too early.”
This sets up an impossible double standard. What does the modern successful woman do? Be emotionally available, but never
too available? Be interested, but never appear overly invested? Be desirable, but never make the first move?
Rashmika’s gesture directly challenges that outdated rulebook. Maybe that’s the point of contention.
What if the man had proposed 100 times?
The most telling question in this whole episode is simple: would anyone have complained if the roles were flipped? If Vijay had proposed 100 times, and then declared it on a TV show after the wedding, people would easily hail him as a dedicated romantic person. But when a woman performs that role, the commentary flips:
Is she chasing him? Is she more invested than he is? Does he hold all the power in the relationship? Is she a doormat?This reaction reveals a stubborn assumption about relationships: that the person who admits their feelings first somehow loses the power struggle. But real relationships aren't business negotiations where the first person to speak loses leverage. When two people are secure and committed, who made the first move shouldn't matter at all.
Calling out “bullying dressed up as feminism”
As online commentary mounted, both actors stepped up to set the record straight on October 26, 2026. Rashmika released a candid statement addressing both supportive fans and angry critics. She defended her relationship and reminded people that true feminism is about freedom of choice:
"Find a man who loves you so beautifully that even after you're married, you'd still want to tell him, 'Let's get married.' I would do it a thousand times – 100 is nothing. It's really that simple."She also pushed back against commentators trying to judge her private life under the guise of women's rights:
"B**** about me all you want. I can take it. But talking about my family without knowing them? That's not feminism. That's bullying dressed up as feminism. Feminism was never about putting someone else down... It was always about having the freedom to choose your own life."Vijay backed her up, expressing how happy they both are. But we do not live in sane times. The trolling is still on, and a couple, who shared a personal story with trepidation - were proved to be right as to why no celebrity should ever share any personal moment – happy or sad in the future.
Blunder of “epic” proportions
The ongoing trolling is also quite ironic for a country which has women proposing to non-willing men in mythology. And these women were proposing to men who didn’t immediately say “yes”. They were persuaded. This was of course long before Hollywood made “the woman who takes charge of her romantic life” a symbol of modern independence.
Rukmini wrote Krishna a letter asking him to come and carry her off. In mythology, it’s called ‘Rukmini Haran’. But the story is of Rukmini’s guts. She refused to marry the man chosen by family, and plotted her own abduction by Krishna. Then there’s Hidimba who walked up to Bhima and declared her love – despite knowing her brother Hidimb was Bhima’s enemy. Ulupi chased Arjun in exile, when he had taken a vow of celibacy, persuaded him to marry her; and then had a son with him. Savitri chose Satyavan, knowing he would die within a year.
Epics are a great way to look at culture, and like in all societies, patriarchy is always a part of them. But so is a woman’s agency.
And it’s not as if women’s agency has always been awarded. Remember Surpanakha? Her nose was cut off by Laxman because she dared to desire and profess her love openly. How dare she?
The push and pull of what is considered acceptable and what is “offensive” has existed in mythology, in history and in modern life and love. The real asymmetry here—in the 21st century—is about who is allowed to look vulnerable without status loss.
Be yourself and also be the ‘babe in the woods’
A woman who chases and is turned down risks being coded as desperate, someone with no agency or worse – even a doormat. Unfortunately, all this hullabaloo makes it clear that modern women—who earn as much or more as their partners—still have to follow the regressive idea that she is a “babe in the woods” who doesn’t know her own mind when she falls in love.
Also, this whole fiasco is less about raw power and more about the maintenance of a specific performance — one in which male vulnerability is essential to and female vulnerability is still suspect. Irony is having a field day.