“I don't know how my mom put up with us. We'd walk around school in tor...” — Mahima Chaudhry Quote

I don't know how my mom put up with us. We'd walk around school in torn jeans, put on this punk-rock image and sing ballads everywhere we went.

Ram Gopal Varma had signed me for 'Satya' and two days before the shoot, I was dropped out of the film. He didn't even have the decency to call me or my manager and inform me about the reality. I learnt from the press that he had begun shooting without me.

I got up and saw my face in the mirror and saw the horror. When they did the surgery on me, they took out 67 glass pieces. There were a lot of movies that I had lined up for myself during that time, and I had to let it go. I didn't want people to know because, at that time, people were not that supportive.

I've always worked with new directors. 'Pyar Koi Khel Nahin' with Sunny Deol, Anupam Kher's debut film 'Om Jai Jagdish,' and Niraj Vohra's 'Khiladi' were all first-time films.

At 15, my voice just dropped. I was singing men's ballads, Tony Bennett, Billy Eckstein.

I started to write a lot of ballads that were sultry and had a Norah Jones-for-country kind of feel. I wanted to bring elements of old soul music and old country music.

My style of singing is very much Latin jazz meets Latin and a little bit of rhythm and blues. When I do ballads, my fans love it. They want to listen to my classics. They want to party.

From all the years that I've been in the business, you know that ballads are what impact. Mid-tempos are great, you can sell some records on 'em, but when it comes down to it, ballads are the meat-and-potatoes on the album.