Untold childhood pain

Actress reveals she was inappropriately touched at the age of 14

Bhumi Pednekar recently revealed a shocking incident from her childhood when she was inappropriatedly touched in public while she was out with her family. She stated that though she knew what happened was wrong, she could not say anything as she was too stunned.

Bhumi will be next seen in the crime thriller, Bhakshak, in which she will put up a fight for countless girls who were drugged and used for sex work at a shelter home.

During a recent interaction, she recalled that she was out with her family at a fair in Bandra, when she was just 14 years of age, and that is when the incident happened. “I was walking and somebody kept pinching my a**. Though I looked back, I couldn’t understand who did it because it was very crowded. Somebody tried touching me inappropriately again and again and I was getting paranoid,” she said.

She went on to say that she was also accompanied by a bunch of kids from her building and that she could not speak up for herself back then as she was “thrown off by what had happened”. “I still remember how that felt. I remember the poking and the pinching. It’s like your body remembers… these are traumas that you can’t get over,” she said.

She also recalled the time when she was in school and an autorickshaw driver would flash in front of students while they returned home.

“At that moment, you are so paralysed and traumatised, you just don’t know what to do… You feel so violated,” she stated.

Meanwhile, Bhakshak is all set to release on OTT platform on February 9, 2024. Besides Bhumi, it also stars Aditya Shrivastava and Sanjay Mishra in key roles.