I was in class 7 when I was introduced to Neena Gupta's acting when she played Ketaki in the serial Khandaan. It was the late 80s and we were lucky to watch a serial at 9 pm on Doordarshan. It was a treat for us. She played the role of a rebel breaking all social norms. Little did I know she was a rebel in her real life too. Her autobiography, Sach Kahun Toh is quite an honest confession of her life.

She speaks of her growing up years in Delhi with a strict mother who insisted that she completed her studies. A Masters in Sanskrit she could have taken up academics as a career option but she chose acting.

The book speaks of her journey as an actor which has been pretty arduous and success came to her much later. While writing the book she was aware of the fact that her personal life specially her torrid affair with Viv Richards would be the sought after by all the readers. She kept it very sketchy to safe guard her daughter's privacy and sanity. She has been honest and spoke about her other relationships but kept most of the names anonymous. She addressed burning issues like casting couch , industry politics and without a godfather in the industry how difficult it was for her to survive. Yet she never gave up. If not films she moved to Television. She speaks of her failures and at times one can make out she would love to turn the clock back again and start by not repeating the mistakes.

I loved how she said that if she was "besharam" she would have bagged more roles. She seemed like the voice of many struggling actresses and am sure many can relate to her. Inspite of being extremely talented her first big  break came at 2018 and which in turn gave her first Filmfare award for best actress. Her happiness and contentment is evident and at an age when many opt for retirement she is eager to do more meaningful roles which is evident in Panchayat.

Her narrative travails into NSD , her eternal struggle in Mumbai , her broken relationships , motherhood and her relationship with her parents. Life hasn't been smooth for her and in her book she doesn't really justify her actions and choices. One needs guts to do that and she ends her book by saying that she is not a "doodh ki dhooli". She doesn't really speak in details about her works and maybe she was in a hurry to end so lot of questions will haunt the readers. She was sure that many are going to read the book because of her affair with Viv Richard's but I wasn't really interested at that. It was a choice she made and lived up to it.

I was more keen to know her as a person since I found her enacting roles which offered her a lot of diversity but a rebel streak was evident. Someone I had seen as Ketaki in Khandaan does a Badhai Ho three decades later needs to be cultivated. The book is a decent window to her life.