Backchatting to Men in Power

May 2015: What to do when protectors become perpetrators?

They say there’s something about men in uniform, and for some women it’s even a ‘thing’. Sure, they look dapper but, beyond that, they exude a sense of protection and security arising from the power vested in them by the government. 'An Officer and a Gentleman’—or so one is conditioned to believe.

And then they, or some of them, do this—harass the very women who turn to them for protection. Within a month of three Mumbai Police cops being arrested for the gang rape of a model, a rape survivor has accused the cop investigating her case of stalking and propositioning her; meanwhile the jawan who a UK national turned to for help against a harasser aboard the Amritsar-Delhi Shaheed Express started harassing her in turn.

This is worse than your regular run-of-the-mill Stranger Danger. Unlike with strangers, we approach upholders of the law with our guards down and at our most vulnerable, seeking and deferring to their authority. It is a skewed power dynamic, and one that can prove to be fertile ground for all sorts of exploitation, from the economic to the sexual. When it is used for such, it undermines and sullies the reputations of those in the law enforcement agencies who actually do great work. It destabilises the trust citizens are encouraged to repose in the government, and our desire to obey those who hold its authority.

There is no genius advice to offer those who abuse their power: stop. Gender sensitivity and pride in the uniform must percolate down the ranks of our unwieldy police force; those found misusing their authority should be punished appropriately; etc. But here’s some advice for you, in case you find yourself at the receiving end.

A) Know Your Rights

Women can’t be called to the police station; can’t be arrested between sunset and sunrise; can register an FIR via email or registered post; can’t be in a police station or vehicle, or interrogated anywhere without the presence of a female constable. Knowledge empowers; quote our constitutional safeguards to fend off potential abuse.

B) Trust Your Instincts

I was spending a leisurely afternoon talking to a group of sadhus on the banks of the Ganga during the Kumbh Mela in 2010. A portly uniformed cop joined our conversation and left, and, shortly after, a crisply dressed man appeared down the steps. I could tell he was a UP cop from a mile away; this time though, a primal instinct reared its head.

If you sense you’re in danger, you probably are. Take a call on fight or flight.

C) Hold Your Own

Alerted to my presence by the other cop I’m sure, this one headed straight to me, introduced himself and started grilling me. Where was I from? What was I doing there? What did my family do? Belying my fears I tensed my quills—and no, he could not drop me to Dehra Dun, thank-you-very-much. With no headway to be had, he left soon, but not before curling his middle finger into my palm during our goodbye handshake (the creepy gesture for ‘Wanna fuck?’ Er, no thanks).

It was presence of mind that saved the Brit girl in the train as well. She wriggled herself onto an upper berth, and took pictures and video of the jawan while yelling, “BBC, BBC” and “You are in trouble”. Daunted, he alighted at the next station. (I recommend taking photographs of perpetrators: read here.)

D) Turn the Tables

Even though officers who misuse their power seem like a pandemic, they are not meant to be the norm. Women in all these cases reached higher authorities—the model SMSed and the rape survivor wrote a letter to Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria; the UK victim told the British High Commission when the Punjab Police wouldn’t register a case against its own. Then there’s social media that gives everyone a voice, whether or not you have access to traditional media channels—there’s nothing like public shaming for the perp or to make authorities sit up and take notice.

Let’s not take things lying down, shall we?

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An edited version of this article appeared on iDiva in May 2015.

The Aftermath

May 2015: Thoughts inspired by our experience during the Nepal Earthquake.

My husband Sahil Mane and I were in Nepal for a much-needed 15-day vacation from Mumbai—three days in Kathmandu; three days at Universal Religion Music Festival; back to Kathmandu for our friends, Republica couple Cilla Khatry and Biswas Baral's wedding; then onward to Pokhara to trek and bike. On the 25th, I was getting tattooed on impulse at the Nepal Tattoo Convention at Hotel Yak and Yeti when the earthquake struck. We were, fortunately, prepared for the outdoor festival that was the second leg of our trip: our friends and us had tents, food and woollens packed and ready to go. After retrieving our bags from our hotels in Thamel, we pitched tents in the lawn of the Social Welfare Council, received a call from the Indian Embassy at 4 AM saying our names had been registered for evacuation (Sahil's parents had sent them an email as instructed on TV), battled the chaos at the airport, and got evacuated by 6 PM on the 26th. After being hosted by the government in New Delhi that night, our group flew to Goa instead of home, not quite ready to deal with our daily lives. (Read detailed accounts of our experience here and here.) 

