Actor-turned-politician Smriti Irani who became a household name by appearing in the most watched TV soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi as Tulsi is now in the Narendra Modi cabinet handling the Ministry of Minority Affairs and Women and Child Development.
She recently appeared in a podcast by Ranveer Allahabadia and spoke about her career and life. On the Beer Biceps podcast she’d revealed that, “I’ve walked away before. I’ve walked away from my media career when I was at my peak, not when my career had come to a standstill”.
Smriti mentioned that people only look at the ‘razzmatazz’ and the ‘power’ of Tulsi who appears on TV, but are unaware of how she’d faced hardship during this time. “I have been at a place where I had 200 bucks in my pocket. I have walked from Mahalaxmi station to Famous studio in absolute fever, only to be told how horrid an actor I was, and gone back home and wondered the next day, if I don’t get a job, I’m done, what will I do?”
She is aware of the ‘fear and humiliation’, and thereby stays grounded always. “It teaches you what your value is as just you. It’s nothing. I remember when I had my first child. I had to go back to work, two days after giving birth, because I had no money. The old Balaji office was on a broken road. My cameraman and my makeup artist used to come in cars, I used to come in an auto. And they used to be scared. They’d say, ‘Ma’am, you’re pregnant heavily, you’ll fall, something will happen’.”
She recalled that after two days she was blessed with her baby, she was asked to come back at work. “You’re alone, because your husband has found a job overseas. You’re 24-25 years old. You manage the baby, you manage your job, you break your bones. My bones hurt till this day because I’ve been working like that. No matter what I become in life, I’ll know what it’s like to be alone. The baby was two days old, I’ll never forget that,” she added.
In a conversation with Neelesh Misra, Smriti has disclosed about working with Balaji merely a day after she went through the miscarriage. “I said, ‘I told you I am not well, I just had a miscarriage’ The person responds, ‘Koi nahi, 2 baje ki shift mein aa jaiye’ (No problem, come for the 2 pm shift),” she reminisced.
