Kajol opened up about love, lust and female pleasure ahead of the release of the anthology Lust Stories 2 . The actor did not hold herself back from expressing her honest thoughts about "normalizing" female pleasure on-screen. In a candid chat with Filmfare, the actor also confessed that a large section of audience has lost their faith in "eternal love stories" that Bollywood used to boast of once upon a time. Kajol believes the modern storytellers portray love and lust, just the way they are now perceived by the generation of today.
Kajol was asked when she became first aware of the word lust. To this, the actor replied, "Well, I'm a reader. I've always loved reading since I was a kid. My understanding of lust started with that. To me, lust is an intense need to do something. I always describe myself as having an intense lust for life. I love to eat, I love to dance, I love to listen to music, I love to knit and crochet. There are so many things in my life that I love like going out with my children. They crack me up and I love laughing and making people laugh. There are so many things that I absolutely love and I need to do them. That by definition is lust."
Lust Stories 2 places female pleasure to the forefront. Asked about the importance of normalizing screen-portrayal of female pleasure, Kajol replied, "At one point in time as a society, we were very open about it. It was part of our ancient texts and our education. We later closed ourselves off from it. But at the end of the day, it is a very normal part of life that we cannot do without. I think it needs to be normalized the same way that we've normalized eating and drinking. It's really a question of making it a part of the conversation rather than closing it off. Trying not to talk about it gives it all the more attention and focus."
At one point of time, Kajol epitomized the concept of eternal love through her evergreen character Simran in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. But the actor now clearly believes that concept of love has been changed over the decades.
"Lust used to be two flowers coming together at one point. Two red roses used to come together and that was it. Next, she's pregnant hahaha. So I think we've evolved just a step forward and decided to make something like Lust Stories 2. I believe cinema reflects society. Right now, the movies are speaking in the language that love is defined by today. As far as eternal love stories are concerned, I don't think anyone believes in it today. Nobody wants to die for anyone for sure. There is no belief in eternal love stories. If not you, there will be someone else. People believe in multiple soulmates these days. And therefore, all the love stories we've made so far have been very differently made. They're based more on friendships, modern relationships and society.," Kajol said to Filmfare.
Lust Stories 2 is an anthology of four stories directed by ace directors Amit Ravindernath Sharma, Konkona Sen Sharma, R Balki and Sujoy Ghosh. The cast includes Kajol, Vijay Varma, Tamannaah, Mrunal Thakur, Angad Bedi, Tillotama Shome, Amruta Subhash, Neena Gupta and Kumud Mishra.