Government & Governance

I don't know about you, but we in India are quick to criticise the government, social media giving outlet to all our niggles, big and small. So I must take this opportunity to praise and thank. Officials from the Embassy responded to my mother-in-law's email and called (they've even called since to confirm we've reached). At the airport, Army, Air Force and Embassy officials worked tirelessly with their Nepalese counterparts to get us out. Representatives from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Maharashtra Government waited to receive us at the Delhi airport: they fed us, hosted us for the night and dropped us back to the airport in the morning. 

Contrary to a comment I received, this wasn't "differential treatment [owing to our] financial statuses and contacts in the government." This is how the government treated everyone, and we had used no contacts or money. The Embassy's email ID was made public, and families of/those stranded were asked to email their details to be registered for evacuation. At Maharashtra Sadan too: there were people from all sorts of financial backgrounds being hosted in the same way (including those who had never seen lifts).

I spoke to Shamsher Sherrif, a high-ranking government official who is a close friend of my parents, shortly after we arrived. India has become very good at disaster management now and has just evacuated people from Yemen, he told me. "Sometimes our boys don't sleep for days on end."

Though it's a thankless job, he admits. While they were out there helping us, we, the very citizens they were trying to help, shoved, nearly caused a stampede, didn't follow instructions, fought and argued, and nearly lynched a customs' official. Friends later told us that there had been a lathi-charge on the registration line after we left. 

Why is this attitude so prevalent in our culture? Is it a colonial hangover? Is it a distrust of the government? A lack of education? The poor and voiceless seem to feel so disempowered that displaying a primal survival instinct seems like their only chance; the elite are so entitled and status-aware that they expect special treatment. I don't envy our government servants, and I've come away with deeper gratitude and respect. (I say 'deeper' because, as a late Naval Officer's daughter, I have grown up around people driven by a desire to serve.)

Animal Sacrifice

When I returned, under the avalanche of grieved tweets and updates in support of those affected were a few I could not believe. Those, including politicians, who were saying that the country had it coming because of the animal sacrifice that is a part of its culture. What?! Really?! 

Not that I condone animal sacrifice, it makes me sick: we chanced upon it at Bhaktapur, and I cannot bear to see images of the Gadhimai festival. But rather than a 'serves you right' (c'mon, not now!), I say: clearly it does not work, does not serve its protective function. So perhaps now's the time to stop. 

Survivor's Guilt

As people in the media, easily accessible to lots of journalist friends, our little adventure has been covered all over—print, radio, TV. But here's the thing—that's all it was, an adventure, a story of a lost bag and incomplete tattoo to tell at parties for years to come. 

The awareness of how fortunate we've been started dawning once the adrenaline wore off, that first day in Goa. So fortunate in so many ways—that we survived with nary a scratch, of course, but we were also unexpectedly prepared and were evacuated so soon after. We could just get up and go home. 

The mind takes its time to process new plans born unexpectedly, and it's surreal, being here in this hot, familiar beach town instead of the beautiful Himalayas. Our plans have been disrupted for 10 days; for some of you, life will never be the same. If we're still starting at loud sounds and dreaming of earthquakes, what must your nightmares be?

We're sorry, and hold a great sadness for the devastated country, people and architectural heritage that we have come to love deeply. May the force be with you. 

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An edited version of this article appeared in Republica Nepal in May 2015.

What Were We Doing During the Nepal Earthquake?

May 2015: Well, I was getting a tattoo.

Sahil and I were in Nepal for a 15 day holiday: three days in Kathmandu, three days at Universal Religion Music Festival, back to Kathmandu for a friend Cilla's wedding, and then further to Pokhara to trek and bike. Though we were travelling by ourselves, we synced plans with Prabhat and Arti, Poorti and Payal, friends from India who were also there for the festival. 

The only thing good about the festival being postponed from Friday the 24th to Saturday the 25th was being able to visit the Nepal Tattoo Convention, and we went only to see it. Except I fell in love with a particular artist's work and decided to get inked the next morning, the 25th, and leave for the festival a couple of hours later than planned. 

