India, Dec. 19 -- The Hindi film industry has long faced criticism for gender bias, particularly when it comes to age and working norms. While Ranveer Singh-starrer recent release Dhurandhar is performing strongly at the box office, it also drew flak for pairing the 40-year-old actor opposite 20-year-old Sara Arjun. Actor Shefali Shah opines that such casting choices reflect the industry's deeply skewed expectations for men and women. "It should not be the norm, but sadly, our industry is about 'hero, heroine, villain'. The hero can be any age, but the heroine has to be aged only between 18 and 25. She can't age. She has a shelf life," the 52-year-old actor tells us. Drawing from her own experience of portraying Amitabh Bachchan's wife in Waqt: The Race Against Time (2005), Shefali points out how women are often judged differently for the roles they choose: "I played a character much older than me because the point of being an actor is to portray different shades of a person. Age was just a part of it. But sadly, it doesn't work like that (in the industry)." Beyond age bias, she believes that gender plays a key role in the ongoing debate around fixed working hours. She says, "I know for a fact that there are male actors who take two to three months off in summer when their kids are on vacation. It's great, as they know how to balance work and family. But nobody ever talks about that." However, the conversation changes when a woman makes a similar request. "Suddenly, it has become a big deal because a woman asked for certain work hours. It's an individual's choice, request, and requirement. Some may not agree with it, but nobody's putting a gun to their head about casting those particular actors. So, why is it even a conversation? If a man had said this, it wouldn't even have come out," she ends....