The film required courage.
When Nandita read the final draft of the script, she paused at one particular scene. Her character—a resilient young woman rebuilding her life after loss—chooses to shave her head as a symbol of strength, not surrender. It wasn’t written for shock value. It was written as transformation.
For days, she thought about it.
Hair, after all, carries identity. It frames expressions, softens features, becomes part of how the world recognizes you. But the more she reflected on her character’s journey, the more she understood that the scene wasn’t about losing beauty—it was about redefining it.
On the morning of the shoot, the set was unusually quiet. The mirrors were bright, the camera angles carefully planned. The director approached her gently, asking one final time if she felt ready.
She nodded.
As the stylist gathered her hair into a tight ponytail, a wave of stillness settled over her. When the first lock fell, there was no gasp—only silence. Each stroke of the razor revealed more of her face, sharper and more expressive than ever before. Without the familiar frame of hair, her eyes seemed stronger, her posture straighter.
By the time the shave was complete, she looked at herself in the mirror.
She didn’t see loss.
She saw power.
The scene they filmed afterward became one of the most talked-about moments in the movie. Not because of the act itself—but because of the emotion she carried through it. The vulnerability, the quiet determination, the rebirth.
Later, during interviews, she would say that the experience changed her perspective. “We attach so much of ourselves to appearance,” she reflected. “But sometimes, when you let go of that, you discover who you really are.”
And when her hair eventually grew back, she carried that lesson with her—proof that strength isn’t something you wear.
It’s something you become.