This is how we found ourselves—Fabrice one-third through my tattoo, Sahil sitting opposite me—when the earthquake struck at noon. We were at the far end of the hall far from an exit, but were near a column and far from the giant swaying chandeliers. We stayed under a table for a few minutes, and as soon as the shaking abated a little we fled—through the hall littered with broken stalls, under cracked doorways, down an unsteady staircase, with hoards of screaming people. A few jumped from the first floor, one was pushed out by the tide, but we all gathered relatively okay in the garden of Yak and Yeti Hotel to... Well, no one really knew what to do or where to go next. It didn't help that foreigners far outnumbered locals here. 

Sahil's mum was able to get through on our phone before network disappeared, so were our friends still at the hotel. Spotty information came through relatives abroad, things they were hearing on their news channels; rumours spread fast and furious; Chinese Whispers were doing the rounds. Thamel, the tourist hub where everyone at the convention was staying (as were we), a congested maze of narrow streets and tightly packed buildings, had been razed to the ground in the second earthquake, we heard. Nonetheless, a couple of hours later, we decided to venture there, to look for our friends and get our packed bags. 

In a sense, we couldn't have been better 'prepared'. Waiting packed at our hotel in relatively unscathed Thamel, were our bags ready for the outdoor festival, food and tents, and the staff kindly let us in to retrieve them. The six of us now left Thamel for clearer ground, and watched the chaos on the roads... Paramedics, police and army personnel were everywhere. People were crying and bleeding, sirens were wailing, dogs were barking. And it was getting cold (it has been a freakishly cold summer in Nepal this year). We found ourselves an open lawn and set up camp, with enough food and woollies to share with those less prepared. We talked to people, made friends, shared stories—nothing like tragedy to bring people closer together. The tremors came on and off, and then there were those in our heads—on stable ground now, all of us are still having dreams of earthquakes and tremors, obvious signs of the trauma just surfacing from under the adrenalin.

Sahil's parents had been in touch with the Indian Embassy via email (the phones were constantly engaged), and at 4 AM, shortly after we had been able to fall asleep, we got a call from someone at the Embassy—our names had been registered for evacuation, these were the numbers to call. 

The airport was packed, the Indian line snaking down the driveway. And in the domestic terminal that was dedicated to Indian evacuations, chaos would be an understatement. We can't praise the Indian Army and Air Force enough, but there are no words to describe our citizens' impatience, disrespect for authority and me-first attitude. The customs' officer distributing the departure forms was nearly lynched, and all of us (officials, wannabe passengers, et al) were at serious risk of dying in a stampede. 

We boarded our rescue plane on the evening of the 26th, bidding a sad farewell to and aching for beautiful Nepal, its lovely people and the greatness that was Kathmandu. On the way, Prabhat and Arti, Sahil and I decided not to return to Pune and Mumbai respectively, but to recuperate in our home in Goa. 

In Delhi, we were greeted by a representative of the Ministry of Home Affairs, who directed us to someone from the Maharashtra government. We were hosted at Maharashtra Sadan, and taken to the airport for our flight this morning. (Wow, I must say!)

Those who caught the first busses to the festival are still stranded at the venue outside Kathmandu, we hear on Facebook; Cilla's wedding has been postponed; my tattoo is done-enough to pass as complete (until we meet again, Fabrice). Oh Nepal!

It feels surreal, the froth-capped waves replacing the snow-capped mountains so soon after the fright and the adventure that we have had. As we talk over lunch at this beach shack, there are pensive pauses as each of us considers that there are those not as lucky as we have been.

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An edited version of this article appeared in Mumbai Mirror in May 2015. Read detailed accounts of our experience here and here.

As far as the incomplete tattoo went… Although my tattoo looked complete, it was only a third done. And although many recommended I left it as it was—in memory and because it was beautiful anyway!—I was eager to finish it.

I saw what had happened as symbolic of the things one sets out to do, in life, in general—shit gets in the way, but you still finish anyway, even if in a different, updated manner than first intended. So, I would wake up with vivid dreams of finishing the tattoo, and write impassioned messages to Fabrice.

Problem is, he lives in Germany. After much back and forth, we'd planned to meet at a convention in Delhi on December 3rd 2016... everything was done, his tickets and mine were booked. Then my grandfather passed away on the 1st, and our best-laid plans were waylaid. And we hadn't resumed our convo—2017 was chaos, for him and me.

