When Sonali Bendre Almost 'Packed Bags and Left' The Film Industry

Sonali Bendre says she had decided to pack her bags and leave the film industry if she was unable to do a good performance in the song Humma Humma from Mani Ratnam's 1995 movie Bombay. The actress, who was barely five films old in the industry, said she was often "slammed" by choreographers for her moves until she got a breakthrough for her stint as the female dancer in the superhit track alongside Prabhu Deva's brother Raju Sundaram.

Sonali Bendre talks about her breakthrough song Humma Humma

According to Bendre, it was a common perception at the time that one couldn't become a heroine if they didn't know how to dance. The 49-year-old said she wanted to give it a shot as the song was choreographed by the legendary Prabhu Deva.

"I'm not a trained dancer. When I got into movies, I really got slammed by dance directors for my dancing. ‘Badi heroine banne chali hai, dancing nahi aata’. So, if you couldn’t dance, you couldn’t be a heroine. I was going through all of that so whatever time I would get before and after the shoot, I started to train in 'Bollywood dancing', as it's called. This is with Prabhu Deva because if I can do it, I have a right to be here and if I can't do it, pack your bags and leave. At that point of time, it was like, ‘(At least) My team would earn their per-day (money)’" Bendre told PTI in an interview.

Humma Humma is remembered as my song, says Sonali Bendre

The actress, who later went on to feature in '90s hits such as Diljale, Major Saab, Sarfarosh, Zakhm, and Hum Saath Saath Hain, said Prabhu Deva's father and choreographer master Mugur Sundar was so impressed by her skills that he gave her a reward of Rs 100. Bendre said she was not even part of the main cast of Bombay, which was led by Arvind Swamy and Manisha Koirala, and yet Humma Humma is remembered as her song.

"It had the actors who were fantastic, they had once-in-a-lifetime kind of roles, and those actors were part of the song. Today, when I look back, I feel that I had to be stupid and or really ignorant to do a song like this. This turned into something and became what it became. It's not my film song... and today, it's my song," she added.

Sonali Bendre is now set to reprise her role as Amina Qureshi, editor of Awaz Bharti news channel, in the upcoming second season of the ZEE5 series The Broken News.

(with inputs from PTI)