Bollywood can be a cruel place. One day you are an in-demand actress with directors wooing you with their best scripts and bending over backwards to have you sign up.
One flop, though? You’re knocking on doors, waiting it out outside studios and auditioning for ‘junior actor’ roles in B-grade flicks.
And if that doesn’t work out? Somewhere, an NRI businessman is made for you if romantic theories are to be believed. We take a look at 5 actresses who looked like they had things going for them till, well, things didn’t.
Antara Mali
We possibly best know Antara Mali for her role in the movie Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon. If you don’t know her, that’s just as well – she was still pretty much trying to make it when she quit.
Mali was Ram Gopal Varma’s muse for a while before she wisely quit movies in 2005. The actress married Che Kurrien, the editor of GQ magazine in 2009. In 2012, she delivered a baby girl. Not much is known about this elusive actress now.
Sneha Ullal
Sneha Ullal was called the ‘poor man’s Aishwarya Rai’ on her debut and that can never be good.
The pretty girl starred in Lucky: No Time For Love opposite Salman Khan. She may have not had time for love but with no directors falling over themselves to sign her up, she had plenty of time to do other things. Her similarity to Aishwarya Rai bagged her a few roles but it didn’t last long. However, the actress decided Bollywood wasn’t the place for her, packed her bags and headed South to the Telugu movie industry where she has now delivered several hits.
Mayuri Kango
She had a whole country swooning as Jugal Hansraj left his house, dreaming of her (if one were to go purely by the lyrics of the song). Her coloured eyes were the stuff of fanboy crush-dom.
Mahesh Bhatt spotted Mayuri Kango in another movie and cast her in Papa Kehte Hai opposite Jugal Hansraj. Post this, she signed a few completely forgettable films. In 2003 – and this may sound predictable – she married an NRI.
Her Linkedin profile says she’s currently working in an agency in Gurgaon, India.
Kim Sharma
Kim Sharma was introduced to us as a patron of minimal clothing in the movie Mohabbatein that released in 2000. Kim Sharma played Sanjana in this movie, which was an instant hit. She went on to star in a bunch of other movies, each more forgettable than the next.
Her then affair with cricketer Yuvraj Singh managed to keep her in the news for a while. She then married a Kenyan businessman, shifted base to Africa and turned hotelier. In 2014, she launched a bridal grooming service called Liaision.
Mahima Chaudhary
Mahima Chaudhary made ‘desi’ look good – and how – with her role as patriotic girl and patron saint of potential NRI love stories in the movie Pardes. She was paired with Shahrukh Khan in the movie and was a Subhash Ghai find so things were looking good for her. She managed to do a few good movies before she started getting sidelined into supporting roles.
In 2014, she appeared as a judge on a reality TV show about Bollywood. Her Wiki page says she has a few movies in the pre-production stage but we aren’t buying any of that till we actually see one.
(Mansi Shah is founder of the blog Damsel in Destress which reviews experiences as varied as spas, books and plays. Mansi is, by her own admission, “clueless” at 30 with an easy penchant for humour.)
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