Flashback Friday: When Pooja Batra said she had to wear petticoats, get padding to look like the 'quintessential Indian woman'

Pooja Batra

Actress Pooja Batra was among the most popular faces of the Hindi film industry in the90s. She is known for her work in films like 'Virasat' and 'Nayak' alongside Anil Kapoor, 'Haseena Maan Jaayegi', 'Jodi No. 1', 'Talaash', 'ABCD 2', among others.

Today as she turns 48, we look back at the time the actress spoke abut her career. She had featured in around 30 film before she got married and moved to Los Angeles. The actress came back to India in 2011 after filing for divorce from her first husband. In an old interview with Deccan Chronicle, Batra spoke about the way her career shaped. "I would've been happier had I got better offers. They say that films on women don't sell. Actresses fall back, because they lack better scripts. But then if you have something like a ‘Mary Kom', ‘Kahaani', ‘NH 10' or ‘Highway' and if you've backed by a good script, then there's no reason why it shouldn't work," she said.

When asked about the pressures of looking a certain way for screen in the 90s, the actress said, "It is actually very personal. There were actresses like Tabu, who was tall, but she was much into fitness. I am very athletic, I like to exercise, some people think exercise is like torture, I am the opposite. There was no pressure from the industry. In fact, I had to wear two petticoats to look fat, getting the padding, to look like the quintessential Indian woman. In fact people would tell me to put on weight, complaining that I was too slim."

In the same interview, Pooja also said that actress Deepika Padukone reminds her of herself. When asked what about the common factor between the two, the former Miss India said, "Deepika is tall. I have set the stage for her. My height was a big hindrance and suddenly it's not."

She also said that she lost out on films for being too tall. "It is such a big list. Some actors are okay with working with a taller heroine and some are not. Anil Kapoor, Suniel Shetty, Abhishek were all taller than me, it was just that there were shorter heroines then. That time everyone was short, now everyone is tall. Bipasha Basu, Esha Gupta, Jacqueline Fernandez are all are tall. I have worked with Shraddha Kapoor who is also fairly tall."