Actor Richa Chadha has indeed come a long way — having received the distinguished arts honour Chevalier Des Arts et Des Lettres from the French government, ventured into production and featured in the third part of the comedy franchise Fukrey. Some might even contend that the proverbial tables have turned for her, given the kind of obstacles and unkind encounters she’s had, but she isn’t going to react the way you would expect her to.

“I don’t forget but I forgive instantly. I don’t want that baggage on my conscience. I am not interested in thinking, ‘Kaash yeh jawaab diya hota’. The only change I find in myself is that I don’t trust people blindly now,” she says.

Sharing that a lot of her former colleagues who mistreated her are “now being nice”, the 36-year-old recalls an instance from a film shoot. “The director told me to come to the shoot from college and that I could keep my bag in the heroine’s van. The actress came and threw my bag, and all my textbooks were on the street,” Chadha recounts, adding, “I swallowed my pride and did one of the most memorable scenes of my career that day.”

The actor in question, she claims, is nowhere in her career now. “I met her recently at an event and just felt sorry for her. She wanted to catch up, but when you look at it, she is being nice to me because I am above her today. She wasn’t when I was below her.”