Wanted to be in charge of my narrative: Sonali Bendre on sharing cancer battle on social media

Actor Sonali Bendre on Saturday, March 2, said she wanted to be in control of her life story and that is the reason why she decided to share her cancer battle with the people on social media.

The 44-year-old actor was diagnosed with high-grade cancer last year and had to undergo treatment in New York. She returned home in December and has resumed work.

Sonali had kept in loop her fans on social media about the various struggles she faced during her battle with the disease and she said it was important to be honest with people about what she went through, including the pain.

"I wanted to be charge of my narrative from the start. When you are a public figure, there are so many narratives that it out there. And suddenly you lose hold of that narrative very quickly. It becomes a different thing all together," the actor said at the India Today Conclave 2019.

"As I went through the process, I realised that there are so many others that would be going to through it. I wouldn't be honest that if I said, 'Everything was sunshine'. It was not, it was painful and you do have to go through it," she added.

Sonali said like many others, she also encountered pain and had many low phases and she learned that one can do nothing but to deal with it.

"Every time I kept thinking 'Why am I not being positive?' and then you start feeling 'Did I do something wrong?'. But there is pain and what can you do about it.

"You have to go through that pain. And that's why I wanted it to be out that there is pain and it is hard. The point is to reduce that time to as minimum and prolong the good time for as long as you can," the actor said.

Sonali, who ruled the '90s with movies such as "Diljale", "Sarfarosh", "Duplicate" and "Hum Saath Saath Hain", is married to filmmaker Goldie Behl. The couple has a 13-year-old son Ranveer.

Goldie and her, Sonali said, were honest when it came to breaking the news of her cancer to Ranveer and they never never concealed any part of that journey from their son.

"Ranveer was on a school trip and I could have sent him back home but I needed to see him. I need to be able to talk to him. That's the way we have brought him up and we have always been very honest with him.

"The only thing that we were hoping was that by not lying to him, one day he will not be lying to us. That he will be honest with us and that was the example we were trying to set."