Neena Gupta says she didn’t tell mom about being molested as a kid: ‘I was scared that she would say it was my fault’

Neena Gupta opened up about why she didn’t tell her mother about being molested by a doctor as well as a tailor during her growing-up years. The actor shared good and bad memories from her school days in her autobiography, Sach Kahun Toh. 

In the book, Neena shared an account of her visit to an optician and said that her brother was asked to sit in the waiting room while she was inside. She wrote, “The doctor started with examining my eye and then went down to check out other areas that were unconnected with my eye. I was scared stiff while it was happening and felt disgusted all the way home. I sat in a corner in the house and cried my eyes out when nobody was looking. But I didn’t dare tell my mother about this because I was so scared that she would say that it was my fault. That I had probably said or done something to provoke him.” She added, “This happened to me many times at the doctor’s.”

Sharing an account of her visit to the tailor, Neena said that he got “too handsy” while taking her measurements. She added that she was forced to keep going back even after this incident. “Because I felt like I had no choice. If I told my mother that I didn’t want to go to them, she would ask me why and I would have to tell her,” she explained.

The actor also revealed that she was propositioned, at the age of 16, by a friend’s brother who had just got married. “I somehow managed to shrug off his advances politely without offending him or his family.”

Neena soon realised that all other girls in college had faced similar situations but none would tell their parents about it because “that would mean that the little freedom we had would be taken away. Or worse – that we would be blamed for bringing it upon ourselves.” 

Also read: Neena Gupta says grey-eyed ‘biker’ she saw in college turned out to be Shakti Kapoor later

Neena said that while children as young as three years old are now being taught the difference between a ‘good touch’ and a ‘bad touch’, they “were not taught about either” as teenagers.