HEMA MALINI ‘ TOUCHED’ BY AISHWARYA’S GESTURE
Veteran actor Hema Malini recalls how Aishwarya Rai Bachchan stood by her after an awards show and stopped the crowd from mobbing her
Hema Malini, unlike her Bollywood colleague Rishi Kapoor, does not believe that the younger generation of actors and film-makers lack respect for their seniors. The question came up when Kapoor wrote anguished posts on social media about how no one from the current crop of actors (barring Abhishek Bachchan and Randeep Hooda) attended the funeral of veteran actor Vinod Khanna, who died on April 27.
Recalling an incident involving herself and actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan — at an awards function held in Mumbai last month — Hema says, “After the ceremony was over, I was waiting for my car to come. I guess the driver had parked it some distance away, and it took him some time [to reach me]. I realised that Aishwarya was just standing there with me, refusing to leave. When I asked her, ‘Why are you still here?’ she replied, ‘Aapki gaadi aane do (Let your car come). I will leave after that.’”
Aishwarya even acted as Hema’s bouncer for a while and helped manage the crowd around her. “There were so many people who were trying to click photos and were trying to take selfies. [Aishwarya] made sure that I didn’t get pushed or nudged by them. Then, after [my] car came, she opened the door, made sure I sat inside the car, and only then did she move to her car,” she recalls.
Touched by Aishwarya’s gesture, the 68-year-old actor says “I was so touched by that. Now who’d do such a thing? It shows that there’s a lot of respect and regard for me. I don’t know about everybody, but there are people like Aishwarya who understand and give due respect to those senior to them. I don’t think it’s right to say that everyone is the same.”