Mallika Sherawat started her acting career with Murder but soon got burdened with the “sex symbol” tag. Her bold pictures made more headlines than her acting chops. Malaika even felt she was being bullied and harassed by the media, because she was here for work but that was hardly spoken about and that hurt her.
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While promoting her film RK/RKay, Mallika, in an interview with indianexpress.com, opened up about the sex symbol tag and how she has gone beyond it.
When asked about how she managed to get rid of the sex symbol tag that she got soon after her debut film and negated all the serious work she did in her career, Malaika said, “A part of the whole sex symbol tag had to do with a certain way that this pseudo intellectual media portrayed me. Because, after doing Murder, I did do a Pyaar Ke Side Effects which was a lovely, heartwarming comedy. I did Welcome, Dasavatharam with Kamal Haasan, Jackie Chan cast me in a film, but this one section of the media ignored all that and only spoke about the sex symbol bit. That kind of became my image because media was perpetuating on that. But I made it a point to not take these things seriously and keep looking for good work and keep trying to do good work.”
Mallika Sherawat’s story of struggle has been widely spoken about in the past, but she managed to break out of the rut and find herself by becoming an independent woman and by asking other women too to find their true calling.
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She said, “I have been there, and done that. And, it has given me a lot of name and fame but now it’s time to reinvent. And, that is where longevity for an actor comes into play. It’s been a great journey. I love it. How many girls in our country, which is so patriarchal, get to do this? Just get to live life on their own terms. How many girls get to just write their own cheques, which is so empowering for a woman? Girls from Haryana always write to me saying, ‘You did it, showed us the way.’ I always tell them that it is not your dad’s money, it is not your husband’s money, it is your money. The day you have your own money, you will be in charge and in control of things.”
Mallika Sherawat further shared how she has put her past behind her and now commands her own space, but it was not an easy journey.
She said, “It was tough. It was very tough because I had no support from my family and Haryana is extremely patriarchal, extremely feudal, misogynistic. All the social ills for a woman are in Haryana. You look at female foeticide, female infanticide, honour killing…and when I said women are treated like cattle in Haryana, I faced a huge backlash. I don’t understand why the backlash, it is the truth. We all have to get together and do something about it. I feel a great sense of responsibility. I have so much fame. Whatever I say will have a little bit of impact on the upliftment of women. To make the long story short, it was really tough, but I am a philosophy graduate and I’ve read a lot of Vivekananda, and I believe that Vivekananda really gave me the strength.”
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“The press never chose to write about this side of me. They found the name of Vivekananda boring and yawned. They didn’t take interest because it doesn’t sell. There was a time when I felt really bullied and harassed by a certain section of the media because all they were focusing on was ‘she has a glamorous body, she looks good in a bikini’. I read a lot, I do yoga, I am vegan, but nobody talked about that side of me. I don’t party,” Mallika concluded.
