New Delhi: Lara Dutta and her teenage daughter Saira are finally back in Mumbai after a tense escape from Dubai, where they were stranded amid escalating conflict in the Middle East. The actor, who usually keeps a low profile online, had earlier shared a worrying video from Dubai, speaking about blasts and uncertainty around her, and has now revealed she posted it because a part of her feared it “could possibly be the last thing” she ever put out.
In a candid chat, Lara opened up about their “scary” journey, her fears as a mother travelling alone with her child, and why this experience may leave a lasting impact on her daughter.
Scary journey from Dubai to India
Lara said she and her family were living “just about 10 kms away from the Jebel Ali Port, which was being bombed every day.” “So we decided to take a chance, as I wanted to be with my husband and my family. We drove two hours to Fujairah, and just a day earlier, Fujairah port and the oil refinery had been bombed. It was scary; I am not going to lie about it,” she recalled.
She added that the situation felt straight out of a film. “I was joking with my co-star Akshay Kumar that I felt like I was part of ‘Airlift 2’,” Lara said. At the airport, they could hear explosions and were simply hoping nothing would get hit. “Hats off to the airlines as well. I am very sure my daughter is going to have some amount of trauma after this experience,” she admitted.
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Why did she post that emotional video
Lara explained that she normally avoids putting out such emotional videos because she does not want to “encourage fear-mongering or create panic” among people. This time, however, she felt compelled to speak. “Maybe it sounds stupid to other people, but I was going to undertake, for me, what was going to be quite a dangerous journey back with my daughter alone,” she said.
Calling the times “really uncertain”, Lara said no one in the UAE had experienced something like this before. “The reason that I wanted to put that video out was just a 1 per cent thought in my head that it could possibly be the last thing that ever goes out,” she revealed.
Life in Dubai and what’s next
Lara has been living in Dubai for the past three years so that her daughter can train with a renowned tennis coach there, while her husband, former tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi, was in London for work when the conflict escalated. The actor will next be seen in Ahmed Khan’s film Welcome to the Jungle, starring Akshay Kumar. She was among several Indian celebrities, including Sonal Chauhan, Esha Gupta, Nargis Fakhri, Vishnu Manchu and Ajith Kumar, who rushed back to India as tensions in the Middle East worsened.