Trigger warning: Mentions of suicide and mental distress.
Raveena Tandon has received mixed reviews for her recent whodunit web series, Aranyak. While some criticized her Himachali accent, others lauded her for her acting skills. The actress has had a fabulous career as the reigning queen of the 90s. The 47-year-old who played the role of Kasturi Dogra, a bold cop in a small town, recently opened up about how entertainment journalism has changed over the last two decades.
Raveena recalls a horrifying incident from the early days of her career
Credit: Raveena Tandon, Instagram
Elaborating on the welcome change where actors are no more at the mercy of editors, she told Filmfare, “There has been a very positive change because in those days, honestly, you were body-shamed, you were personally attacked and rumours were spread without knowing the truth. Today, you have social media platforms where you can instantly put out the truth along with proof.”
Credit: Raveena Tandon, Instagram
“But in those days, you were completely at the mercy of the editors, who had printed a crap story and once the headlines hit, they hit and your mental health be damned. I remember a veteran actress whose sister actually tried to commit suicide because they wrote a story of her trying to seduce her own sister’s husband which was complete crap! She was in my gym and I remember that she ended up in the hospital because of an OD [overdose] of sleeping pills because of that story. If I could go back and read some of the atrocious shit that was written about me, I would want to sue the pants off these people,” she added.
Raveena on surviving in a male-dominated industry
Credit: Raveena Tandon, Instagram
Tandon has been in the industry for over three decades now. Even though she was missing from the big screen, she continued her presence in the patriarchal set up of the industry as a judge for some of the most popular Indian dance reality shows. The actress made a smashing comeback in her digital debut with the Netflix series, and it was sheer hard work and will power that kept her going.
Credit: Raveena Tandon, Instagram
Sharing the breaking points in her career, she told PTI, “Perseverance, hard work will always get rewarded. It was a man’s world then but I see a great change today. There are times when you thank your family for being your backbone, for being there for you. You also thank those, who were not there for you, who probably tried to kick you at a time when you were down at your lowest and tried to completely bury you. I thank those people because they gave me the drive to bounce back ever harder. The harder they tried to put me down, the stronger I wanted to bounce back,” she concluded.
Lead Image Credit: Aranyak, Sidharth Roy Kapur
