EXCLUSIVE: Meghana Raj Sarja opens up on facing body shaming, reveals she cried after first photoshoot

Meghana Raja Sarja has had an illustrious career down South, working predominantly in the Malayalam and Kannada industries. But even though with a credible line of work behind her, she has faced a lot of body shaming as well for her physical attributes and in a recent conversation with Bollywood Bubble for XtraOrdinary You Season 2, the actress opened up about the same, talking about the changing beauty standards and being subjected to criticism for her looks.

 

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Meghana Raj Sarja herself comes from a film family and growing up, she insists that she used to take pride in  how she looked and found herself to be really beautiful. “I loved that version of myself and I didn’t give a damn. I felt so good about myself,” she insists. Talking about the time she entered in films, she further added, “Back then, the beauty standards were very different and when I entered films, that is when the camera is looking at you and every little flaw of yours is seen and that’s when people start commenting and then they’d be like ‘her skin you know’ and ‘I think this angle she’s looking very fat’, that is when my insecurity started. Till the time I entered the film industry, I was the queen of my world. Once I entered, everyone just pulled me down, they were like enough enough come down from your dream world, you are not perfect and I think that is when the whole insecurity thing (started). I was not confident, I hated it when I had to go for shoots because the makeup artist back then used to be like I think you should start using this product it’s going to help you with that and then you know suddenly they’ll be drawing your eyebrows or doing your lips and they’ll be like oh this color did you go to that doctor did you see this, did you do that and you start feeling so conscious.”

 

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The actress insists that it was people within the industry who tried to make her feel insecure about herself because she came from within the industry itself. She shared, “They want to put you down, they want to see something is wrong with you. They do not like it if you get it easy, so they have to pinpoint something. My first photo shoot I cried. I cried after the shoot because that makeup artist and the hairstylist constantly kept complaining about my skin, my hair. I said okay I can’t do this anymore and I’m what 17.” But she asserts that never deterred her. “I don’t think somebody who is sitting and doing my makeup or my hair or you know commenting on how I look, I will never be bogged down by that because I’m the one who’s sitting and getting the makeup done, you are doing my makeup.”

 

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When asked how she dealt with it all, she insisted, “I don’t know how I went through all that, I just did. They started saying she’s a little chubby, she has to lose weight and I think that was a time when there was a lot of Mumbai Imports into the South. So there were a lot of Hindi speaking girls who used to come here with their chataks and mataks and their proper kamars. So I think the whole beauty of South voluptuous women was slowly fading. Then everybody wanted to look fair, everybody wanted to dress like them and the best part was that the producers were okay with giving them all that but if you cast a local girl they were not okay with it, they’re like why am I spending so much.”

You can watch the entire interview with Meghana here:

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: I was scared to laugh: Meghana Raj Sarja on dealing with judgement post husband Chiranjeevi Sarja’s death