Mandira Bedi Recalls Getting Hate During Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi: 'Mihir Belongs To Tulsi'
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Mandira Bedi recalled fans slamming her for playing a vamp in Kyunki, saying they couldn't separate reel from real.
Mandira Bedi has been a familiar face on Indian television for over three decades. In a new interview with Zoom, the actress looked back on some defining moments from her career including the time she was trolled by audiences for playing a negative character in Ektaa Kapoor's Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.
Mandira played the role of Dr. Mandira Kapadia, a woman who comes between Tulsi (Smriti Irani) and Mihir (Ronit Roy). The extramarital affair storyline drew massive attention and ire from viewers who couldn't separate fiction from reality.
'People were like, 'Why don't you leave Mihir? Mihir belongs to Tulsi'," Mandira said. 'And I was like, hey back off! Mihir and Tulsi are together onscreen and I am playing a character. They took it personally. That's how people get involved in shows that are popular and that are these daily soaps."
This wasn't Mandira's first brush with television fame. She rose to prominence with her titular role in Shanti, India's first daily soap aired on Doordarshan in the mid-90s. That show turned out to be a game-changer in her career. Within six months of doing Shanti, she was offered a role in what would become one of Bollywood's most iconic films—Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
'Because it was a popular show, I got a call from Yash Chopra's office. They wanted to cast me as Preeti. It was Karan Johar who called me; he was assisting on the film. It was fun. It was a small role in a big film and it feels very nice to be a part of history," she said.
Comparing her roles across platforms, Mandira added, 'On the small screen, I was playing Shanti, who was a firebrand, and then to play this simple and naive kind of village belle (in DDLJ) was quite the contradiction. But that is what acting is. You get to do a bit of everything."
She wrapped up by saying that playing a villain in Kyunki was part of her attempt to 'tick off some boxes" as an actor.
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