India, Nov. 24 -- A ctor Bhumika Chawla completes 25 years in the film industry this year, a milestone shaped across 62 films in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi cinema. She looks back at her journey with gratitude, remembering how Mumbai became the foundation of her life and career. "Since the time I came to Mumbai, it has accepted me and made me what I am today," she says. She recalls arriving in the city as a 17-year-old, when advertisements and music videos defined the early 2000s: "From being that young girl to now having an 11-year-old son, it has been quite a journey." Chawla reflects on how much regional cinema has transformed since she began working. "In those days it was not easy to work across regions the way it is today," she says. She notes that the mainstream popularity of South films and actors is a relatively recent cultural shift. "How popular regional films have become today was not the case when I entered the industry. And it is not that only now everything is good. That narrative has become a bit cliched for me." Among the highlights of her career, she still remembers the impact of Tere Naam (2003) with Salman Khan and Run (2004) with Abhishek Bachchan. "I feel grateful that those films became so big. Once in a while you think about those days when you picked those films, met those actors and worked with them," she says. She also remembers Salman's generosity on the set of Tere Naam, especially when her mother was unwell. "He never pressured me even though I was a newcomer who could miss a line. I still remember, my mum was not well and he called the doctor, came to meet her and kept checking on her." With renewed talk of a sequel to Tere Naam, Chawla believes certain films deserve to remain untouched: "I have heard about it. I feel sometimes a film should be left where it is, especially if it has been successful and remembered even after so many years," she says. Now she is looking ahead to her upcoming Telugu film Surya and Kesar, a Hindi film with Arbaaz Khan....