Manisha Koirala shared in an interview that her battle with cancer brought about profound realizations regarding her relationships. The talented actress disclosed that during her illness, the friends she once counted on abandoned her, leaving only her immediate family to support her through the challenging times. Manisha also revealed that despite being financially well-off, her extended family did not visit her during her struggle with cancer. This experience led her to pursue therapy, which proved to be significantly beneficial.
During a conversation with NDTV, Manisha reflected on how the ordeal has transformed her relationships with friends and family. She expressed, “It’s been a journey. It has also been a learning experience. I really believed that I had multiple friends. I thought partying together, travelling together, having fun together, people will sit with me in my pain. That was not so. People are not capable of sitting with anybody’s pain, let alone their own pain. We always try to find excuses to not feel pain. We want to escape pain. That’s human nature. I found myself very lonely, and I realised that only my immediate family was around me.”
Further emphasizing the reliability of her immediate family, Manisha stated, “I also have a huge Koirala khandaan. Nobody was there. I have a big family, and everybody is affluent, they can all afford it. But it was my parents, it was my brother, it was my brother’s wife. And that is it. And I realised that when everybody leaves me, these are the people who will be with me. My priority is my immediate family, no matter what. They come first in my life, everybody else later.”
Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012, Manisha underwent treatment in New York. In the same NDTV interview, she mentioned that the illness continues to affect her work pace and mood, especially highlighted while working on Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Netflix series ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar.’ Despite the challenges, she remains focused on her health and persevering through difficult periods.
Heeramandi is set against the backdrop of the pre-Independence era in the 1940s. It explores the cultural reality of a prominent red-light district through the lens of courtesans and nawabs. The series boasts a star-studded cast, including Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Richa Chadha, Sanjeeda Sheikh, and Sharmin Segal.
News18 gave Showsha 4.5 stars and wrote, “Bhansali pens a near-perfect screenplay, and it is this rich writing that already forms an impressive foundation for the show. Each character is written with a lot of courage, empathy, and sensitivity. Here, each female character is so well-fleshed out, including those in the periphery, that they all deserve a spin-off of their own.”
It further read, “With Heeramandi, Sanjay Leela Bhansali creates a world that’s exquisite and is rich and vibrant in its culture and texture. Inhabiting this realm are some characters that are as unapologetic, complex, and imperfect as a human can be. Here, the women call their own shots and is unafraid of what the civil society might think of them. They’re pitted against each other, sometimes one even wishing for and conspiring against another’s downfall and shattering their self-worth, pride and ego. They can tear apart and even love like tigresses. And when the right time comes, they don’t bat an eyelid before fiercely protecting one another. Despite deep and dark ambition plaguing their hearts, they’ve their conscience clear. Maybe that’s why Fareedan in a scene reprimands a British officer for robbing her aunt Mallikajaan off her ‘aabru’ when all she wanted was for her to have her ‘guroor’ crumbled.”
Comments
0 comment