Actor Mahima Chaudhry impressed the audiences with her debut performance in 1997. However, after giving us two back-to-back successful movies, the ‘Pardes’ actor was nowhere to be seen. Her fans missed the pretty city girl and her performances.
Recently, in an interview, the ‘Daag’ actor shared the reason for her absence from the scene. Mahima said, “I was working for Ajay Devgn and Kajol’s home production film ‘Dil Kya Kare’ with Prakash Jha.
“During that, in Bengaluru, while on my way to the studio, I had a massive accident where a truck hit my car, and the glass of my car went into my face mostly.”
Hindustan Times quotes her saying, “I thought I was dying, and at that point, no one even helped me get to the hospital. It is only after reaching the hospital, much later, when my mother came, Ajay came and they went to discuss.”
“I got up and saw my face in the mirror and saw the horror. When they did the surgery on me, they took out 67 glass pieces.”
The accident left scars on her face and her heart. It was a long road to recovery for Mahima, both mentally and physically.
Talking of which, the bubbly actor said, “I get teary-eyed when I talk about it. I had to be with stitched, stapled and had to be indoors and not be exposed to sunlight.”
“My room was completely blacked out. I didn’t look at myself; there was no mirror. Lights which had UV rays light couldn’t be there so that the marks don’t stay.”
The actor who was rising to fame had to let go of all her movies, which she had lined up, after the tragic incident. “I didn’t want people to know because, at that time, people were not that supportive.”
“If at that time, I had discussed it and said that I had cut myself like this, they would have said… ‘oh, iska toh chehra kharab ho gaya, let’s sign someone else.’”
But soon after, we saw the charming actor making a comeback to the silver screen. Sharing about it, Mahima said, “Today, everybody is a lot more evolved and get a lot of support. I remember nobody was allowed to be on sets, as I was just healing. There was a song ‘Yaad Piya Ki Aane Lagi’ which Neeta Lulla was designing and she said Mahima you must get back, I used to be shaking.”
She added that her jaws used to shiver and she didn’t want to do the song but Neeta Lulla pushed her. “So, we shot that and that’s how I began again by doing long shots in my held up films. When I slowly got my confidence back, Akshay Kumar said why don’t you be a part of ‘Dhadkan’ and then slowly I started picking up cameos and guest appearances, and those became hit.”
“Yes, it did look like where did she go? I was hiding. I braved it out and it is only because of my family.”
Mahima, who is currently on a break from films says that there isn’t anything coming her way and that’s the reason why we don’t see much of her now. “I have been keeping myself busy with events, live events, promotions, and of course, you have a child to raise and it takes an entire village to raise one, and I am a single parent,” she laughs.
I remember watching Mahima ace the desi, simple village girl in ‘Pardes’ and it was a class act. There’s something about her that reminds me of the good old days. Watching her again on the screen would be a delight.