New Delhi: Raveena Tandon, the ‘Mast Mast’ heroine of the 1990s has turned a year older today but continues to have the same glow as she did when she was at the top of her career.
She made unconventional choices in her personal life when they were mostly unheard of and was rather ahead of time. Sushmita Sen is not the first actress who went in for adoption before marriage. Raveena Tandon was 21 years old when she became a single mother to two adopted daughters Pooja and Chaya in 1995 and became a young grandmother. Having delivered hit films like Mohra, Shool, Dulhe Raja, Khiladiyon Ke Khiladi, Laadla, Aatish, Aks, Ziddi, Patthar Ke Phool, the critically acclaimed Maatr and two disastrous relationships later, she settled down to happy matrimony with distributor Anil Thandani in 2004 and is biological mother to two children, Ranbir and Rasha.
She recently told ETimes, “Career-wise, I’ve done it all. Now I look for roles that will challenge me as an actress. Being a wife and mother gives me so much peace from within. I think this is what I always wanted. I couldn’t have asked for more.”
Much like her contemporary, Shilpa Shetty, who is also a fitness freak, Raveena Tandon has never really disappeared from Bollywood. She has been a judge on a children’s reality show and also made her OTT debut with ‘Aranyak’ last year. “It’s almost like life coming to a full circle for me. I made my film debut with G.P. Sippy Films… with Patthar Ke Phool (1991) and now I am making my web debut in Aranyak with Rohan Sippy. The two of us have literally grown up together during Patthar Ke Phool… he, me and Sheena (Rohan’s sister)…. Aranyak was literally something that was meant to be, ” she told The Telegraph in an interview.
On her longevity in the field that she loves, she said, “I just want people, when they look back at my work, to say, ‘Okay she did a varied body of work’. If you saw me play a housewife, I also played a cop. I was a villain in Aks and I also did comedy in films like Andaz Apna Apna. To be accepted in all genres is something I am very grateful for. Some people tend to stick to what they know best and are comfortable with. I always pushed myself, I experimented and it got accepted. And I am sure people who I have worked with will say, ‘Yes man, she was professional, she was on time, she came, she did her work. She was a producer’s actor, she was hardworking….”
