Mumbai: Actress Rati Agnihotri turns a year old Thursday. She has acted in about 150 films in ten languages. Rati was performing in a school play when Bharathiraja spotted her. At the time the director was looking for a heroine for his new film. He immediately met Rati’s father and promised that he would make the film within a month. On this, Rati’s father gave her permission to work in the film. After this, at the age of 16, Rati acted in her first film Puthiya Vaarpugal. The 1979 film proved to be a blockbuster.
Bhagyaraj the hero of this film, taught Rati Tamil. Soon Rati learned Tamil language. In an interview, Rati had said that she accidentally joined the Punjabi family but she is Tamil at heart. After doing this film, Rati became an overnight star and bagged many films.
She worked with big Tamil stars like Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan.
Her father passed away before Rati’s marriage. On 9 February 1985, she married businessman Anil Virwani and said goodbye to the film industry. In 1987, Rati and Anil had a son Tanuj. Later, she became fully engaged in her family’s responsibilities. Rati was so beautiful that she got offers for many films even after marriage but she did not do films for her family.
But one day suddenly she was found sitting in the police station. Everyone was shocked to see her in the police station. There she accused her husband Anil of harassing, beating and threatening to kill her.
While giving an interview to Times of India, Rati said that for the last 30 years she has been facing harassment of her husband. When reporter asked her why she remained silent for so long? I remained silent for my son Tanuj for so long. However, her husband denied all these allegations.
After a 16-year absence, she returned to acting in 2001, in the Hindi film Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi and the Tamil film Majunu. She made her Malayalam debut in Anyar (2003), English debut in An Ode to Lost Love (2003), and Bengali debut in Aaina-te (2008).
She has also acted on the stage, in plays such as Please Divorce Me Darling (2005) and television serials, such as Sixer (2005).