It was like an advance party or vanguard. A cleverly-positioned podcast made headlines long before Priyanka Chopra landed in Mumbai to flash a long leg at the inauguration of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centreand to promote Citadel, her new spy ad-venture for Amazon, ahead of its Asia Pacific premiere.

In a conversation with Dax Shepherd on his podcast Armchair Expert, she made at least two remarks that had the potential to go viral. When Priyanka talked of why she had to look for an escape route out of the Hindi film industry, which wanted her to “grovel” to survive, it did get attention. Her line that she would have had to “…schmooze certain clubs and cliques of people” set off a discussion on who exactly she was referring to.

Later, at a press conference of Citadel in Mumbai, Priyanka didn’t backtrack on it when she was asked a specific question on why she had made that revelation now and not earlier. She said, rather disarmingly, that she was “confident” enough to “articulate” it today.

Today, she’s not just in a safe place to drop a few home truths about a “trauma” she left behind but can actually cock a snook at those whohad ganged up to drop her from their movies. One example: Happy New Year, the film where there was no question of producer Gauri Khan allowing Priyanka to share space with her in the credit titles.Deepika Padukone was brought in asa replacement.

Priyanka won’t say it in so manywords but walking with husband Nick Jonas into flashy parties in Mumbai, where she knew the “clique” would be present, was her middle finger to Hindi film colleagues who’d nursed the fond belief that a woman was a bechari, it was her fate to wilt after a heartbreak.

But come to think of it. Much before Priyanka, Nargis had done it in 1958, when she’d married a younger Sunil Dutt. Nargis had moved on after l’affaire Raj Kapoor and had stayed in the limelight as a respected celebrity till the end of her life.

Priyanka’s statement on the podcast had two opposite reactions. Some said, “Atta girl” and applauded her. Others said that the statement made in Hollywood and the follow-up question at the Mumbai press conference were strategically placed as a part of the promotions for Citadel.

Whatever the reason, whether the bullied girl who had to seek a new avenue or the celebrity who had the gumption to go re-introduce herself on another continent or the actress who revealed that Citadel gave her pay parity with the male lead — Richard Madden — for the first time in her career, it’s different dimensions of Priyanka the woman that are always in the fore.

When there were no cameras around, it was as mother to 15-month-old Malti-Marie that Priyanka said to me that her first reaction to her daughter was of nervousness. “Because she was born just so premature.” But it was a beaming mom who also told me, “She looks like a Jonas but she eats like a Chopra. She loves paneer, holds it in both her hands.”

Which brings us to the other interesting disclosure she made on the podcast. That she had her eggs frozen in her early 30s on the advice of her mother Dr Madhu Chopra.

However, Priyanka is not the only actress to have had her eggs frozen for postponed motherhood. Among many others, a certain leading lady — who has had a couple of dismal failures lately butstill has a lot of Hindi films in her kitty — has also secretly had her eggs frozen. Now in her 30s, she did it in her late 20s, much before the Covid-19 pandemic.

It’s an intriguing coincidence that Diana Hayden, who was Miss World in 1997, three years before Priyanka wonthe title, was among the first to openly speak about having her eggs frozen. At age 42, when Diana delivered a daughter in 2016, she had confirmed that the child was born from an egg she had frozen eight years earlier.

With beauty queens and actresses making plans for late motherhood, it’s boom time for gynaecologists.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author