It doesn’t feel like 27 years for sure: Rani Mukerji

Rani Mukerji completed 27 years in the Hindi film industry on Wednesday. She made her Bollywood debut in ‘Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat’. Ecstatic about her journey, Rani said, “27 years have passed and it doesn’t feel like 27 years for sure! Looking back at the moment right now, I feel that I have just debuted in a film a few years back! I’m still as hungry as I was in my first film. Just to think of ‘Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat’, my first film and what I learnt in that film, is something that I’ll never forget. What I didn’t realise as a newcomer then, was the magical world of cinema that I was getting into because I wasn’t the regular wide-eyed person who wanted to join cinema. It was something more like I was asked and told to do. So, I got into it and I didn’t understand much.”

“Today, when I look back, I’m not sure if I hadn’t been an actor, what I’d have been. I did have certain other professions in mind that I wanted to chase, like being an interior designer, but I don’t think I’d have gotten this kind of love that I have gotten for the last 27 years from people around the world, who are my fans and admired my work and given me so much of strength and courage through the years. I have organically made a family, which I think is very precious to me. Our fans don’t normally realise this but the adrenaline rush that we get when we see the love that they have for us, makes us strive harder,” she added.

Rani fondly remembered the day when ‘Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat’ was released and said, “October 18, 1996, when ‘Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat’ was released, my family and I were going through a lot then. It also takes me back to the fact that my father was having a very important heart surgery at that time and I remember him going to the theatre to watch my first film in Gaiety Galaxy. On his way back, he got discharged! I remember him weeping like a child in happiness after seeing the love I received from the audience when they clapped and whistled at my dialogues! That memory is something that will never leave me ever!”