Having shifted base to Goa, actor Sameera Reddy– who was in Bengaluru – can’t imagine going back to the stress that the world of glamour brings along. She shares why she’s embraced social media now to talk about hush-hush issues
Many will remember Bollywood actor Sameera Reddy for her girl-next door look in singer Pankaj Udhas’s classic song Ahista. Or even her glamorous role in Ram Gopal Varma’s horror Hindi anthology Darna Mana Hai. There’s another avatar she’s now trying, a ‘raw’ one, on social media.
Reddy, who was in the city to support her friends and celebrity photographer Amrita Samant, calls it her ‘second innings’ where she uses social media to ‘be herself ’.
Faulting her greys, speaking about skin issues, her postpartum depression and post-delivery weight issue...Reddy finds social media a safe space.
“I see social media as a community and not the number of followers. I look at it as a healthy space to be myself. It’s not just about being raw. I am open to showing a life that is not perfect,” says Reddy.
Since she personally handles her account without involving any agency unlike many celebrities, she feels more connected to people than she was 10 years ago.
“Sometimes I counsel women who are going through tough times, I take time to reply to them,” she adds.
Speaking about things that are hardly spoken about also came from her personal experience of dealing with postpartum depression for two years.
“I was not prepared for it because not one person had told me that my hormones will go for a toss. Everybody was so focused on how beautiful things were going to be when the baby came out. And there I was...feeling the blues,” she says, adding, “If one person had told me it was ok to be going through what I was, I would have handled it better. So this is, in a way, my second innings, where I speak my mind and see if I can help other women in some way,” says Reddy, who turned to homoeopathy and therapy to deal with postpartum depression.
Having once lived in Mumbai where she worked in Tinseltown, Reddy currently lives in Goa and swears that she does not miss the world of glitz and glamour.
“I am not missing the industry because it is a lot of pressure and stress. If I go back now, it has to be on my terms. No mingling at parties to get work, no trying to get into the perfect crowd or having to butter the right people. The whole thing of having to be at the right place, the right time is just the most stressful part of acting,” says Reddy, adding her children find it funny when people refer to her by her character names not having seen any of her works yet.
In the city for only a few hours before flying back to Goa, Reddy revealed that namma ooru was the place where her husband Akshai Varde met and fell in love.
“I was here one New Year’s eve on work. He was in town and I desperately asked him out on a date. It’s 12 years since,” she says before dashing off to the airport.