Hema Malini’s now Mumbai residence has become a symbol of the green and spacious alleys of Juhu, but the veteran actor’s journey to finding such a haven has been filled with a frightening encounter with the paranormal. Before she lived in her signature bungalow, the popular actress lived through a nightmare of a period when she was literally choked every night.
In the biography Hema Malini: Beyond the Dream Girl, actor Hema Malini spoke about the struggles she faced to trade the lush backgrounds of Delhi and Chennai for the tight-space constraints of Mumbai. During the shooting of her first film Sapno Ka Saudagar alongside Raj Kapoor, she started dwelling in a small Bandra flat intended for the trials of costumes. But it was her later stint in the bungalow which took a terrifying turn.
Hema also speaks of an oppressive presence that troubled her in the night: "Every night I would feel someone was trying to choke me; I used to have difficulty breathing," she writes in the book. It was so extreme that she chose to sleep in the same room as her mother so that she could observe her daughter's sleep. The regularity of the attacks could not be a coincidence any more, and the family had to look for another house.
During this turbulent time, a young Dharmendra would drop in for cups of coffee, though Hema says she had no idea then that they would marry in 1980. Her search for peace also made her turn down a posh sea-facing apartment in Walkeshwar that her father bought for her. Longing for the greenery of her childhood years, she insisted on a home which could be like the ‘house with a lot of trees’ that she loved in Chennai.
Till 1972, during the shooting of Seeta Aur Geeta, she finally found her haven when she bought a bungalow in Juhu from a Gujarati family. Though she lived there for decades with daughters Esha and Ahana, her personal life remained unconventional; she lived across the street from Dharmendra, who stayed with his first wife, Prakash Kaur. Following Dharmendra's passing in November 2025, these glimpses into Hema’s early struggles offer a rare look at the grit behind the glamour.
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