Vidya Balan says her hormonal issues may have begun after witnessing a ‘scarring’ interaction between uncle, father: ‘I was so angry’

She said, “PCOD and hormonal issues come from a deep rejection of the feminine. I think I always wanted to be better than a boy. I think my mother wanted a boy, because she’d already had my sister, and she’d just mentioned it to me… But more than that, it was the way the boys around me were treated. Of course, it’s just my parents, my sister Priya and me in my family, but even in the extended family, there was an extra something accorded to the boys, and that I couldn’t quite understand.

Recalling the incident, she continued, I remember a conversation between my uncle and my father, when my uncle told my father, ‘Don’t worry, my son will be there for you until…’ I was so angry, because we were sitting there, both of us, my sister and me. And we were like, ‘We don’t need anyone else’s son to be there for our father’. We are both, by God’s grace, able-bodied and able-minded, we don’t need anyone else.”

Vidya said that her uncle probably didn’t make those comments with any ill intention, because, at the end of the day, ‘it’s all conditioning’, but it left a ‘deep impact’ on her. “I’ve always competed with the boys,” she said, adding that it gave her ambition, but it also made her ‘deny (her) femininity’.