Actress Mahima Chaudhry made her debut with Pardes in 1997 opposite Shah Rukh Khan. Her beauty and acting skills soon became the talk of the nation if not just the town. The actress then delivered a fire performance in her next film Daag: The Fire where she played a double role. Suddenly, in 2010, the actress went missing from the silver screens. In an exclusive conversation with Pinkvilla, the actress revealed that while working on her next Dil Kya Karein, she had met with a scary accident that left her broken emotionally.
During an interaction with Pinkvilla, Mahima got candid about her life and experiences.
She mentioned, the reason she is not seen on the silver screen is because she is quite busy with events, live events, promotions, taking care of her child, which becomes too hectic at the end of the day as she is a single parent.
Later, she spoke about the horrific accident that happened with her and broke her emotionally more than physically. The actress said, “I think they gave me a lot, but yes, I did have a lockdown period where I had to stay away from work. I had my lockdown period just after my two movies, Pardes and Daag: The Fire where I had a double role, which was a huge thing at that time and they were successful films. Then, 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. 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.”
Moving on, the actress felt blue while conjuring the old experience. She spoke about the aftermath of the accident. The actress further revealed, she was kept in a dark room and there was no mirror. With horrifying staples and stitches on her face, she was worried that she will be not be selected for any movie further.
The actress further went on to reveal that such was the extent of the horrification that she wasn’t allowed to see her own face! “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. There were a lot of movies that I had lined up for myself during that time, and I had to let it go. 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.’
The bold actress concluded by saying that she was a bit scared to shoot a song but slowly, she developed confidence after Akshay Kumar asked her to be part of Dhadkan.
She 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. I had a shoot with Gautam Rajadhyaksha and my jaws used to shiver. I didn’t want to do the song but she pushed me. 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.
