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Forget brand collabs and PR stunts, Priyanka’s heartfelt throwbacks to Barfi, Kaminey and Ram Leela prove that Instagram can still be about genuine memories and nostalgia.
These days, with endless marketing and PR campaigns, everything feels like part of some reveal. Photos are posted only for us to later discover they were tied to a song release; cryptic celebrity posts turn out to be clever teasers for brand collaborations. Trusting social media posts has become a luxury, and genuineness feels like a forgotten concept because hardly anything is real anymore. Almost everything is part of a PR-driven image-building exercise.
So when Priyanka ChopraJonas suddenly started posting throwbacks to her old film days of Kaminey, Ram Leela, and Barfi, everyone was stunned. Was this a new strategy? Another campaign? But her captions, and more than anything, the simple hashtag #ThursdayThrowback, made it clear that our desi girl was just on a nostalgic ride. She was revisiting the past, the films that shaped her, and letting us in on that journey. And suddenly, what could have been dismissed as just another “content drop” felt refreshingly innocent, almost like a reminder of when Instagram was used to genuinely share, not sell.
Also Read: Lessons beyond the blackboard: When onscreen teachers taught us what wasn’t in the syllabus!
Her captions weren’t just sentimental though, they were mini behind-the-scenes stories celebrating years of anniversries of these films. She shared how she rehearsed tirelessly for Ram Chahe Leela and why she said yes to that song in the first place because Sanjay Leela Bhansali, with his mesmerizing storytelling (and good food), convinced her with his love for music. She wrote about how she first heard of Barfi!from Ranbir Kapoor while shooting for Anjaana Anjaaniand how she almost didn’t get the role. Director Anurag Basu, seeing her dressed to the nines after an awards show, couldn’t imagine her as Jhilmil. It took workshops in Aram Nagar, and even a bizarre acting exercise where she had to hurl gaalis at Basu, before she transformed into the unforgettable Jhilmil we can’t imagine anyone else playing.
She recalled discovering Kaminey while working on Dostana with Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham inMiamiand how surprised she was that Vishal Bhardwaj even considered her for the part, since she was then seen as a “commercial” heroine. What started as just eight scenes grew into a bigger role, and eventually into a lasting collaboration that continued with 7 Khoon Maaf. More than anything, she wrote about how each of these films shaped her, and how much she learned from the legends she worked with. It was the ultimate did-you-know kind of tidbit series - a heaven for any PC or cinema fan out there!
When an actor of her stature suddenly opens up in such a vulnerable, agenda-free way, without worrying about how the media might spin it, it restores some of social media’s lost magic. It reminds us that sharing with the world can still be meaningful without a hidden meaning or dress up attached to it. Through her #ThursdayThrowbacks, Priyanka not only revisited her journey, she also made us realize just how much we miss her onscreen. Yes, she keeps returning to India for events, and champions voices as a producer. But it’s her onscreen presence, her ability to breathe life into characters with tenacity, to take on roles no one else could imagine that we miss the most.
And if these old stories are any proof, they are a reminder of why we need her back now more than ever. They almost make us want to shout out loud “Wapis laut aao, Priyanka Chopra!”
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