Bollywood actor Lara Dutta, who safely returned to India after being stranded in Dubai amid the US-Israel-Iran conflict, has now described the harrowing experience she and her 14-year-old daughter faced before coming back to India.
In an interview with Hindustan Times, the actor explained the uncertain times during the rising tensions between the two countries while being stuck in Dubai and witnessing air strikes in real time.
The actor and former Miss Universe explained that she shared an emotional video, stating that she is not indulging in "fear mongering" or "creating panic", but feared that the video "could be the last thing that ever goes out".
"I was undertaking quite a dangerous journey back with my daughter and we didn't know what was going to be on the other side. I had this one percent thought in my head that this could possibly be the last thing that ever goes out. But I am back in India now and a lot of people reached out and sent a lot of blessings our way," she said.
Lara, her husband and noted tennis player Mahesh Bhupathi, along with their daughter Saira were living in Dubai for the last three years to support Saira's tennis training.
Lara said the incident happened when Mahesh was away in London. "Everybody had an inkling that there is a possibility of something happening until the time comes when you have bombs being intercepted right overhead and you hear these booms that sound like sonic booms. It feels like far, it doesn’t feel like it’s a close reality. It feels like it may or may not happen. But, you know, there are uncertain times," she explained, noting that the fear continued to follow them as they headed towards the airport.
"We chose to take a Spice Jet flight that was actually flying out of Fujairah, which meant getting on the roads because we hadn’t left the house. We had these alerts going off on our phones every couple of hours whenever missiles were being intercepted," Lara said.
The actor shared that she lives close to the Jebel Ali port area "which was being literally bombed and hammered every day." "You felt the reverberations of every time, you know, even if there was an interception or drone debris were kind of hitting the ground, you could feel these reverberations very, very strongly. So we decided to, you know, kind of take that chance," she added.
Fortunately, Lara was able to safely get on the roads and take the flight. "It was scary...I’m not going to lie about it. I was joking with my co-star Akshay that I felt like I was part of Airlift 2," she remarked.
However, more frightening experience followed for her and her daughter as they recalled witnessing "huge orange balls of fire" from bombings that took place. These back-to-back experiences created an impact on her daughter. The trauma was intense that Lara revealed that she created a safe corner for herself at their house. "She had a sleeping bag and pillows there. Every time the alerts went off, that’s where we would go and sit until it felt safe again," she said, hoping that the issue resolves soon.
"I even brought my house staff back who I had taken from here with me. I'm in touch with a lot of our friends and colleagues there on a daily basis. It's mentally very hard, so all that we can do is pray, be nonjudgemental and really hope that some sanity or semblance of sanity returns to the world really quickly," Lara said, concluding her thoughts.
