Rishi Kapoor’s former heroine turned down lead roles in Baazigar, Roja, 1942 A Love Story; bounced back after getting married at 17

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She said, “I was sitting with my father, and we were told that there is a film with a young actor who is going to surely be very big, and that we shouldn’t think twice before signing on. I was offered Shilpa Shetty’s role in Baazigar. But my father had decided that acting was over, and we were moving back to our home town in UP. He came from a different world; he was an IAS officer… The film industry gave him a culture shock. It had nothing to do with my safety; he just couldn’t handle it.”

She said that while she never felt like her world had crumbled, but she certainly regretted certain missed opportunities, such as working with Vidhu Vinod Chopra in a movie that went on to become a classic of Hindi cinema. “I was offered Manisha Koirala’s role, but she did a fabulous job. It’s an amazing film,” Rukhsar said. She said that she never voiced her dissatisfaction to her father, who passed away a decade ago. She admitted that she wanted to ask him why she was pulled out of the business, but she never got around to it.

“He was an intimidating man,” she said. Asked about Roja, she said, “My first thought after watching the movie was, ‘I could’ve seen snowfall for the first time’.” Rukhsar said that most of these discussions were conducted between the producers and her dad, and that they lived in a hotel during the entire time that she was in Mumbai. She admitted that her career would be in a different place had she done all these movies.