BENGALURU: When Sonali Bendre played a doctor in Kal Ho Na Ho in 2001, little did she know that several years later, she would experience the trauma of dealing with the Big C that she had once ‘treated’. In Bengaluru for Find Your New Normal, a conversation with film critic Rajeev Masand, organised by FICCI FLO Bangalore Chapter, Bendre took a packed house at Shangri-La Hotel, Bengaluru, through the ordeal of her journey. “I still get a tingling sensation every time I think about it. I don’t want to write a book
because I’ll have to re-live it,” she said.
After the initial diagnosis, her husband (producer Goldie Behl) decided overnight that they would go to New York for the treatment. At her first appointment with the doctor, she was told that she had only a “30 per cent chance of getting through this.” “That night I cried my heart out. At the end of it, I told myself that it was going to be the last time I was doing so. I would never again ask myself the ‘why me?’ question in a negative manner,” she shared.
While Bendre admitted that her condition was far worse than she had imagined, with every
report throwing up something new, she believed that she would recover. “While everyone seemed to think otherwise, I decided to make the best of my very expensive holiday in New York,” she said, emphasising the importance of early detection that would have saved her the “tortuous treatment”.
While photographs of going bald may have taken the social media world by storm, it made her feel bare. “My poker straight hair was my identity, which got me breaks in movies and commercials. So, when that was gone,I just had to let things go. The weight gain, the 20-inch scar have been lessons in understanding that imperfections are beautiful,” she said, adding that on a lighter note, she’s now excited to curl her hair.
Her son, Ranveer (13), who had spent that entire year negotiating with his parents on growing his hair suddenly decided to get the same buzz cut. “Even though Ranveer doesn’t admit it, it was his way to show he cared. When Goldie broke the news to him, he immediately said that he knew about this disease since he had read a book with mumma on this,” she said.
Even as the “fear of a relapse worries her every day”, Bendre went on to say that her son was turning a teen at the time of diagnosis and might have got into a stage where he didn’t want to share anything. “But after the detectection, he always wanted to come and hug me. And I wouldn’t trade those hugs for anything,” she said.