While initially I used to get scared of eve teasing, now I retaliate: Nidhi Shah aka Kinjal of ‘Anupamaa’

‘Anupamaa’ revolves around Kinjal facing molestation at her office. Kinjal has been left extremely affected with the incident and she doesn’t even want to take any action against her boss Mr. Dholakia. Anupamaa and the entire family has stood up for Kinjal and want to teach Dholakia a lesson.

In the upcoming episode, Kinjal and the entire family will expose Dholakia on social media. India Forums got in touch with Nidhi Shah who plays the character of Kinjal in the show and asked her take on the track, she said, “Eve teasing and molestation is something that every girl must’ve faced at least once in their lives. It’s quite a sensitive and relevant topic and awareness related to the same needs to be spread. Girls are expected to conduct themselves and be alert but I feel the men needs to be educated enough. Like Kinjal, I also believe that if a girl lets go off such people and incidences, it only increases the confidence of the molesters. Often such men think that the girl is week and wouldn’t retaliate which is not true. A women can give birth to another life, she can single-handily manage her work life and household chores and hence people shouldn’t perceive women as a weaker sex. Yes, women are emotionally vulnerable at times but they’re strong enough to take care of themselves and thus taking their advantage on the pretext of them being a weaker sex isn’t right”.

We asked her reaction when she learned about the track, she said, “I was quite excited. ‘Anupamaa’ is quite a loved show and is viewed by many people across the country and hence spreading awareness through the show has been a great idea. If you watch closely, the show often gives out social messages be it on working women, demeaning housewives, doing small time jobs/businesses etc., the show has been instrumental in spreading the good word. Recently, one of our episodes revolved around the wastage of food which was again quite loved by the viewers. I was quite happy to be associated in spreading awareness which revolved around women empowerment”.

When asked about her real life experience on molestation or eve teasing, Nidhi said, “Such things has happened with me several times. It happened with me when I was around 14-15 years of age. I was quite scared and cried. I did communicate to my mother. During that tender age one is quite confused and doesn’t understand things better but as I grew older, I realized that keeping mum isn’t feasible and then I started giving it back left, right and center to such people”.

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