Kapadia returned to acting in 1984, two years after her separation from Khanna, saying she had a personal need to prove her own capabilities to herself. Over the next decade, she became one of the leading female actors in Hindi cinema. Her first post-hiatus film was "Saagar"; a mutual friend notified the director Ramesh Sippy about Kapadia's willingness to return to acting. She considered her screen test for the film unsuccessful because she was "literally shivering" while performing it, but Sippy cast her to play the lead part opposite her "Bobby" co-star Rishi Kapoor. The film was intended to be her comeback vehicle but its one-year delay meant several of her later projects were released before, the first of which was "Zakhmi Sher" (1984).