Allu Sirish Wears Necklace, Says Gender Norms Are A New Construct

Actor Allu Sirish recently opened up about the trolling he faced for wearing jewellery during his wedding celebrations with Nayanika Reddy. The actor said he deliberately chose to break stereotypes surrounding gender norms.

During his pre-wedding and wedding ceremonies, Allu Sirish wore diamond and gold jewellery and even got mehendi with Nayanika’s name, apart from sporting Lord Balaji’s namam, shanku and chakra for the wedding day.

Reacting to the trolling, Sirish said, “Gender norms are a new construct. In ancient times, people were more gender fluid. Men also wore jewellery, and until about a hundred years ago, there was no separate perfume for men and women. But now everything is divided into blue for boys and pink for girls.”

He added that he wanted to challenge such perceptions. “I thought even if I get trolled, let me break that. We needed to start somewhere,” he said.

Speaking about convincing those around him, Sirish recalled, “They asked me, ‘Enduku, ipudu avasarama haralu veskovadam?’ (Do you really need to wear a necklace now?). I told them, ‘Urukondi. Manam kuda try cheyyakapote inkevaru chestaru. Ilage untundi inko iravai ellu kuda.’ (Let it be. If we also don’t try it, nobody will. Things will remain the same even after 20 more years).”

He further said, “Men usually don’t get to experiment much with clothing, only with accessories. I think that itself is restricting. I am pretty self-assured, so I don’t need others to dictate what’s masculine or feminine. I will decide what I can wear.”

Reacting to a meme that joked he might wear a vaddanam (gold waist belt) for the wedding, Sirish responded humorously. “Hahaha. Our Telugu memers are too funny! By the way, vaddanam is worn only by women, but Indian maharajas and Mughals wore chokers.”

He added, “The idea that chokers are only for women is a very Western construct. It’s high time we break free from such limiting beliefs and embrace our Indian style of jewellery.”