Renuka Shahane
, renowned for her role as Madhuri Dixit’s elder sister in
Sooraj Barjatya
's iconic film 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!', revealed that she began menstruating at the age of 10. She discussed the impact of early periods and bodily changes on one's later life, expressing how she still carries memories of feeling the need to hide her body due to the experiences she went through during her childhood.
In the podcast We Are Yuvaa, the actress shared, “I got my periods when I was 10.
Imagine, I am 58 today and I have lived most of my life with periods. I have enjoyed my childhood physiologically for a very little time. At such age, you have not developed that much in terms of brain to understand what is happening to your body. I was lucky because in my case, my mom drew a diagram to explain how this works. I was lucky because at my home, they used to discuss all this very openly. But, I couldn’t really understand what was happening and why. All I knew is this is not something bad or I am not suffering. I was assured of these things.”
She further added, “Nobody in my school had periods, at least in my class. None of my friends had. So, I had to wait until they got their periods to share things. For them, it was three years later. For that period of time, I was feeling very lonely. You feel like you cannot speak about this to anyone. Luckily, I could speak about it to my mom. But, it does have some kind of impact on you psychologically also that you are also becoming bigger in ways that nobody is aware of. Nobody is talking about it in the school.”
“Because I could not have a conversation with any girl my age, the perception my body was growing was a matter of something that I had to hide and I think that is something carried forward with me. I have never been get over that feeling that my body has to be hidden. I am very conservative about the way I look at my body or the way I dress. This is something nobody thinks of but our childhood is the root for a lot of things that we carry on in our later life”, added Renuka.
Renuka Shahane was last featured in the 2022 film 'Govinda Naam Mera', alongside
Vicky Kaushal
,
Bhumi Pednekar
, and
Kiara Advani
.
English (US) ·