Actress Anu Aggarwal has revisited a painful chapter from her final days in cinema, revealing on Instagram that she suffered a coccyx fracture while filming a scene alongside legendary actor-filmmaker Dev Anand for the 1996 production 'Return of the Jewel Thief' — a film that ultimately remained incomplete.

The Injury on Set

Sharing throwback photographs from the shoot, Aggarwal described slipping and falling onto a car during the filming of an important scene with Dev Anand. In her own words: 'I was shooting a scene with Dev Anand when I slipped, fell onto a car and fractured my coccyx.'

What compounded the ordeal, she noted, was the isolation that followed. 'I was living alone, and there was no one from the production helped,' she wrote, adding that it was a neighbour who eventually provided her with a doctor's contact. The physician, she recalled, told her she had arrived just in time — 'I needed an operation immediately; otherwise, I was told, I could have been left with a permanently crooked spine.'

Recovery and a Quiet Exit from Cinema

Aggarwal recovered from the surgery and was prepared to resume shooting. However, the production encountered its own crisis — the makers reportedly ran out of funds, and filming ground to a halt for nearly three months without a single day on set. By that point, she had already made personal plans to travel to France in June for a Dhrupad retreat in the lavender fields, where her spiritual teacher was to be present.

'The making song and an important scene with Dev Anand had already been shot. And that was it,' she wrote, reflecting on how her departure was neither dramatic nor sudden — but inevitable. 'A film career that had taken me to Cannes was closing one chapter. And, almost quietly, another life was beginning.'

About 'Return of the Jewel Thief'

'Return of the Jewel Thief' is a 1996 crime-action thriller directed by Ashok Tyagi, conceived as a sequel to the 1967 classic 'Jewel Thief'. The film featured Ashok Kumar and Dev Anand reprising their original roles, with an ensemble cast that also included Dharmendra, Jackie Shroff, Shilpa Shirodkar, and Madhoo. The production, however, reportedly never reached completion.

From Cannes to Contemplation

Aggarwal, who rose to prominence with her debut in 'Aashiqui' (1990), had attended the Cannes Film Festival as part of her career. She noted that even in 1995, she had chosen a spiritual retreat in France over a red-carpet appearance at the festival — a sign, she reflected, of a detachment from the film world that had already set in. She went on to dedicate herself to yoga and spiritual pursuits, stepping away from the film industry entirely. This comes amid renewed public interest in her life and career, following her gradual re-emergence on social media in recent years.