In early December, scrolling on Facebook past midnight, I saw Fabrice was back in Delhi (where I was too, undercover). Excited, I wrote to him. In a great stroke of luck, my subject had somewhere to be in the morn and Fabrice’s appointment was cancelled.

So this chapter from Nepal closed two and a half years after it started. (Plus another impulse piece, for good measure!)

The Changing Idea of Knowledge

February 2015: Thoughts on the breath and depth of knowledge in the information age.

Last year, I finally completed my Master's in Literature. I'd started way back in 2006 but, midway, I became the editor of a magazine, and I never found the time to take my second-year exams. Not that I had much time when the exams dawned in April, my last chance to retain my (great) first-year score. Perhaps I shouldn't be admitting this but, considering I read the syllabus four days before they started, I did an MA-by-Wiki and by watching the movies made on the books I should have read.

Finish I did, and fabulously. And, while part of me is proud of my genius and is jumping for joy at having worked the system, this has also been bothering the jigyasu* in me no end. While I recognise awareness is not held in degrees or determined by exams, I wonder what knowledge, general and specific, means today.

GK: Who's To Say?

It brings me to a nugget of an idea that has stayed with me for years from, of all things, Bridget Jones's Diary (probably book). Bridget justifies not knowing a piece of common information by presenting a counterpoint—when there is so much information available to us, what is ‘general knowledge' anymore? I am reminded of this often: at a random get-together just the other day, two friends of mine met for the first time. X, an activist, started raging against Monsanto.

"What's Monsanto?" asked Y-the-fashion-writer.
"You don't know Monsanto?!" he replied aghast. It was a bit tense and judgemental, but the evening moved on.
Later that night, he decided to show us a video that he had recently chanced upon on YouTube. It was a homemade vid of a white girl rapping. "It's so cool," X said awestruck, "the way she's talking-singing so fast…"
"Erm, yeah, that's what rap is," said Y, "and this is not even good!"
And he said (I kid you not): "Rap?! What's that?"

In line with the criticisms of IQ tests, one must ask who determines general knowledge? What is relevant to whom? Today, when ‘do research' means ‘Google it', when we're bombarded with more information than we ever have been before, when our short-term memories are suffering from the lack of micro-moments, where does the Lowest Common Denominator of information lie? 

The Generation Gap

I'm 32, and I'm a digital immigrant who's an easy Internet (if not technology) user. I've been teaching post graduate students of mass media for seven years—when I started out, the students were three-ish years younger than me, now they're about 10.

It's been interesting to note how much more we know today about the Ice Bucket Challenge and the Kim-Kayne wedding than we do about boring ol' things like farmer suicides, electricity and education. While entertaining lifestyle news has always been a glittery lure away from ‘serious' issues, today, (instead of being relegated to P3 of your national newspaper, as it used to) in ‘trending' it tends to obliterate the less-glam issues. And there's a certain generation that gets all its news from peer interests and recommendations online…

There's also a lack of historicism that pervades this information age (gosh, I'm starting to sound old). As a New York Times piece pointed out, the realms of internet space being dedicated to Michelle Obama's "bold", "feminist", "revolutionary" headscarf-free attire in Saudi Arabia recently was a waste of our collective praise—it had been done by many female dignitaries before. But the current is too engaging to bother with the past, and other mundane things like history, research and fact…

And what is fact? Images speak louder than words, and between Photoshop and self-serving representations there's a whole lot of misinformation that's doing the rounds. I can't tell the students enough to verify all the information they get from the internet and seek out ‘authoritative' sources.

My broad observation: in the age of smartphones, it seems that the breath of our knowledge is a lot more than it was in previous generations (though it may not overlap the way it used to). We know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about very few. And you know what they say about a Jack-of-all-trades.

Living in a Bubble

Apart from the lure of the trending, social media has the potential to exacerbate our knowledge silos. Now, most people engage online with people similar to them in some way, or those they admire—all my close friends are liberal, educated, feminist, thinking people. And though I have a large online circle, these are the people I actually follow, those whose ideas I am engaging with (too much God-religion; any right-wing-ism, racism, anti-Semitism, Muslim-bashing; supporting guns; being homophobic… I'll unfriend/unfollow you straightaway).

If we made the mistake of only looking at our immediate friends' ideas, article-suggestions and knowledge as representative, we would all be living in our own respective rabbit holes, deeply disconnected from others with other types of worldviews who we encounter in daily life. (My feed is full of cute kitten videos, in case you're wondering.)

