Back in the day, when only TV, theatre, and radio were our go-to mediums of entertainment, actresses like Raveena Tandon, Karisma Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Sridevi, Juhi Chawla, among others used to rule over our hearts. As a kid born in the 90s, I still look up to these women who made their own path in an industry that was dominated by men.
Raveena Tandon was among those who always spoke her mind. The ‘Dulhe Raja’ actor admits that because she refused to play by the rules of Bollywood, she was considered arrogant, reported Hindustan Times.
Opening up on how she lost movies because of politics in B-town, she said in an interview, “There used to be these cabals which used to have the heroes, their girlfriends and their journalist chamchas. What used to shock me was that a lot of these female journalists would do something like this to another woman. When they now stand up and say, we’re feminists and writing ultra-feminist columns. I want to turn to them and tell them ‘really?’”
“It was a difficult time. But fortunately, I still worked with the biggest directors, I did the best films that were coming up and carved a niche for myself and did it my way.”
Raveena went on to say that there was a monopoly that was happening at that time. However, she never lost movies because of her honesty. “I was never an insecure person because this was not my be-all-end-all. I was okay that if I didn’t make it in movies, I’ll go back to doing what I was doing. I wasn’t living, breathing, and eating movies.”
“It was a part of my life, it wasn’t my whole life. I never played cutthroat politics or stepped on people’s toes to climb up the ladder.”
She further added that she was quite a rebel and people couldn’t handle it. “I never belonged to any camps, I didn’t have godfathers, didn’t have heroes promoting me. I was not sleeping around with heroes for roles or having affairs. In a lot of cases, I was considered arrogant because I wasn’t pandering to what the heroes wanted me to do – laughing when they wanted me to laugh, sitting when they asked me to sit.”
Talking of the time when she used to cry herself to sleep on facing prejudice in Bollywood, Raveena said, “I think my hurt mainly used to be with the media and the misrepresentation of things. They would always prefer to believe in the heroes’ version. I have boys who are still my best friends. I was brought up equal but suddenly here I was made to feel a girl who can’t even say hello to a colleague or jump into a car or grab a bite from a colleague’s plate because he happens to be a male. And the next thing you hear is, ‘oh, they are having an affair.’”
She concluded by saying that she never played politics to bring anyone down unlike others. Even though she has moved on, she questions, “Where has kindness gone, where has good upbringing gone, where has healthy competitiveness gone?”