Meet actress, who made memorable debut, was trolled, had memory loss in major accident, quit Bollywood to become...
Anu Aggarwal made her debut in the musical blockbuster Aashiqui, along with Rahul Roy. The actress was only seen in a few films before she quit the industry. In 1999, Anu was involved in a serious accident, that left her in coma for 29 days and wiped her entire memory clean.
From Sangeeta Bijlani to Sonam Khan and from Somy Ali to Mandakini, there have been many Bollywood actresses who were huge stars in the 1990s, but later chose to leave the Hindi entertainment industry. Another addition to this list is Anu Aggarwal, who made her memorable debut in the musical blockbuster Aashiqui, but then quit acting.
Directed by Mahesh Bhatt, the 1990 release Aashiqui marked the Bollywood debut of Rahul Roy and Anu Aggarwal, both of whom became huge stars after the film's success. Composed by Nadeem Shravan, the film's soundtrack became the best selling album with unforgettable songs such as Nazar Ke Saamne, Dheere Dheere Se, Bas Ek Sanam Chaahiye, and Jaane Jigar Jaaneman among others.
Anu was then seen in a few other movies such as King Uncle, Khal-Naaikaa, and Janam Kundli among others, but none of them could match the success of Aashiqui. The actress has even said multiple times that she was trolled for her dark-skinned looks. Six years after her debut, Anu quietly moved away from acting. In 1999, the actress met with a serious accident, that left her in coma for 29 days and wiped her memory.
In an interview with Indian Express earlier this year, the actress shared that she had no memories about Aashiqui when she watched the film after her memory loss. She stated, "I watched the film when I had my memory loss after the accident. My mother played it for me, but I couldn’t relate with it at all. I couldn’t relate with the girl on screen! My mother kept saying, ‘That’s you!’ I just like a child kept looking at it, but I couldn’t connect. At that time Aashiqui 2 was out, so she then played that for me. But nothing still made sense to me. She told me, 'See this was your film Aashiqui and now they have made Aashiqui 2.' I asked her, 'What is 2?' Because I didn’t know numbers, what was one, two, three. That was my state."
Anu left for the mountains to live as a monk in 2001. In 2015, the actress wrote her memoir Anusual: Memoir of a Girl Who Came Back from the Dead, in which she called her film career the "unhappiest time" of her life. Talking to HealthShots.com, she even revealed why she quit the industry as she said, "When people taste success, it is easy to get sucked into the spiral of stardom. But I opted out of it and more than ever, I needed to know myself better. I wanted to know 'me', which is beyond my role as an actor. I found relief in yoga and my effort today is to awaken as many people as possible to this idea of living a life."
Anu Aggarwal now lives in Mumbai, practices yoga, and is quit active on Instagram. She wants to make her acting comeback and is meeting filmmakers and producers for the same.
The DNA app is now available for download on the Google Play Store. Please download the app and share your feedback with us.