Renuka Shahane on lack of sanitation facilities on film sets in the 90s: ‘Whole day, women would not drink water…’

Renuka Shahane said that women were expected to not create any noise about the poor working conditions and ‘be professional’. “When we were doing films in the 90s, there were no separate loos for women. That was not looked after, at all. The whole day, women would not drink water because they didn’t want to go to the loos since they were so dirty. All of us have gone through it, even Madhuri Dixit has gone through it. People just took it for granted..sehensheelta (willpower) to not make too much noise, just carry on work, be professional. It’s unfortunate,” Renuka said.

Besides starring in the iconic film Hum Aapke Hai Koun, Renuka Shahane has also worked in hit TV shows like Circus, Surabhi and Kora Kagaz among others.

Commenting on how the television industry has become better than before, Renuka said, “Television industry has at least become aware that there should be gender parity, pay parity, situations at the workplace are much more sensitive to the need of women, which would never happen earlier.”

Veteran actor Jaya Bachchan has also shared her struggles about not having proper toilets on film sets. In one of the episodes of her granddaughter Navya Naveli Nanda’s podcast, What The Hell Navya, Jaya opened up about how she had to change sanitary pads behind bushes as there was no concept of vanity vans and toilet facilities back in the day.

“When we used to do outdoors, we didn’t have vans. We had to change behind the bushes. Everything. There were not even enough toilets. It was awkward and embarrassing. You used 3-4 sanitary pads and you carried plastic bags to discard the pads and put them in a basket so that when you get home, you can get rid of it,” Jaya said.