MUMBAI MIRROR (March 26, 2018)

Pakistani actress Mahira Khan, who made her Bollywood debut with the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Raees last year, says the Hindi film industry was never her aim. The film released in January last year, just a few months after bilateral tensions intensified following the Uri attack on September 18, 2016 which left 19 Indian soldiers dead. India retaliated on September 28 with surgical strikes on Pakistan terror camps. Raees did not release in Pakistan and Mahira was not allowed to promote the film in India as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena issued a ban on Pakistani artistes.

“At that time, I was sad and angry,” she admitted to BBC World News, saying today she’s come to a place where she believes anger doesn’t make her a better actor or do anything for her as a person, so she’s let go of it.

Mahira goes on to say that “Bollywood was never really the aim” and right after Raees, she started working on a Pakistani film Verna, even before all of this happened. “My focus was always Pakistan,” she asserted, adding that while people may perceive it as a “big jolt” to her career, she has moved on and she’s a part of a movement in the Pakistan film industry. “Because how I look at it, is that 20 years from now when either my son or kids from today want to become actors, we would have set this industry for them, where they won’t have to struggle so much.” The 33-year-old actress has a son named Azlan. Her film Verna, which is based on the rape culture and politics in Pakistan, has reportedly rubbed many in Pakistan the wrong way. With freedom of expression getting suppressed in her home country, has she ever considered shifting base to another country? “I don’t think that I can tell any story better than the story of my own country, than stories of my own countrymen. I want to be able to bring out stories like Verna, as well as stories which are of the modern and new generation like Ho Mann Jahaan on the youth of Pakistan. I want to be that person,” she asserted, adding, “Because we are artistes, I think that’s a problem we all suffer. We are dreamers, so we are constantly looking at what is going to happen. Honestly, that’s all I’m thinking about all the time, that one day I will go to a cinema house and there just won’t be enough space to fill it.”

Mahira is currently filming for Saat Din Mohabbat In and Maula Jatt 2.