BOMBAY TIMES (January 10, 2019)

Actress Manisha Koirala says she is sure that actor-director Rakesh Roshan, who has been diagnosed with early stage cancer, will come out as a winner.

On Tuesday, actor Hrithik Roshan shared on his social media accounts that his father has been diagnosed with early stage of squamous cell carcinoma, a type of cancer.

A cancer survivor herself, Manisha reacted to the news and said, “I can say only one thing that there is a way out. One should not give up, because there is treatment available to this disease. I am sure that he will come out of it as a winner.”

Talking about her journey of overcoming cancer at the launch of her book, Manisha said, “I feel it was a kind of gift for me from life. Whenever we face any difficulties, we get upset about it. But I feel difficulties come in our lives to teach us something that we didn’t know about ourselves. It gives something good in return.

“When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was traumatised but when I look back, I feel it has given me new perspective to see life in a different light and lot of hope about many things in life. It also made me realise about how important my life and health is to me.”

Besides Roshan, a string of Bollywood celebrities like Sonail Bendre, Irrfan Khan and Anurag Basu have fought cancer in recent times. When asked about the reason behind people from the film industry getting diagnosed with cancer more often, she said: “People know these things about Bollywood celebrities because they are public figures, but this disease is so prevalent in our society. I read one statistics that stated that in developing countries, one in every three people is diagnosed with cancer. This is the reason why it is important to do early check-ups because if you can detect it in early stage then you can treat it really well.”