Chetna Pande, who is celebrating the success of her horror film Haunted 3D: Echoes Of The Past, calls the mountains her refuge. She grew up in the hills, and whenever the city drained her, she returned.
She said, “No matter how strong you are, there comes a point when you get tired. Whenever that happened, I used to go back home. My father would take me to the temples in the mountains like Naina Devi and many other temples. We would spend about a week there and I would regain all my strength. Then I would return to Mumbai ready to fight again.”
Her father’s support has been the constant in her life. She said, “Somewhere in the struggle of Mumbai, we move away from God and our roots, and our courage starts fading. Whenever I felt empty from within, I used to call my father. We would visit all the temples for a week, including Patal Bhuvaneshwar in Gangolihat, which is a very powerful temple. After visiting those temples, I felt so strong that I could come back and continue my fight in Mumbai.”
She is quick to remind that her struggle was never hers alone. She said, “This was not only my struggle, it was also my family’s struggle. Every rejection disappointed my parents as much as it disappointed me. I only wanted to make them proud once and prove that all those years of hard work had not gone to waste. When my film was released, my parents watched it with so much pride. I realized that we spend years struggling just for one moment of happiness.”
The mountains also brought her closer to stories of the supernatural. She said, “My grandfather used to say that our birth and death are already written. Sometimes, if someone dies an untimely death, their spirit remains in this world until the time that was actually meant for them to leave.”
She shared a story her father once told her, from his childhood. She said, “There was only one small room in the house and there were five siblings, so he never got the chance to study at home. He would often study outside or in the jungle because he was fearless. There was a Christian graveyard nearby where he used to sit and study.”
Something changed after those visits. She said, “He told me that whenever he returned from there, he would feel as if someone was behind him or watching him. At night while sleeping, he would sometimes feel as though the curtains were moving on their own. When he slept at night, he would feel as though someone had lifted him up and suspended him in the air. He started feeling very strange and didn’t feel normal.”
A woman known for her spiritual powers identified what was wrong. She said, “She touched my father. She felt some kind of energy and said that someone had cast a shadow over him, that there was another entity inside him and that he was not completely himself. She then performed a ritual called Jhaar Pooja. She drew that entity into herself and then dissolved it.”
Today, Chetna is looking ahead. She said, “Audiences have accepted me through this film, and now I’m looking forward to more interesting opportunities. I want to explore different genres. I don’t want to limit myself. I want to take on more challenging roles because Sunheri was already so demanding. Now I want to do something even better.”
But the road has not been easy, even now. She said, “There was a time when I genuinely believed I might never get an opportunity. The last six months of my life were the darkest I have ever experienced. My mother became very ill. My partner was diagnosed with a serious health issue. My pet was diagnosed with cancer.”
Even on the day of this conversation, life was testing her. She said, “Even today, before coming here, my mother had a fever and I was talking to her. I even thought I might have to cancel this interview because I might need to take her to the hospital.”
“Life will always bring problems, but we should never give up. There will be so many obstacles, all of them would try to break you, but never give up,” Chetna ended.
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