Reviewed by ASIF ANWAR ALIG
Anusual: Memoir of a Girl Who Came Back from the Dead, by Anu
Aggarwal, HarperCollins Publishers India, Noida – 201301 (India), 185pp, 2015, Indian
Rupees299, Soft.
ovie
buffs still remember the unparalleled success of Bollywood’s Aashiqui (Love)
released in 1990. Director Mahesh Bhatt picked dark-skinned model Anu Aggarwal and
introduced her into acting. In debut she attained an archetypal success—and became
a star overnight. Sensation with her first movie, she acted in many other films
thereafter, sans any remarkable success. In mere one decade though Aashiqui
girl gradually vanished from the public memory.
With
the arrival of her autobiography Anusual:
Memoir of a Girl Who Came Back from the Dead after more than twenty-five
years post that unprecedented success of hers, revives memories of that unbound
accomplishment. Readers know her in a different perspective unlike that glam image.
As an open-hearted individual she vividly speaks up the truth about life before
stardom to delicate setbacks, losses, achievements and more importantly her transformation
from couture glitz to yoga and spiritualism.
Through
revealing much about her life, this book merits an honest confession of a former
actress. She chose the path of spirituality and yoga in rejuvenation. This book
is an offhand, strong and brusque recollection of her life’s confrontations which
speaks her mind with an inner-strength from rise and rise of a successful model
to an extraordinarily efficacious film career and the skirmishes causing constant
downfalls until a fatal accident left her in coma for a month. She confesses everything
from being catapulted to stardom with the debut movie Ashiqui to
recounting countless untouched aspects of her life which she has narrated in an
unbuttoned style in this memoir.
What
we know of her from this book are her personal and professional ups and downs to
men in her life that also included millionaires and super-yogis. Her life’s story
is worth a Bollywood script which revolves around the extremes of highs and lows.
Like she puts in the book—“Excessive fame is a mother fu*ker”—her decision to
forego modelling and Bollywood while at the peak of success was indeed a bold
decision to reckon with.
This
book reveals why she literally vanished from Bollywood and everything worldly which
could keep her attached to glamour world and limelight. Without modeling, brand-endorsements,
movies, cover story appearances to interviews in many gossip publications, she was
literally forgotten. We didn’t know that her years of seclusion for more than
two decades actually rejuvenated her. By listening to her inner verve she chose
a path which changed her life to become stronger and determined.
Near
fatal car crash in 1999 sent her into 29-day long coma. Post recovery, she was
a changed person which she mentions—her rebirth. Although that incident shook her
completely her life had major transformation thereafter. Not in the public limelight
anymore, she learnt from adversities and finally turned a triumphant. According
to her, ‘it was indeed a beginning of her real life.’
From
distant memories of literally having been away from her physical body to being
taken back to life again, she wrote about everything as if floating of the montage
images. Besides that, fateful near-death experience, she lists the memories of her
acute traumas to finally turning into a full-time yogi.
Revitalized
Anu Aggarwal is determined to propagate her unique fun-yoga with Anufunyoga in the
worldwide locations today. She considers it a solace for life as it inculcates goodwill
and hope.
This
memoire is a firsthand narration of her brush with an unexpected fame in
Bollywood which brought her stardom but ironically not remained ongoing. It
reveals many facets of her life from that extempore fame proving harsh to other
trajectories such as her relationships to indecisiveness to maintain the prevailing
success and her failing to make prudent work choices and other agonies.
Since
delving into modelling in 1980s Anu Aggarwal had her zenith of success by
becoming world’s widely recognizable face in the glamour world of that era. Aashiqui
in 1990 added more fame. With her quick image making from modelling to acting, she
was saleable in that period. Being dark-skinned was a taboo while she faced stiff
competition and prejudices but she kept moving in life.
A narrative
prototype, Anu Aggarwal’s memoire projects her in third person—appearing constantly
as “that girl”—throughout. Being a confessional narration, it has punch lines,
and thus highlights how a Delhi girl in 1980s, who attained education in social
work, excelled once destiny took her into an entirely different path. She
writes about her personal episodes from falling in love with a jazz musician to
being welcomed in the fashion corridors of Paris to countless other fames which
brought more jealousies than friends. And, thus she was destined to remain lonely.
She
writes in detail in more than two chapters about her dedication to yoga and training
in an ashram. In frank narration, she mentions the uptight admiration and romantic
encounters with a resident guru.
This
book concludes with her emphasis on new-age spirituality, which according to
her, could be an ultimate antidote to soul-killing fame. The memoir seems to be
a must read for cinema lovers who are willing to digress to that era of movies which
had immortalized onscreen love & romance.
This review had first published in Ceylon Today, April 09, 2017 edition.
http://www.ceylontoday.lk/print20170101CT20170331.php?id=18842
No comments:
Post a Comment