New Delhi: Ravi Valecha, the familiar child actor in Bollywood, who often played a young Amitabh Bachchan in films, revealed that he was sexually abused while working. Valecha began working at the age of four and holds a world record for working in the maximum number of films, 300, as a child actor. But now, he is scared of theatres.
He said that he was around eight years old when the abuse began. While speaking to The Indian Express, Valecha said that the first time it happened in a dark theatre, where an older man forced him to sit on his lap. He recalled being overcome with a sense of confusion, followed by revulsion. This was followed by two other incidents.
The next one happened when a secretary, who was hired to take care of child actors during the shoot and while travelling, allegedly inappropriately touched him while travelling.
“You can’t tell anybody…but you have to go with that person day in and day out,” he said.
Another incident allegedly happened in the middle of the night during an outdoor shoot, when his parents were not present. He allegedly felt someone on him and froze. At the time, he was not able to share the incident with anyone out of constant fear. He thought his parents may not believe him. “There was nobody I could talk to,” he recalled.
Valecha shared that the trauma he went through as a child followed him in his personal life, his marriage and his everyday habits. “Anger had become a byproduct of the suppressed pain,” he said.
Working with Bachchan
Valecha played young Amitabh Bachchan in several films, including Shakti, Desh Premee, Amar Akbar Anthony and Giraftaar. Recalling working with Bachchan, he said, “The joy of working with him is that you never feel small. You never feel like you’re just a kid, a child artist, or inexperienced.”
He also remembered Mr. Natwarlal, saying Amitabh’s “Mere paas aao mere dosto” was his first and last lip-sync song.
After years of suppressing the trauma in himself, he started therapy. For weeks, he was not able to utter a word, but the therapist worked with him using targeted exercises and slowly, after nearly a month of sessions, he started recalling it in fragments.
“I did not know how deeply embedded that was in my mind, which came out in therapy,” he added. For him, six months of therapy changed a lot of things for him.
“Today I’m very light. I don’t mind speaking to anybody about it,” he remarked.
Even today, he cannot go to the theatres alone. He wishes he could have started therapy sooner.
“Even today if I’m angry, I just tell my family, don’t talk to me, give me about half an hour to cool down… I should have taken the therapy when I was 12 or 13 years old,” he said.
(Edited by Aakriti Handa)