#WhereAreThey Series: I had just eight lines in Aashiqui, I had to act through my eyes, says Anu Aggarwal

If there’s a film which defines what overnight stardom means, it has to be Aashiqui (1990). Both of it’s stars- Rohit Roy and Anu Aggarwal got to experience it, but while Roy continues to act in films, Aggarwal took a backseat. And her life so far has been nothing less than a roller coaster ride.

She now runs a foundation which is all about mental health, and is a motivational speaker as well. What led to this switch in her career is a long story, and she starts off by telling that acting is something she started doing as a child. “I was chosen as the best actor in my school in class 8, and acted in a Greek play which required me to perform 12 A4 size sheets long monologue. I did that to an applause, and then formed the dramatic society in my school too. I directed and acted in a play in class 10 as well. It was all my karma, I cannot take any credit for this. Films came my way naturally as well,” says the 52-year-old.

She adds that what has been the hardest for her is this: “I worked hard to be a single woman, and live my life on my own terms and conditions, till date. Rest of it- success, money, fame just came naturally, it’s like it was thrown on my lap!”

Once Aashiqui released, a host of offers came her way, but she took her time signing them. Her second film, Ghazab Tamasha released in 1992.

She calls the phase after Aashiqui ‘amazing’. “It was unheard of. I played such a different girl, and I am so glad I did. I was a social worker before I had started modelling, so for me it was a fresh thing, that a girl got to say this in a film ‘main apne pairon pe khada hona chahti hoon’ That was one of the eight lines I had in the entire film! I had to act through my eyes, and I thought that was a huge achievement. I had also modelled internationally. It’s been a great run,” says Aggarwal.

But it all changed overnight as well. On October 2, 1999 her car met with a serious accident, one which left her physically and mentally . “It was unexpected, like most things are in life. My car spun around 360 degrees, I was in the driver’s seat. I went into a coma, and by the time I came out, the doctors thought I wouldn’t survive. When the doctors had given up, I started to heal. I was already a yogi before the accident, and learnt how to heal, an alternative yoga therapy. I started to apply it to myself,” she reveals.

This also prompted her to turn an author, and currently she is readying for the launch of her second book. She says, “The first one was not my biography that ‘I am a star, listen to me’, it was a human story. After my near death experience, I realised I had to help people as much as I can. Maximum time of mine is spent on making people’s lives better, especially mental health.”

Movie offers though are still coming her way, she adds. Aggarwal says the reason she cut down on films, even before her accident, was because she felt the Hindi film industry “could do a lot more”

“Can you imagine, we make 1000s of films a year, Hollywood makes less than 150. Being huge, why can’t we bring out positive films? That’s what I felt then? Today, there are a lot of alternative films being made. In that sense, maybe there’s a story I may want to do, because the whole scenario has changed, more to my liking than it was then,” she signs off.