My answer to these current affairs issues is simple: read the newspaper. I read three actually, India's most popular dailies. This is a quick and easy way to keep you on a somewhat common ground, so to speak, connected with what's happening, ere you lose yourself in the worlds of 3QD (yes, first), The New Yorker and GQ, Rushdie, Buzzfeed and kitten videos, or whatever else floats your boat.

Exponentiality

While the internet enables plagiarism and cheating like never before, one of its greatest boons is the endless amount of inspiration it can provide, and the potential for seamless collaborations. Creativity grows exponentially if you let it, methinks, and having so much stimulus at ones fingertips keeps your neurons firing. It can make you lazy, if you let it, or very smart. You?

*Jigyasu: ­­­A Hindi word that means ‘a seeker of knowledge'.

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This column appeared on 3QD in February 2015.

Art Show: BeautyFull

I am co-creating the art show BeautyFull with Sahil Mane. All my work for the show can be found here.

Interview: Shraddha Kapoor

December 2014: For someone who’s only ever wanted to face the camera, the success of the past couple of years has been a dream come true. Shraddha Kapoor is riding the wave and soaking in all the love.

The cover of Women's Health.

I take in the view as I wait for Shraddha on this sunny Sunday afternoon, watching waves hit Silver Beach from the Kapoors’ seventh floor apartment in Juhu, Mumbai. She breezes in soon—wearing a smile, a comfy deep blue tee, Aztec-print beige jammies and thick-rimmed black glasses—and settles into a sofa placed under a portrait of her father.

It may be an obvious question to the daughter of a famous actor, but I ask it anyway. And she says yes, to be in the movies was always, always the plan. Even as a little girl, she’d act, dance and dress up for functions at school… “In fact,” she breaks off animatedly mid-sentence, “you must see this.” On her phone, she shows me what is obviously an early nineties’ picture of a school play—kids all dressed in pseudo-adult outfits, bright lipstick and rouge—and there she is, signing an autograph! “I was playing Madhuri Dixit. A friend shared this photograph with me yesterday, and I was like ‘Oh My God!’”

Yet, she spent two years at Boston University, majoring in psychology. “When you hear so much of ‘tu badi hokar heroine hi banegi’ (‘you are only going to be an actress when you grow up’), you want to rebel and swim against the tide. But deep in my heart I always knew this is the only thing I wanted to do.”

A Rare Love

Back on summer break, she started getting film offers. “I thought: I can either start acting after three more years or I can just do it now.” Parents Shakti Kapoor and Shivangi Kolhapure were very supportive, though they still try to coax her in to finishing her course, she says, calling herself a “dropout” (an endearing and misplaced concern for a star, methinks). It was her third film, the 2013 blockbuster Aashiqui 2 that catapulted her into stardom, the first of her hat trick.

Seeing “love in people’s eyes” is the “biggest high”, and has changed her whole life. “Fans don’t want anything from you… It’s even beyond art, it’s about catering to that unconditional love.” Social media allows them to give her direct feedback, and pleasing them colours everything she does—from the movies and roles she chooses to the her sartorial choices.

Though her personal style is “jhalli” and “bohemian” with Goa pyjamas, track pants and maxi skirts (similar to her Ek Tha Villain character and as she’s presently dressed), “I’ve been told that I should not be like this.” She now feels the responsibility to make an effort, and lately, since Tanya Ghavri’s become her stylist, has started to enjoy and embrace fashion more.

Her fans have also loved her subtle presence in the spectacular Haider. She had no reservations, despite it being an ensemble cast, the lack of a traditional hero-heroine equation, her small role and Tabu’s legendary one. Vishal Bharadwaj is a “ball of love who makes you feel like you have something special, makes you feel alive,” she says.

Given that, in India, an actor’s screen and public image is what people actually think of them as a person, I wonder whether this need-to-please will prevent Shraddha from playing darker characters. “I would keep that at the back of my mind—are the people watching going to be happy seeing me like this? Upset? Interested? Surprised?”

