Mahima Chaudhry Recalls A Terrible Car Accident And How She Was Called ‘Scarface’ By Media
Women are often told to keep away from things that could hurt their face or leave a scar since childhood. It took me some time to realise the actual reason behind this concern. A scar on the face of a woman is the worst thing that can happen to her, because “who will marry you?” Meanwhile, the boys could cut their face with a knife and it would only mean they had an adventurous childhood. Scars on men are socially acceptable and cool, while on women, it’s a beauty curse. For women in the limelight, getting a scar on your face means your career is over. While things are now changing and it hardly matters (or so, we would think) it was not the case a couple decades ago. The 90s star Mahima Chaudhry faced it in the prime of her career when she had an accident that left with a deep cut on her forehead, which was assumed to end her career in films.
While on her way to the shoot for the movie Dil Kya Kare, Chaudhry’s car got hit by a truck which smashed it on the roundabout. “The glass came like bullets into my face,” she said. This left her with a life-long scar on her forehead. The worst thing about the whole incident was how she was treated by the media post her accident. She was hounded by the papps on the shoot who took pictures of her and called a scarface’ in their tabloids.
She recently opened up about being mistreated by the press in an interview, “When I had my accident, they came to the set when nobody was allowed, and they took a shot… And they wrote ‘Mahima’s had an accident, and she has scars on her face, we can finally call her ‘scarface’. It still hurts me. How nasty can you be?” She thought her career had come to an end and confessed to have thought about life beyond cinema. All of this, because one tiny scar!
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Although her co-stars of the film and also producers, Ajay Devgn and Kajol consoled and supported her throughout. She said, “Ajay and Kajol, who were my producers, saw to it that nobody in the industry got to know about it. At that time, it would have devastated my career.” She also said that Ajay showed her his own scars to encourage her. “He was a very generous producer. He looked after everything; sending me to the right doctors, and seeing to it that I got the best treatment. He said ‘No, no, you’re not doing this treatment in Bangalore. I’m taking you to Bombay, I’m sending you to the best’,” she said.
To think that a trivial scar on her face almost cost her a career speaks volume about the toxic standards of beauty we impose upon women in cinema. Why must they be flawless and have porcelain smooth skin? This simply perpetuates the false beauty ideals on real women as well who are taunted for their scars. While celebrities face media trolling, real women face insults and unsolicited remarks from people around them.
We would like to think that things are changing for the better and a scar doesn’t threaten the career of an actress, neither does it mean she is any less beautiful. Kangana Ranaut got a similar scar on her forehead while shooting for Manikarnika which is pretty visible and she sports it like a badge of honour. Plus, she is unstoppable in her career as well. We hope this is how scars are always seen–just like normal and natural scars!
