Following the 2016 URI attacks, which led to Pakistani actors being prohibited from performing in India, actor Mahira Khan of Pakistan recently spoke out about her battle with mental illness.
The actor disclosed that she was diagnosed with manic depression and bipolar illness and is presently taking medication for both conditions in an interview with the FWhy Podcast. Mahira also discussed how her mental health troubles in 2017 were brought on by the criticism she received for her performance in the Shah Rukh Khan movie Raees.
Concerning the Uri attack, Mahira recalled on the podcast, “I had finished the film (Raees) and everything was going fine, and then suddenly this attack (the Uri attack) happens. Politically, everything gets messed up. With India, it is always political. But the fact that it could get this messy! I was not scared, but I was threatened. Constant tweets; in fact, I would get calls, and very scary ones. The only thing I wanted was that ‘Okay fine, I can’t go to India to promote it (Raees), but I hope it releases in my country because I knew people would rush to watch it as he (Shah Rukh Khan) is loved here (in Pakistan).”
When additional images of Mahira smoking with actor Ranbir Kapoor appeared online the same year, she was also thrust into the centre of criticism.
Speaking on the same, Mahira mentioned to FWhy, “That (backlash) brought out the anxiety and depression hidden inside me. That was a hard time for me. I felt attacked. The constant backlash—you are getting mean tweets, comments on their channels (Indian news channels). That was a time my faith broke and I developed severe anxiety, to the point that one day I had a panic attack and fainted. That’s the first time I went for therapy. But that didn’t work out, as I went to several therapists. That year was rough. I couldn’t sleep. My hands used to shake.”
Mahira also disclosed that this was the first time she had spoken publicly about her mental illness and that she had been taking on antidepressants for the previous six to seven years.
Mahira is now poised to feature in Netflix’s first Pakistani-themed original series, which is based on the Farhat Ishtiaq’s 2013 Urdu novel “Jo Bachay Hain Sang Samait Lo.”
Fawad Khan, Ahad Raza Mir, Sanam Saeed, Bilal Ashraf, Maya Ali, Iqra Aziz, and Hania Aamir are among the other actors that will appear in the programme.
