Bengaluru, March 8
Bollywood actress and author Sonali Bendre has said that "every time you are uncomfortable you learn and it has always paid back more. It's what the business tells you. The higher the risk, more the profit and that's what it is in life". She made the statement at the 'Amazon ElevateHER 2025' event organised by Amazon India to celebrate the occasion of International Women's Day (IWD) 2025 -- an initiative designed to empower women through mentorship and career development opportunities.
Aligned with this year's global IWD theme, 'Accelerate Action', the event was held in Bengaluru on Friday.
"Therapy taught me about self-love. As women we are used to put everyone else ahead of us. We can say that this should not be done. But, it is in our subconscious. I see my husband, my boy, father, their mindset is different. They need not worry about doing things as they do it."
"As a woman when you say that I need to do it, but.. that 'but' had been a big issue in my life and it took me a lot of work to get over. If you are suffering you need therapy, you should ask for help. This is part of life. It gives you tools," she suggested.
Sonali also said, "What you put out in the universe, what you thinking, what I have learnt through my illness is, your self is listening to you all the time. The body is listening to you. What you say and what you think is, so important."
Talking about life altering moment, the actress said, "The life altering moment was when my son was born. Every women when you have been through pregnancy and give birth, it is life altering. The way of thinking changes. That's the nature. Then of course my illness. These are the pivotal moments which helped me grow."
When asked about her graceful journey through cancer, Sonali said, "I didn't mean to be so open about it. I was doing a reality show and I was on screen every week. If I disappeared from it, which I needed to, when I realised that this was not something that I could do while shooting. I needed to get away. Because at one point I did think that okay it is cancer, we will get it out and I will be back. May be I will take a gap of two weeks and I will come back."
"Then you realise that it was not an early stage and much later stage, that realisation when I saw, you could it see it on doctors' face. Then my husband was like nothing doing I am taking you, I don't trust anybody here. The reason for my cancer to have reached fourth stage was I should have been detected earlier and I had been telling that I am facing issues," she said while recalling the horror.
She added, "But, it's human, I understand something it didn't get detected, was not diagnosed as that. Eventually, the point when it got diagnosed, my husband was in a zone of I don't trust this anymore. I just need to take this call, I will regret it all my life and I can't do that."
"I was against going away because it was so sudden and literally three days after the diagnosis we were out. We live in a world of internet, where everything is everybody's news and everything all over the place. I didn't want gossip about it, my son would be seeing it who was 12 at that point," Sonali said.
"I thought it would be easier if I put it out. That's a good part about social media, I can put out what I want to, talk to people in my language and in my words which was not luxury that we as actor had. It was always journalist's view point of you. It was always coloured how good or bad, you were with them," she added.
"The idea was to say that this has happened and hence I am going into treatment. The kind of response we got on FB, Insta and everybody, it was crazy. I put that out and I went to sleep. By the time I got up there were just thousands of messages and everything was blown up," she said.
"People were writing from all parts of the country and all parts of the world. There were people from all strata of society, all genders, all age groups, how they have been through it. It was so common. Why did not know it. I felt like a fool," she underlined.
"I understood no one spoke about it and why is anyone speaking about it? Then, you realise unsaid taboo about cancer. Probably because it's just not external aggressor, it's genetic and it's been there since when humans are here. I realised this was not a conversation that was happening," she said.
"I don't want to go into the why me mode. I wanted to make it a talking point. As a person in public view, what I can give to this is talking about it. Let it be a conversation starter. I didn't want to put gory details but I did not want to lie about anything. At one point people said its publicity," she added.
"At one point I did go low when people when they said it was not necessary to put it out. My son's school started. He sent me article on how scanning or testing rate has shot up. Let people say what they have to say but this is what you have done. It's an achievement," she said with joy.
"Till today, when I am at the airports, I go anywhere, I meet so many women who will say, you started talking about it, I got it at first stage and second stage. Cancer when you catch it early, it is so curable, It needn't have lot of side effects it has," Sonali added.
"The earlier you catch it the less side effects you have to face. It's about early detection," she emphasised.
"Every time when I meet people and they say, they caught it early, I feel it's an achievement. I promise you nothing else in my life I have achieved except for this portion. This conversation has saved so many lives, I don't think I can achieve anything more than this for the rest of life," she underlined.
"It's been six years and now it is normal to talk about it and that's amazing. One day at a time is mantra to me," she said.
Deepti Varma, Vice-President of HR/People eXperience and Technology, Amazon India, Japan and Emerging Markets, said, "ElevateHER 2025 aims to equip women from diverse backgrounds with skills and the network they need to achieve their career goals and we are excited with the opportunity the speed mentoring sessions offered to these aspiring professionals."
