Live-in relationships are under the scanner amid several murder cases of women by their live-in partners came to the surface across the country. The nation had not even recovered from the horrific incident of Aaftab Poonawala killing his live-in partner Shraddha Walker and cutting her body into 35 pieces and storing them in the fridge when another man killed and chopped his live-in partner and same way stored her in a fridge to marry another woman. Amidst all this Stree and Gandi Baat actor Flora Saini showed the courage to come out and share her story of resilience and strength in freeing herself from an abusive relationship and the importance of support and healing.
By exploring the experiences of Saini, HerZindagi will delve into the inner world of an abuse survivor and shed light on the emotional and psychological impact of such trauma.
Flora Saini’s Childhood
Way back in school, when the actor was in Delhi, she says, she was an obese child with zero confidence, a backbencher. “I call myself that girl who boys in my class would come to get the phone numbers of other girls. I had braces in my teeth and I don't think any guy would even remotely be ever interested in me,” she says.
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It took her several failed attempts at winning beauty pageants post-school, taking care of her body and health before that and gaining confidence. The confidence of believing that she can look pretty too, she says in conversation withHerZindagi.
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Flora Saini’s Career Began With South Indian Films
When Saini was in college, one of the judges at the May Queen Ball in Delhi, where she had come second runner’s up, offered her to join films. Following this, she moved to Bombay to do an acting course spanning over four months. “My parents have always been very supportive. I asked my dad and he said this is just a hobby, you can't leave your studies and you need to complete your graduation. If you want to do it, you give it a try, go to Bombay do a course, then you see how it goes otherwise you can always come back home.”
It was during her second month into the course by Namit Kishore Kapoor when she was offered a lead role in a Telugu film which later performed “okay” at the box office. She added, “However, my second film was a blockbuster where I played the role of a mad girl and received a lot of critical acclaims.” After quite a few South Indian films and silver and golden jubilees at the box office, she says, Bollywood happened.
On her career beginning with South Indian films, Saini says, “I was here to work in Bollywood, but, destiny or life took me to South first. And I'm really grateful for the homework. No matter what you learn in your drama school, you don't learn cinema until you are actually on field. The camera angle, camera facing, shadow, there's so much you have to take care of which I learned on the job. However, when I look at myself I wish somebody was there to guide but it's okay.”
Flora Saini’s Venture Into Bollywood That Turned Into A Nightmare
Alongside working in South films, Saini made her Bollywood debut with Love In Nepal, opposite Sonu Nigam. It was at this time she met Bollywood producer Gaurang Doshi. Saini who was 20-year-old back then thought him to be the love of her life, at the peak of her career. But soon it turned out to be one of the worst phases of her life. Saini was subject to abuse and violence on a daily basis by her partner for over a year and was almost cut off from the outside world.
“I fell in love with him. And I left my work and left my family to be with that person. There was an episode of domestic violence that went on for a year and two months. I came out of that,” she says.
“It was almost at the peak of my career that I left. And in that one and a half-year, there were so many new people that came in looking for me, some even had movie offers as well. They kept on calling and asking my whereabouts for six to eight months. And they all received the same answer, ‘Well, she's busy.’ So, they stopped reaching out,” she added.
Coming Out Of An Abusive Relationship Is The Most Difficult Part
“All the abusers have a certain pattern,” she says. She further explains, “When they're nice, they are extremely nice. When they are bad, they're the worst. And the very next day after a bout of violence, they'll be so sweet. They'll apologise and say, ‘I love you, forgive me and I’ll never do it again.’ But, we are all creatures of habit. A person who is a womaniser might stop but they will always have that urge and will always grab that chance like an alcoholic or any other addict.”
Saini also spoke about the recent Shraddha Walker case and said that “men like these do exist.” Domestic violence or abuse in a relationship are hardly talked about when it is done by educated, literate men. People who belong to the well-to-do section of society tends to hide instances of violence and abuse by their partners or husbands in fear of reputation, Saini says. “In cases like these, when you go against your parents and friends, like in my case, there is a pressure of trying to make that relationship or marriage work. You don’t have the courage to go back and face them.”
