Actor Richa Chadha has shared a powerful and deeply personal note on her social media, opening up about the emotional, physical and professional challenges she has faced since becoming a mother, and her journey back to work after almost two years. Her candid post is striking for its vulnerability and for the unfiltered honesty with which she addresses both motherhood and the realities of the entertainment industry.
Richa on the challenges of balancing work and motherhood
In the note, Richa spoke of the difficulty of returning to work, acknowledging that although she wanted to be back sooner, her body and mind simply weren’t ready. “On Sunday, I went back to work after nearly 2 years. She begins by saying, “As much as I would have liked to get back sooner, my body, my mind wasn’t ready at all. But other than these tangible issues, I have had to deal with deep professional betrayals from close quarters.”
She reflected on the disorienting experience of losing touch with the person she was before becoming a mother, remarking, “If it takes a village to raise a child. It takes amazing support to help the mom cuz Mommy doesn’t remember who she was before the baby was born. The mental recovery from it took longer than I hoped.” She emphasises the need for a support system to help a new mother rediscover herself.
Without sugarcoating things, the Gangs of Wasseypur star shed light on the ugly side of the industry. Recalling her painful experiences, she called out betrayal and a lack of ethics in the industry. “I have learnt that in the industry, a rare few have ethics and courage. Most people operate from such deep-seated inferiority complexes and scarcity mentality that they never mean what they say. They’re never happy, like dementors – they suck all joy out of life.”
Her post also critiqued the pressures placed on public figures, especially new mothers, to constantly generate “content” on social media. Feeling exhausted at the idea of turning every moment into content, she wrote, “Everyone tells you to post more, create more ‘content’, but I am not employed by SM. I have a life. And I have been so afraid to share the littlest snippet from it, lest I receive podcast invites to `talk about it,” with cameras rolling, zooming in to every tear.”
“I miss the days when IG used to be a place where you uploaded photos of what you ate and other mundane things,” she concluded. Richa questioned the commodification of vulnerability and the way personal struggles are often reshaped into marketable narratives. She expressed longing and nostalgia for a simpler and old-school digital era, when sharing did not demand performance or branding.
Richa Chadha on becoming `bindaas`
Speaking during the IFP Season 15, Richa revealed she used to be a pushover in her 20s.
Citing a particular incident, the Fukrey actress was heard saying, “The person that you see today, who is `bindaas` and confident, and bold, all those adjectives that have been added to my name in the public, I wasn`t always like this. In my 20s, I was such a pushover that one day I woke up, and I was on a set, and I was like, “When did I sign this movie? What happened? Why am I doing this item song kind of gyration?” This is a typical male gate. The director is telling me I need a male choreographer, and you need to do like thrusts, and I`m like, who are these dated efforts? What is going on?”
Sharing how one is subjected to constant judgement in the industry, Richa went on to say, “I realized somebody has just came like a manager, telling you what to do and you think okay this is what I should be doing, I should not be doing this, this is what I should be doing, all the while they`ll be rating you and they`re like you know maybe your lips are or maybe your face is a bit like, what are you doing, you know stop drinking water 3 days before the song, stop having salt.”
