We still have a long way to go before we can handle the pressure society places on having a son. In her most recent interview, Karishma Tanna shared a tragic fact about her birth: under pressure from family members, her father was unhappy that she was born a girl since he preferred having a male. The fact that parents are still required to have children on the family order and that girls are always preferred is just so depressing.

Due to the fact that Karishma was a female, her father did not see her face for several months after her birth. Even her mother denied seeing her for at least a week, saying, “Jab mai pada hui thi, meri mummy ne ek hafte tak mera chehra nahi dekha tha.” She said, “Mere papa ek mahinay tak mujhe dekhne nahi aye hospital me kyunki dusri bhi ladki hi hu” when speaking about her father’s response in an interview with Siddharth Kanan.

When Karishma’s mother told her that, she even remembered how it made her heart hurt. “When my mom told me that, it broke my heart,” Karishma said. Not that my father didn’t care for me; he did. He chose not to visit me due of pressure from his family and the fact that his second child was also a female. The saddest thing Karishma said about her father is that he always loved girls and wished to have one, but because of pressure from his family, he was unable to express this.

In the same interview, Karishma talked about how working on Rajkummar Hirani’s movie Sanju led to melancholy because she didn’t get favorable prospects. “I believed Sanju, despite her minor function, would aid me in progressing in life. However, nothing actually transpired. After the movie, none of the ideas, films, or reactions I had anticipated materialized.”

I wasn’t working for a good seven to eight months, maybe a full year. “Woh bohot hi mai depressed phase me chali gayi thi,” she said, “that was a depressed phase. I believed that there was no color to my life. I had no idea what I wanted to do for a living. Have you seen Sanju? I was asking folks via text messages. Did you enjoy how I acted? I was self-motivated. Only I am aware of how I managed to emerge from that slump. Karishma is currently the most renowned actress in the television industry and is at the peak of her game.