National, December 1st, 2025: The award-winning media personality – Barkha Dutt, inaugurated the 8th edition of India’s leading women’s festival – We The Women in Mumbai. The day began with a vibrant dhol performance by The Swargandhar Troupe, leaving the atmosphere energised for a day featuring bold conversations.
Bollywood actor Sidharth Malhotra was welcomed as a guest and took us back to his early days when he made up his mind to pursue acting, despite having strong army roots. He shared, “My father and I had discussed very early on about what I would want to do with my life. Very early in my teen years I had faced a small camera, had a little bit of that performance aspect and just being in front of stage and giving different emotions but the journey took many many years.”
“The actual journey took very long. I was 21 or 22 when I decided to come to Mumbai, thinking that I had bagged a film in Hindi cinema at that time. One year goes by, the film never took-off”, he further added. Speaking on sharing apartments and house hunting he experienced when he first moved to the financial capital, he commented, “When I first came in, the production house and director that kind of signed me, I stayed in their editing studio, because that was the only place with a long sofa. So at night they put me there for like a week and then in the day I used to be out since they used to edit.”
Celebrated fashion designer, Masaba Gupta along with illustrious gynecologist Dr. Nozer Sheriar, too joined Barkha for an interesting chat, discussing evolving parenting trends, the influence of social media on a mother’s mindspace and general awareness around women’s health.
Speaking on her new parenting journey Masaba Gupta shared, “I feel for me it has been scattered. Even as we speak I’m struggling with some form of postpartum, I don’t know what it is. It is strange, but I think just yesterday I had like three breakdowns throughout the day, multiple times. One time I was just reading to her and I broke down, because I was thinking that I’m going to be in the US for the next five days and what would happen.”
Further, discussing Neena Gupta raising her as a single mother Masaba said, “My birth certificate when I was born was stolen from the hospital and leaked to the press and was on the front page of a paper because someone wanted to prove that I was an illegitimate child. I think I understood it when I was maybe 9 or 10, Barkha. I don’t think I fully understood it but saw versions of it. I didn’t understand why it was done – cruel, strange and very bad for my mom.”
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