A Chance to Dance

She’s now doing Remo D’Souza’s ABCD2, and having an absolute blast. “I’ve been waiting to do a film in which I can dance. None of my films till now have had any big dances, and suddenly I get a movie where I only dance!” Everyone on the cast but Varun Dhawan and her is a professional dancer. “We’ve just been added to the group, and hope we fit in.” When she first saw the steps, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to do them until the dancers told her that, when she entered the hall, she had to stop thinking, just feel it and do it.

For this movie, she’s been on a meal plan designed by celebrity trainer Marika Johansson, who formulates a diet based on your problem areas and preferences, and delivers meals for the day each morning. She tries, but loves food, especially fried food. “Jalebis with hot milk is deadly!”

Her dermatologist too tells her to eat healthy and not to pick her pimples (“I get tempted”). She’s going through a “really bad skin phase” (I count three measly pimples) and is working on improving her skin. She doesn’t do much: drinks water and green tea, washes with a face wash and moisturises.

A Fresh New Year

It’s been two incredible, hectic years for Shraddha, and “2014 has been too fast!” She spent last New Year’s asleep in bed. During the holiday season this year, she’s expecting to be in Las Vegas shooting a schedule for ABCD2. They wrap on the 30th and the whole crew may stay back—“Sounds like fun to me!”

The revived trend of all-round performers in the film industry, a la stage, is exciting to this girl who asserts, “I love dancing as much as I love acting as much as I love singing.” This New Year, the lights will only get brighter, the stage, bigger, for this girl with a dream.

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An edited version of this interview was the cover story of Women's Health in December 2014. Read another interview of Shraddha Kapoor here.

Interview: Nargis Fakhri

November 2014: Life has been an unplanned adventure for the fun and feisty Nargis Fakhri, and she’s making the most of it, looking at the bright side and spreading some of her abundant joie de vivre.

The cover of Women's Health.

Laughter. It was the first thing I heard as I walked across the length of Suresh’s studio to where Nargis Fakhri sat getting her make-up done. And it would be the last thing I would hear when I left her interacting with the stylists readying her for the first shot, my own sides aching from laughing for the most part of an hour and a half.

There are multiplicities in Nargis that one cannot know to expect, no matter how much you’ve read about her or stalked her on Twitter. As her gorgeous face blossoms with make-up in to one that has the hormones of the nation aflutter, she’s sitting there in an old tee riddled with holes, a cartoon tiger in front, its backside at the back—“This is how I normally dress,” she says. 

“My friends say I’m an eight-year-old boy in a woman’s body.” While this eight-year-old is warm, keeps people around her in splits, does accents and finds farting really funny—“Like when you are in yoga class and someone bends down and lets out a fart, you just die laughing!”—Nargis is also abounding with deep wisdom, an empathetic old soul.

Travelling Beauty

This art major and a psychology minor from Queens, New York, started modeling so support her first love, travel. She has always enjoyed fashion, sees it as a way of creatively expressing ones individual self. She prefers androgynous styles, and, like a true New Yorker, the colour black is her favourite. “I don’t really like colourful stuff. Although everyone says ‘OMG, you look so beautiful in colour,’ I’m like, ‘Thanks, but I’d like the black dress please.’”

Looking good comes from the inside, for her, from genetics, of course, as well as from making healthy food and lifestyle choices. “I love fruits, sprouts and vegetables, and I prefer my veggies raw than cooked. I love eggs, have chicken once in a while.” She has cookies in her bag, leftover from what she bought the day before, that she brings out to share with the team. “Eat whatever you like in moderation. And get to know your body, certain foods don’t work with certain blood types.” Hers is AB, and modifying her diet according to her blood type has reduced the stomach problems she’s suffered all her life. She’s allergic to alcohol though she drinks on occasion, and is not supposed to have coffee (but she loves it and has it anyway) or too much meat protein.

She cooks her own food, preferring simple fried vegetables. “I eat asparagus, carrots and broccoli every single day, fried with a little bit of olive oil and salt.” Food is the secret to her skin too. “I do a peel once in a while, but haven’t had one in a long time because I just did an 11-day detox and my skin feels amazing. The truth is that you are what you what you put into your body.” She also works out, mixing an active life with lots of cardio, dancing, yoga and Zumba.

“Tai chi and yoga are great balancing exercises, because everything in life is about breath and we are not breathing properly. With fire breathing, you start burning calories just by breathing right.”

The Women's Health cover story.

