Mumbai: Actress Lisa Ray is celebrating 25 years of her 2001 film Kasoor, a project she says marked a defining moment in her career and quietly challenged the conventions of Hindi cinema at the time.

Lisa took to Instagram, where she shared the music video of “Mohabbat Ho Na Jaye” from the film “Kasoor”. She shared a reflective note on what Kasoor meant to her, revealing that saying yes to the film felt like “stepping into my power.”

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“25 years of Kasoor. Let that sink in. When I said yes to this film, it felt like stepping into my power—quietly but decisively. A strong female character. A real arc. Emotional complexity. No big dance numbers. No formula.”

She described the role as emotionally complex and driven by feeling rather than spectacle, with no song-and-dance formula that typically defined Bollywood in the 1990s.

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“It was dark, internal, and led by feeling rather than spectacle. In many ways, Kasoor represented everything Bollywood wasn’t at that moment.”

The actress recalled being discouraged from taking up the project, with many insisting that audiences were not ready for a strong female character or a dark, internal narrative.

She added: “In the 90s, after refusing many mainstream offers, I was told—very confidently—this film won’t work. No one wants to watch a strong female character. It’s too dark. Well… here we are.”

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Lisa also expressed gratitude towards co-actor Aftab Shivdasani, calling him a sincere and committed collaborator, and thanked director Vikram Bhatt for trusting the stillness and emotional truth of the story when it was far from an obvious choice.

“Working with @aftabshivdasani was a joy—present, sincere, and deeply committed. Thank you for being such a wonderful co-actor and collaborator. And to the Bhatts and Vikram Bhatt—thank you for trusting the stillness, the silences, and the emotional truth of this story when it wasn’t the obvious choice.”

Highlighting the film’s music, she described it as “eternal and melodious,” adding that the songs remain deeply embedded in memories of love, heartbreak and youth.

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“And then, of course, the music. Eternal. Melodious. Those songs have woven themselves into people’s memories—first loves, heartbreaks, long drives, stolen moments of youth. That kind of resonance is a gift no one can manufacture.”

Looking back, Lisa said Kasoor was among the early films that helped shift the portrayal of women on screen, “not perfect, but purposeful.”

“Looking back, I can honestly say Kasoor was one of the early films that helped shift how women could be portrayed on screen—not perfect, but purposeful. Something about the performances, the mood, the feeling we evoked… it endured. Most of all, thank you to the audience. For watching. For remembering. For proving—again and again—that strong female stories don’t fade. They wait. And then they last.”

Kasoor, a legal thriller, also stars Apoorva Agnihotri, late Irrfan Khan and Ashutosh Rana. The film is an unofficial remake of the 1985 American film Jagged Edge, with the climax being borrowed from the 2000 American horror film What Lies Beneath.

(IANS)