From the Horses’ Mouth....

Just recently after the wellknown Hollywood female celebrities created havoc for Harvey Weinstein by speaking out openly with all their guts against his lecherous attempts to nail them down in their early stages of career, many a female actors/models in Bollywood are following the same suit.

Aamir Khan in Satyamev Jayate was so ruthless in exposing the so-called business practice of many a doctors and pharmaceutical industry , which ofcourse is like black sheep in every field, I wonder why he never exposed the open secret of his own field, the casting couch revelations in Bollywood ??? Oh common! we all know why, don’t we?

Well , from the horses’ mouth, I have personally experienced the bad side of both the above situations – directly and indirectly!

To begin with, let me start with the days in my College years when, by Gods’ Grace, having been blessed with a good photogenic face and an attractive persona, I was quite interested to join the glamour world to make a career in that field. Ofcourse I was innocent and totally oblivious to the big bad and ugly world that existed behind the seemingly beautiful Silver screen. I tried to attempt at this, because a close family friend , was quite active in Bollywood and knew personally the famous  Bollywood celebrities then. So childishly I expected that he will guide me safely into this career, he being my parents’s friend and wellwisher .  But ; to my greatest nightmare, on hearing my views to join Glamour world, he was the first to try his monkey tricks on  me (you know what) and when I completely rejected his  advances, he reasoned his act and tried to salvage the situation by saying he wanted to dissuade me from entering glam world and this was like teaching me a lesson! Woah! What a wonderful and genuine way of teaching lesson to your friends’ daughter!!!  I wonder whether he ever realised how badly his stupid lust would affect my psyche as a growing teenager, since he himself was a father of a young growing up daughter. Although I have forgiven him for that , the scar still remains, in some corner of my mind!

As if this was not enough, a builder and his bootlicker, whom my father trusted immensely with his money few years back, are acting weirdly by denying to honour their committment made to my father. They also tried their monkey tricks after setting their ugly lecherous eyes on me. Akin to exploiting our family just because we trusted in them. I wonder what kinds of people exist on this realm of Mother Earth. Only if they realise what karma are they creating by torturing the minds of women with their lusty dumb behaviours and wonder how they will feel and react if their daughters are treated like this by other men! May God give them the wisdom to grow their soul! So these were my direct experiences of ugly headed men....

Flashback from the first ugly experience- Moving ahead with dreamy eyes, I again childishly thought that one persons’ behaviour doesn’t define entire industry’s take on that matter and that my talent will get recognized by the right people some day. So I continued my journey on that path. But again, just came across many a nasty foxes and jackasses (sorry those memories still annoy) who view women as objects of meagre pleasure and fantasies! They just want to either satiate their unending hunger for pleasure or satisfy their egos of having laid down many a  number of beautiful women. But when they find a strong headed woman like me who  walks on her straightforward principles in life and wont give in to them, you know what happens right? – That’s precisely what happened in my case too!

To get a fair idea of my potentials, while training for one of the Prestigious National Beauty Pageants , one of my contemporaries , who went on to win the Femina Miss India award that very same year , she would keep glancing up at me repeatedly while our classes would be conducted together and when I asked my trainer about that she very clearly said  , “ Ofcourse anybody would want to know their tough competition.”   All the more because of so many feathers in my hat – I was educated, intelligent, very good looking, artistic and as my trainer commented during our ramp rehearsal session for the very first time , “ You don’t walk the ramp Racchana , you simply glide elegantly, even with those very high heels!” Well,  It was a big relief and breather for that contemporary  when she learnt that my age precluded me from taking part in that years’ Femina Miss India (Phheww) and ofcourse forever! (Oouchhh….)

Having gotten over the fever of Beauty pageants, I started giving auditions as an actor in my search of a brilliant career in Bollywood. This was precisely the time I could take the risk of giving time to something I was passionate about, especially if I was thinking of changing my career. I remember at one of the auditions, the director of a famous production house who took my audition for the role of female villain like that of Priyanka Chopra in Aitraaz, had applauded my performance which I gave only in 20 minutes of receiving the dialogue sheet; at one shot & live infront of the camera with the perfect pauses and expressions! He said none of the actors he had auditioned, gave such an outstanding performance…Yayyyyy! And I went home exhilarated and surely expecting a call from that production house…But then…. The deserving candidate will usually not get the call after auditions! Why??? because bagging meaty roles and  projects comes at a huge cost – either Cash or Kind.. & neither of those terms and conditions I would accede to …..

