When Gulf News spoke to the survivor, actress Bhavana

Her life and the grace with which she lives is a crash course in resilience and strength

- BY MANJUSHA RADHAKRISHNAN

As the Malayalam film industry absorbs the impact of actor Dileep's acquittal on conspiracy charges, attention has swung back to the woman at the heart of the 2017 case actress Bhavana Menon.

Her story, marked by a brutal attack and an equally brutal wave of public scrutiny, reshaped Malayalam cinema and forced her into an involuntary exile from the screen.

Gulf News looks back at our 2013 interview in Dubai and here's what she had to say back then to this journalist. The survivor has publicly spoken about the attack, but in our interview with her, she let us in on the painful healing process.

"I still don't know how I am overcoming my issues. I am trying and figuring out different routes and methods. I battle with anxiety, and I have occasional meltdowns," she said in that interview in Dubai.

Bhavana who was abducted and sexually assaulted in 2017 in a moving vehicle in Kerala told us back then that she had made the difficult decision to distance herself from Malayalam cinema.

The actress who has appeared in more than 70 South Indian films said that even the thought of returning to the Malayalam film industry once triggered "terrible memories."

But she made a decision to reclaim her space. This was back in 2023 and that's when she opened up to us.

"It almost feels like a magnificent comeback," she told Gulf News at the time.

"But it wasn't easy to resume acting in Malayalam cinema after such a long gap. I had my fair share of nervousness and anxiety. I was even unsure whether it was the right decision to make a comeback to the Malayalam industry," she said.

Her transition was eased, she explained, by the welcoming cast and crew of Ntikkakkakkoru Premandaarnnu, which roughly translates to my brother had a romance.