‘Yeh kya keh rahi hai?’: When a ‘bored’ Manisha Koirala asked Dimple Kapadia for a career advice

Manisha Koirala recently made a powerful comeback with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s debut web series, Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. She was one of the prominent leading ladies in Bollywood until she was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. In 2015, the actor made a comeback with Chehere. But, there was also a phase when she wanted to quit Bollywood as she was “bored of it.” Though the Bombay actor spoke to veteran star Dimple Kapadia about it, she didn’t like her advice back then.

Speaking to ANI, Manisha recalled the time when she was exhausted from her Bollywood career and asked Dimple Kapadia for her advice. She said, “I remember having this conversation with Dimple ji. We were shooting for a film. I told her, ‘I am bored of acting’. And she said, ‘You better enjoy it because this is not going to last forever.’ And such a great advice she gave me. But, at that point in time, I was like, ‘Yeh kya keh rahi hai? (What is she even saying?) Can’t she understand I am bored?’ My inner conversation was different.”

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After years, the actor realised that Dimple gave her “very sound advice”. Explaining her reasons for feeling bored, Manisha said, “There was so much of work that I was doing. There were so many films that I was doing… every morning I would get up and sit for two-three hours for makeup, work in three different shifts for three different films. We were working for at least 15 hours a day. There were no offs on Sundays. The concept of six days working didn’t exist back then. You were expected to work 360 days in a year. No holiday or break for years and I guess that pushed me and I was bored of that.”

She added, “I would come back home very tired, and I would start losing interest slowly. That’s what happened to me.”