If there’s a film that can define overnight stardom, it has to be Aashiqui (1990). Both its leading actors — Rahul Roy and Anu Aggarwal — received instant fame, but while Roy continues to act, Aggarwal stepped back from showbiz a long time ago. She is now a motivational speaker and also runs a foundation focused on mental health.

Her life has been a roller-coaster ride — from taking up acting in school, where she even directed a play, to instant fame in Bollywood to now having a life dedicated to helping people. “I can’t take any credit for this (success). It was all my karma,” says the 52-year-old, who adds, “Films came my way naturally.” In fact, she reveals that what she has had to work hardest for is “to be a single woman, and live life on my own terms, till date”. “Rest of it — success, money, fame — just came naturally. It’s like it was thrown on my lap,” she says.

After Aashiqui released, a host of offers came her way, but she took her time signing them. She calls that phase “amazing”. “It was a fresh thing, that a girl got to say this in a film: ‘Main apne pairon pe khada hona chahti hoon’. That was one of the eight lines I had in the entire film! I had to act through my eyes, and I thought that was a huge achievement. I also modelled internationally. It’s been a great run,” says Aggarwal, a Delhi University alumna.

But it all changed overnight as well. On October 2, 1999, her car met with a near-fatal accident. “It was unexpected, like most things are in life. I went into a coma, and the doctors thought I wouldn’t survive. But when they had given up, I started to heal. I was already a yogini and I started to apply an alternative yoga therapy to myself to heal,” she reveals.

This life-altering event also prompted her to turn into an author, and currently she is readying for the launch of her second book. She says, “The first one was not a biography, that I’m a star, listen to me; it was a human story. After my near-death experience, I realised I had to help people as much as I could. Most of my time is spent on making people’s lives better.”

While film offers are still coming her way, she says the reason she cut down on films, even before the accident, was that she felt the industry “could do a lot more”. “We make thousands of films a year... Why can’t we bring out positive films? That’s what I felt then. Today, there are a lot of alternative films being made. So, maybe there’s a story I may want to do, as the whole scenario has changed. It’s more to my liking now than it was then,” Aggarwal concludes.