Mahima Chaudhry at the Bafta headquarters in Piccadilly, London. Telegraph picture

Mahima Chaudhry agreed to do a kissing scene in the English film, Hope and a Little Sugar, almost as a kind of revenge after she had split from her boyfriend, the actress revealed in London last night.

Although she did not refer by name to her then boyfriend, tennis star Leander Paes, she had initially feared that he might not approve if she did the kissing scene in the Tanuja Chandra-directed movie which was shot on location in New York.

Mahima and Tanuja were “in conversation” last night at the Bafta headquarters in London’s Piccadilly where a packed audience stayed behind to hear the actress and the director talk frankly — and eloquently — about their experiences in a still male-dominated industry.

This was after Hope and a Little Sugar had been screened last night as the opening movie in Tongues on Fire, a film festival which highlights the achievement of women in Indian cinema.

Hope and a Little Sugar tells the 9/11 story of a New York Sikh family which loses a son, “Harry” Oberoi (played by Vikram Chatwal, son of hotelier Sant Chatwal, who has been raising funds for Hillary Clinton’s campaign), when one of the terrorist planes hits the very floor where he was working in the World Trade Center.

In the ensuing tragedy, the character of Mahima, Saloni Oberoi, who had been married to Harry, becomes close to a Muslim photographer, Ali Siddiqui (Amit Sial), the Oberoi family had befriended. Maddened by his loss, Harry’s stern father, Col Oberoi (Anupam Kher), blames Ali for his son’s death because he happens to be Muslim.

Saloni and Ali fall in love, with the film ending with the couple kissing but it is a long-distance shot.

By western standards, the scene is demure in the extreme but Bollywood actresses, it was apparent last night, still have to think of the possible adverse consequences of agreeing to such a shot.

When Mahima found out that Tanuja was casting for Hope and a Little Sugar, she desperately wanted to be considered, especially when she learnt that rival actresses, including Lara Dutta, were in the frame.

When Tanuja confirmed that the film did indeed include a kissing scene, Mahima said she felt “perhaps he (her then boyfriend of three years standing) wouldn’t like it. But then we broke up and I did want to do it,” she disclosed, to laughter from the audience.

She said she was really “p…ssed” off by the split — she apologised immediately for swearing — and felt the kissing scene would be a cathartic experience. “We girls like to do that sort of thing.”

Mahima, it needs to be emphasised, is now happily married to architect Bobby Mukherjee and said her life now revolves around her eight-month-old daughter, Arianna.

Though she looked radiant in a shimmering white sari, she patted her stomach and said she had not quite recovered her figure after pregnancy.

She smiled broadly when the audience roared back to say she had.