“He was the first guy that I actually fell in love with because in school, nobody was interested in me and then I started working with people twice my age, so, I had no connection there. So, this is the first time that I actually fell in love with someone and that somebody killed my self-confidence that took me years and years of effort to build,” shares Saini.
How Abuse Begins In A Relationship
“It’s not just beating. If I tell you things like ‘Have you seen your face? Do you think you’re pretty?’ , what I am doing is putting things in your mind that makes yoy feel small. When you feel small, the abuser automatically becomes big. That's how they play with your mind. They make you feel so small that you start believing that your abusive partner is the best you can get when it should be the opposite,” Saini explains.
The mind game is followed by slang like “bitch” or verbal abuse or name-calling, followed by a slap and then the blame is shifted to the victim that these are reactions to the victim’s own actions, said Saini about her personal experince. “The abuser will never take the blame on themselves. They blame you. Everything is your fault. So you're on a guilt trip and you're getting beaten also.”
“On your way to normalising these incidents of abuse, you internalise and console yourself that they are hitting you for your own good, like your parents might have done during your childhood,” says Saini. It took the actor some time to realise that the two are different and that in this case there is no right for him to beat her up or behaves the way he did.
She said, “On the night of Valentine’s Day 2007, he would’ve killed me .” Saini says she might have met the same fate as Walker if she wouldn’t have escaped that night. She added, “My phone was taken away, my social circle was cut off, and I was not allowed to speak to anyone. So, I did not really have anyone to talk to at the time. These abusers isolate you socially so that they can have full control over you, and kill your self-confidence so that you are literally at their mercy, these are red flags you must look out for. This is not how a healthy relationship works.”
We have seen in all these cases of abuse, the blame eventually getsshifted to the women or the victims and survivors in the case. The question arises why these women were in a live-in relationship, or why they went against their parents, or most importantly why did not they walk out of the relationship. “It doesn’t happen like that,” explains Saini. With the lack of words, she says, it is a “sticky” situation because as they keep promising, you keep hoping that they will get better. “It is very difficult to get out of the situation and when you do, it is either a lack of choices or you have had enough,” said Saini.
Flora Saini’s Escape And New Start At Career
Remembering her darkest days, Saini mentions that her partner fractured her jaw, punched her in her private parts, until one night she ran away to the police and filed a complaint and sought help from her mother. As she compared her and the former wife of Doshi’s FIR report filed years before, they were strikingly similar incidents and patterns of abuse. After four years of the complaint, a chargesheet was filed. However, even when the MeToo movement came to the limelight in 2018, the case against him had not even started.
Saini began living with her parents and says she is grateful for her parents for being so supportive, which not everyone is lucky to do. It took her months and years to recover till she could return to work or come out and talk about it.
As she started making comeback to the industry, not many were willing to give her offers. “Since the industry is a close-knit one, everybody knows everybody and it does not take much time for people to know. Considering Doshi was an influential person in the industry, it definitely had an impact on my career and everything happened at the peak of my career when I was merely 20,” Saini said. She added that the struggle she did not have to do as a newcomer in the industry because of the many South Indian films she had already done, she had to do it this time.
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However, she began by accepting advertisement offers. Her parents encouraged her to do any kind of projects that she comes across. “Ads helped me a lot,” she says. Slowly, she began getting offers from OTT which was not even a thing back then. Saini loves to call herself one of the “flagbearer” actors of OTT. One after another projects kept coming as most actors were busy with television and trying for films and she kept taking them until OTT boomed during the pandemic and Saini got fame from the Alt Balaji series Gandi Baat and Bengali Hoichoi series Dupur Thakurpo starring Swastika Mukherjee, among several others. She is currently working on the second instalment of the popular film Khichdi.
Saini, now in her 40s, has found her love once again and is content with her relationship is at a good place in her career.
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