“Although I’m being praised for how I dealt with cancer after I was diagnosed, it’s not just like that, I rather would choose to say that I wasn’t brave,” said ‘Pardesh girl’ Mahima Chaudhury. Ms Chaudhury was addressing the medical students, cancer patients and local people who crowded the inauguration of a cancer hospital at Malandighi here yesterday afternoon. She said: “It looked like I was brave, but I actually wasn’t.
I used to keep taking inspiration from the people around me and I insist everyone should do the same.” Ms Chaudhury was diagnosed with breast carcinoma in the middle of 2022. This became public after actor Anupam Kher made called her from the USA offering her a role for a film in December, 2022. Mahima, born in Kurseong in Darjeeling district of Bengal as Ritu Chaudhury won the Miss India title in 1990 and in 1997 debuted opposite Shah Rukh Khan in the highly praised film Pardeshthat was directed by Subhash Ghai. Ghai had given her the screen name of Mahima.
The success of the film also led to her being tagged the ‘Pardesh girl.’ The star arrived in Durgapur to inaugurate a 250 bedded cancer hospital equipped with 180 slice digital PET-CT (positron emission tomography – computed tomography) imaging machine imported from Germany- a pioneering development for the Eastern Region.
Partha Pobi, vice president of the education trust that runs the cancer hospital said: “We’ve got 50 oncologists and surgeons and we’ve committed to extend free cancer treatment of all types to the patients against the state government’s Swastha Sathi health insurance.”
Mahima said: “It’s highly laudable that this state-of the-art hospital has brought world class treatment to Durgapur, which is equivalent to Mumbai. Also, this hospital is offering treatment almost free of cost.”