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