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EXCLUSIVE: Celina Jaitly Haag speaks on personal loss, depression, and a noteworthy comeback
Celina Jaitly Haag spoke about her battle with depression after she lost her parents and son in close quarters.
Discussing mental depression today is a lot easier. Before, rolling eyes, cynicism, jokes and even ostracism from society was painfully common. Despite promoting physical fitness for decades, Bollywood feared to speak out on mental health. In fact, it was part of the problem, where it misrepresented mental health. In a world of entertainment where everything needs to look and feel fancy, real stories hardly surfaced. Having a celebrity speak about it was unimaginable. The fear of being judged, questioned or ridiculed outweighed the need.
Celina Jaitly Haag spoke about her battle with depression after she lost her parents and son in close quarters. Her husband Peter Haag stood by her to not just support her but ensured she gets all the emotional support she needs to recuperate.
“The true test of all romances and candlelight’s and valentine hearts boils down to times like this when one is down and out,” Celina says. “My husband was the Chief Commercial Officer of one of the leading organisations in the world when the depression hit me. I was rendered completely helpless. On the advice of doctors, he decided to resign, and for me to have a complete change in the fresh mountain air, he moved us back to our Alpine estate in Austria,” she adds.
Battling depression is easy said than done. While Celina had her husband by her side, it takes immense willpower to overcome it. “I honestly did not realise the sacrifice he was making for me because I was very low at that time. To be taken care of and be loved anyhow is something that I experienced during this entire phase,” Celina shares.
“Getting better from depression is a lifelong commitment. Depression mostly doesn’t show. It lives within, and people don’t recognise it, worrying that it will shatter their very being. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden. Therefore, get help, eliminate from your life all those who bring you down or add to the negativity, exercise (believe me, it helps), don’t be shy to ask for help,” she advises. “The broken will always be able to love harder than most because once you’ve been in the dark, you learn to appreciate everything that shines,” Celina adds.
After a tumultuous battle with depression and a long hiatus from the film industry, Celina made a remarkable comeback in Seasons Greetings- A Tribute to Rituporno Ghosh. In fact, she surprised the very critics who had thrashed her with an epithet of being a glamour girl, overlooking her comic timing in Golmaal.
Since the film revolved around the delicate relationship between a mother and daughter, for Celina, this film wasn’t easy. It was undoubtedly emotionally consuming as it took her down the memory lanes of the time she spent with her parents. “Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it’s overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. Seasons Greetings- A Tribute to Rituporno Ghosh was a calling from beyond. For someone as creative and as understanding as Ram Kamal Mukherjee to come along and hold me through the entire project cannot be without divine intervention,” expresses the actress.
“I remember while I was super excited to play Romita, when it came to my scenes with the wonderful and gorgeous Lillette, exploring a mother-daughter relationship aspect in the story was not easy. Having just lost my mother, it was tough to say the word Ma and not have a breakdown. I cried a lot on the sets. Only Ram knew about it, and he comforted me throughout,” she adds.
Are we woke enough to speak on the matter? Or are we juggling between earning the tag woke and being actually one? In a society where a film needs the intervention of Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) to rename it from ‘Mental Hai Kya’ to ‘Judgemental Hai Kya’ speaks volume about the level of acceptance, we have for mental health issues.
It’s only when celebrities like Deepika Padukone, Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar spoke about mental health and the need to normalise anxiety and mental health conditions, discussions opened up. To look from the prisms of optimism, things are changing and hopefully for better. However, one cannot deny that mere debate will take us nowhere unless we learn to accept it and deal with the issue with affirmative determination.
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