‘I do not belong here’: Kashmiri origin actress Zaira Wasim quits Bollywood

MUMBAI: The Kashmiri origin actress, Zaira Wasim, announced on Sunday to quit Bollywood, saying ‘This field indeed brought a lot of love, support, and applause my way, but what it also did was to lead me to a path of ignorance, as I silently and unconsciously transitioned out of imaan [faith].”

In her message on Facebook, Ms Wasim said, “This field indeed brought a lot of love, support, and applause my way, but what it also did was to lead me to a path of ignorance, as I silently and unconsciously transitioned out of imaan.”

She added, “As I complete 5 years today, I want to confess that I am not truly happy with this identity i.e my line of work. For a very long time now it has felt like I have struggled to become someone else. As I had just started to explore and make sense of the things to which I dedicated my time, efforts and emotions and tried to grab hold of a new lifestyle, it was only for me to realise that though I may fit here perfectly, I do not belong here.”

Read More: Dangal’s Zaira Wasim wants to take an ‘indefinite break from worldly affairs’

“While I continued to work in an environment that consistently interfered with my imaan, my relationship with my religion was threatened.”

“As I continued to ignorantly pass through while I kept trying to convince myself that what I was doing is okay and isn’t really affecting me, I lost all the Barakah from my life. Barakat is word whose meaning isn’t just confined to happiness, quantity or blessing, it also focuses on the idea of stability, which is something I struggled with extensively.”

“I kept trying to escape but somehow I always ended up hitting a dead end, in an endless loop with a missing element that kept torturing me with a longing I was neither able to make sense of nor satisfy.”

The actress further announced, “This journey has been exhausting, to battle my soul for so long. Life is too short yet too long to be at war with oneself. Therefore, today I arrive at this well-grounded decision and I officially declare my disassociation with this field.”

The 18-year-old gained popularity from Bollywood’s famous flicks ‘Dangal’ and ‘Secret Superstar’. Wasim has also completed shooting for her upcoming and last flick “The Sky is Pink” which is scheduled to hit theatres on October 11 this year.

Zaira Wasim had bagged 2016’s National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress over her acting skills in ‘Dangal’ and 2018’s Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress for ‘Secret Superstar’.