MUMBAI: While campaigning for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Darjeeling, Hema Malini had a strange experience — the actress-politician was stunned to suddenly hear a man’s voice call out her pet name ‘Hemu’.

“Just a few people very close to me call me that. I haven’t heard anyone outside my family address me as ‘Hemu’,” said Hema, who was campaigning there on May 5. “When I heard that name being called out in the crowd, I quickly turned around to see who it was. But the man had vanished. Woh parbaton mein kho gaya (he disappeared in the hills),” she added. “It was like someone I knew in the past calling out to me,” she said.

Hema says she longs for people around her to loosen up and be relaxed with her. “After so many years in the film industry I’m tired of being called ‘Hema ji’ all the time. So boring! Not that I want strangers and acquaintances to act over-familiar with me. But there’s a fun

side to me which only those very close to me know. When I’m with my daughters on a holiday I become one of the girls instead of their mother,” she said.