When Dia felt discriminated

Actress and producer Dia Mirza speaks about her difficult childhood after the passing of her German father at a young age of nine, and the subsequent advice that she received from her mother. She also divulged her plans of foraying into the Telugu film industry

Actress Dia Mirza has shared that she had to face discrimination based on religion during her childhood. Dia, who was addressing the members of the FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) at Hotel Trident at Madhapur on Saturday, said, “My mother had to answer a few tough questions about my religion during my childhood as my father was a German. But he passed away when I was just 9-years-old. I found a father figure in Ahmed Ali Mirza who is my stepdad.

But he never exposed me to his faith. But this didn’t go down well with my peers. It was then that my mother told me that my religion was humanity. But even this didn’t work. So my mother asked me to tell everybody that I was an Indian. I was lucky that neither my family nor my school ever discriminated girls from boys.”

On how her mother was her guiding light and the importance of families, she said, “My mother advised me to not let my appearance get to my head. Though I never watched beauty pageants I participated in one much against my mother’s wishes. When I won the Miss Asia Pacific International title, I was all alone. That is when I felt, happiness only exists when it is shared with somebody. That is why we have families.”

Talking about life after marriage and women empowerment, she said, “Marriage to me is an extension of a wonderful part of my life and I like the way Sahil thinks. I have never seen him treating people differently. Women multitask most of the time but it generally slows us down. And the one thing we stop focussing on is our passion. It could be the passion for our creative side or our passion of working for a social cause. We have to balance both of these.”

The actress-turned-producer stated that she had a social bent of mind and liked to make films that change the society for the better. “I produce films not because I want to make money. I make films that enable me to contribute to the society. Through the medium of cinema I want to make a difference to the society,” Dia said. “I am planning to produce a film in Telugu,” she announced but was unwilling to divulge more details.