When Swara Bhasker said hello to her stalker

File image of Swara Bhasker. Image sourced from mid-day archives

Celebrities have to barter their personal life in exchange for all the limelight they get. But while celebrity stalking makes the news, far more frequently it's those living normal lives -- women and men both -- who are victims of being cyber stalked or physically stalked. Recently, actress Swara Bhasker spoke about her stalking incident and how she dealt with it on the web show Hello Mini.

"I think the experience of being stalked is one of the scariest things that can happen to a person in their lives. I had a stalker in college once and I was surprised to see how nervous, scared and uncomfortable he made me. He would just keep following me and staring at me from a slight distance. Everywhere I went, every time I looked up - there he was. He would just ceaselessly be lurking in my line of vision- non-stop. And actually, I had no reason to fear because our university was super safe for women and my parents lived on campus - so at a rational level I knew I was safe. But that's the thing with stalking- it can turn your safest spaces into sinister seeming, fearful ones. One day the stalker showed up at my house at 6 am and confronted my parents and asked for me and said he was in love with me. My parents were quite taken aback as well but sent him off politely. Finally, I decided to get over my fear and confront him. I actually walked up to him and told him I need to talk to him. I said whatever he is doing is freaking me out completely and that he needs to stop! And that day. Somehow my fear of him fell away. From then whenever I saw him I'd make it a point to say hello," recalls Swara.

"I moved to Bombay soon after and hopefully, the boy got over his obsession. But it made me realise what an important issue stalking is and how it is never represented by the woman's or stalked person's point of view in our cinema and content. It's always romanticised in our films and that's actually so irresponsible. I'm so glad that'Hello Mini is telling the story from the woman's perspective. It's important that we have content that generates meaningful and honest conversations amongst us so that existing toxic mind-sets can be challenged and changed", adds the actress.

On the work front, the 31-year old will be seen in Faraz Arif Ansari's Sheer Khurma in which she will be seen sharing screen space with Shabana Azmi and Divya Dutta. The film deals with homosexuality.

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