With her having been out of the public eye, it was quickly assumed that actor Zareen Khan quit the film industry. But the actor has clarified she just put things on the back burner owing to her mother’s illness, and is now raring to bring the attention back to her career.

“My mother is doing better now. She’s not 100% fine, her health keeps fluctuating every now and then. But I’m happy whenever we have good days with her. These days are better because we’re not running to the hospital every now and then,” shares Khan.

The actor stresses she’s not “materialistic” and that her mother will always come before work. “Nothing of this matters to me if I wouldn’t have my mother. I don’t have anybody else apart from her in my life. When she is not in the best of health, nothing matters to me. That is the reason everything took a back seat including my work and my fitness routine. Now that she is having better days, I’ve again started working and focusing on my fitness regime,” says Khan, who is now back to work and soon be seen playing a double role with power-packed stunts in the Tamil horror-thriller Nagabhairav.

Addressing people’s assumptions while she was away, the 35-year-old asserts that she wasn’t in the frame of mind to fret about such things.

“My focus was not here (work). Everything including social media came to a standstill because I didn’t have the time, mindset or the energy to open it and look at what’s happening around. I was so busy and so mentally drained after going to doctors, getting tests done, running to different hospitals trying to understand what could be done to make my mother feel better.”

Not just shooting, Khan is also making sure to get back to her fitness regime and follow a regular routine. “I’ve started with my workouts, and I’m learning a new dance form, too. Kathak is a very feminine form and having been a tomboy, I couldn’t learn it, so I’m doing that. Also, I’m reading a lot of stuff, doing my homework because we’re in a very different era of cinema and entertainment. We’re not in a guaranteed state of things. So, in that sense, I’m doing my homework and learning things every day,” she ends.