With Gods’ Grace, Destiny, and Good brains I changed my focus to studies, scored very well in Science and entered Medical school, graduated as a medical Doctor. At this point in time I completed my internship and then went on to do Dermatology as I always wanted to be associated with “Beauty”. After finishing my Postgraduate studies in Dermatology and Cosmetology, when I was working at a Skin clinic in South Mumbai, the following incidence happens - the great Actor Mr Aamir Khan, ‘the Great Thekedaar of Righteousness’ (Although I am a fan of his acting and perfection I have a love – hate equation for him in my mind as you will see why ). So he starts airing show called SATYAMEV JAYATE wherein he went on a spree of exposing all the scams occurring in various professions in India (Surprisingly he forgets to expose his own field or in that matter even the Indian politics because he knew what will his fate become if he ever tried to do that). He then goes on to EXPOSE the Doctors and their ways of doing medical practice. Well yes I do agree there are a few to many such Doctors but tell me which profession is totally free of Crocodiles???????? Show me any one profession which is full of only honest , genuine, truthful and good hearted people and then I shall say he definitely did the right thing. What he didn’t realize is that Media is such a powerful weapon, it can even create disasters if not handled with care. I am myself a person of integrity and give pro-bono services and free consultations to the poor and non-affording. I place myself in my patients’s shoes and then prescribe medicines / treat them. And there are so many of such genuinely good doctors  out there. But one wrong portrayal of the image of Doctors and every doctor was and is till date  viewed only from that angle by most of the people now. I am not surprised by the rising incidences of unreasonable and unprovoked cruel assaults on doctors in the unguarded hospitals and medical colleges after Aamir has created this monster in the minds of people with suboptimal IQ and  herd mentality!

So during those times, while working at a South Mumbai Clinic, I called up a stranger woman  for some work and I was talking to her very politely. She had never ever met me or even known me personally. During the conversation when I tell her I am a Doctor by profession, suddenly she becomes hostile for no rhyme or reason. When I confront her firmly for her unreasonable hostility and ask her to talk politely, she outbursts saying in hindi , “Pata hai tum sab doctors kya dhande karte ho?” (We know what nasty things you doctors are upto these days) I was totally flabbergasted and disgusted by this unacceptable behavior by an elderly and supposedly mature lady of high repute who was well known amongst the elite class. This incidence occurred after a couple of days of Aamirs’ episode of Satyamev Jayate on Doctors.  

Mr Aamir Khan, you could have genuinely deserved the admiration of Doctors like me if you had all the guts to open the can of worms in your own industry – the Bollywood or even in Indian Politics. I am surprised you never took note of so many actresses and models who end up being the puppets at the hands of their director/producers ... so many either end their lives in utter frustration or are killed by power yielding shenanigans at a gunshot if they dare deny their advances , all this while working in your very own industry… Women like Shikha Joshi, Kuldeep Randhawa, Jessica Lal just to name a few.

I am really fortunate I had a strong backbone of my medical career  to fallback on and completely empathise with those young girls and women who have no other skill to make them sail through the storms of this Industry or have gone too far to return back to safe shores. I am actually thankful to these experiences which pushed me to go further in search of the truth about existence and inclined me more towards spirituality. It was then that I did my first Vipassana course way back in 2009. It was like finding my holy grail and as if I knew these things at the back of my mind but didn’t have a methodical explanation and verbal expression to all that! I found all my answers and to my satisfaction, found my peace of mind there, and then onwards the journey has continued and helped me to evolve over the years into a strong and sensible person. Yes I still have many a shortcomings which I am still working on. After all we all are humans and keep learning every day every minute with all the experiences. Am trying to master my mind rather than letting the mind to become my Master ( which can be really a nasty one actually )!

                       -        Dr Racchana D Fadia