Ah, she's got a ring on her finger, Nick Jonas popped the question on her birthday. And Ali Abbas Zafar, the director of Bharat, tweeted it out (the modern version of "blurted it out") when he confirmed that Priyanka Chopra was no longer part of the film because of the good news that she gave them in the Nick of time.

L'affaire Nick has been different.

Quite uncharacteristically, the actress who kept every beau under wraps like a secret Rafale deal, dated young Nick delightfully openly. Until now, even an equation with unattached, eligible men like Shahid Kapoor and Harman Baweja used to be hush-hush like the price of a French plane.

PC is a smart cookie, said observers. Stepping out of character in a domain she thus far held as private, with no trespassers or peeping Toms allowed, served two purposes. The third season of Quantico has wrapped up her TV outing for the moment. Plus, with A Kid Like Jake and Isn't It Romantic, in which she has interesting parts, still to kick off high-decibel promotions for commercial release, media interest in her would have been on a wane. She had slogged so hard to earn her Western presence that losing the momentum was not an option. Voila, Nick didn't have to be a secret, so let's blaze the headlines.

There was another canny reason to go public with the relationship that she would otherwise have conducted under the radar. When she was all over town with Nick here, it shifted attention from the well-known six-year relationship that had ended in heartbreak. By flying into Mumbai with a young, good-looking boyfriend who was single and an international celebrity too, she looked what she was - an independent, successful woman who had enough men evincing an interest in her. She was no bechari. She could get up, dust off and move on with life, like men traditionally did down the ages.

The day before she flew back to LA, when she glowed happily at Mukesh Ambani's huge do for his son's engagement, the bechari syndrome might have kicked in, especially when the man from her recent past was there posing for shutterbugs with wife and son. But PC, with Nick by her side, was the telling visual of a woman who had steamed ahead with a life of her own, a life that was not going to be dictated by heartbeats of the past. It was stirring. For far too long have women crumbled under emotions, leaving it solely to the men to move on unhurt without looking back. She is a game-changer and if she has to bend self-made rules like keeping a relationship classified, let's root for her. Congratulations, Priyanka, you never cease to surprise us.

There's someone else who's also readying to fly out of India. Eastwards, to Melbourne. The well-spoken and beautifully-groomed Simi Garewal is heading for the Indian Film Festival, in which Siddhartha, her film with Shashi Kapoor, will be screened. Forty six years after it was released, she will be paying tribute to her debonair co-star who passed away last year. She did that a while ago in London too.

The resurgence of Conrad Rooks' Siddhartha is pure nostalgia. Because when it was released back in 1972, it was panned by all, praised only for its stunning visuals. It was famous mainly for the nude scene that featured Simi. "You require real courage to do that," Simi had told me when the scene was the talk of the town.

The publisher of a film magazine (now extinct) had put that shot on the cover of his annual issue and Simi had taken him to court for it. It was not the era of downloads; the publisher had got the visual from the producer. Simi, therefore, lost the case. The victory gave the magazine an additional boost.

Of course, none of this has any place in a tribute to Shashi Kapoor. Except that Simi did tell me then that the scene was possible chiefly because her charming co-actor had made her comfortable enough to do it without a shiver. Stories about Shashi Kapoor will live on forever.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author