The Journey of Life

She has spoken often of how surprising Rockstar was, how she had never been to India (she believes she has a karmic link to the country) or thought of being in the movies before she got the call to meet Imtiaz Ali for the role of Heer opposite Ranbir Kapoor. Who would have thought?

“Nobody would’ve thought. My friends back home laughed because all my life I was always ending up in random places meeting interesting people, and I think it’s just my openness to accepting whatever the universe gives me meant I didn’t deny anything. Why I’m here is because I took a chance.” Though when her mum saw Rockstar, she couldn’t stop laughing: “She said, ‘You should have done this when you were born, 'coz you were always yelling and crying an putting on a big show for nothing!’”

She travels across the world to shoot locations now, but “it’s not travelling, it’s work. Travelling is where you stay for three months, make friends and meet people, hang out and work a little bit.”

“I can be refined and classy when I need to be, and want to be a kid and have fun when I want to. If I saw a patch of grass I’d be like, come! I’d make everyone take their shoes off and roll around on the floor, which makes no sense to people but it is so liberating and rejuvenating.”

Finding Her Place

One can see why this free spirit who loves nature has had a tough time adjusting to the unexpected fame and lifestyle, and she’s only recently started to see the positive side and make peace with it. “A lot of introspection that has happened in the past three years, a big spiritual growth, and I’ve come to say: okay fine, everyone makes sacrifices for something that they want.”

Guided by a guru, she has become very spiritual, learning about alternative medicine, holistic healing, yoga, mediation, earthing. “I started realising that the reason people say I am so young-looking and have loving energy is because I am still always trying to connect with Mother Nature.”

As a child, what she wanted to do was to help people. “I’ve realised that you can use fame to bring awareness to different causes, and to inspire and motivate people.” She is harnessing an inner power, of having lived many lifetimes and a full life “that’s going to help me help myself and me to help others.”

A Means to an End

It could be the tiger (she was recently part of NDTV’s Save Our Tigers campaign) or children, the elderly or just regular people. She recently helped US-based Vishen Lakhiani, of the Mindvalley Foundation, with a campaign to raise 10 million dollars for education projects in developing nations.

This is one of the reasons she’s a quotable-quotes kind on social media, “cheesy” even, not this goofy a-joke-a-minute girl—“It’s a platform where I can be positive for other people.” (Besides, she feels that, culturally, people don’t get her personality here, and her humour doesn’t lend well to writing.) “It feels so good when you get an email saying, ‘You have changed my life and helped me’ or ‘I thought about suicide but you saved my life.’” She gets to meet a lot of people, and tries to be more positive than she is and as smiley as she can be, because the energy rubs off.

This is a lot of pressure. “Sometimes I’ll be having a bad day, or have my monthly woman stuff and people are harassing me for photos, and I just wanna say, ‘I am bleeding, leave me alone!’, but I try being the most positive I can be.”

She’s says this unselfconsciously, first qualifying that she doesn’t mean to be narcissistic: “I’m now that piece of coal that is going through the stress of being diamonised.” And I agree: with Nargis Fakhri, the best is yet to come.

NARGIS'S STORIES…
Some people tell her she should be a stand-up comic, but she believes no one gets her jokes.

On Romance
I’ve not had sex for god knows how long. How I wish my manager was a guy. It’s so funny because she and I are always working in the most beautiful, romantic places, having dinners together. One day we were walking through this beautiful hallway, perfect lighting, great mood, so I looked at her and asked, “Do you wanna hold hands?” She looked horrified and said, “No!” and ran off ahead of me. And I was like: “I am joking!”

On Housework
I love ironing. I have a weird fetish for ironing clothes, I iron my underpants and fold them nicely. I guess my maid gets upset because she then has nothing to do. She’s like, “Ma’am should I iron?” And I’m like, “No!” Then she looks at me really confused. Though I hate washing the dishes, and if I get married and I don’t live in India and have a maid, the guy has to wash the dishes. I will cook but I will not wash dishes; I will look at them and I will walk away. I have had dishes piled up for over a month with fungus growing on them, and I’m like, “I ain’t washing those.” And my then-boyfriend was like, “I ain’t either.” Eventually we had to do them together—I made him wash, I dried.

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An edited version of this interview was the cover story of Women's Health in November 2014.

Interview: Ileana D'Cruz

October 2014: She may be one of the South’s biggest superstars and rising fast in the Hindi film industry, yet Ileana D'Cruz keeps it real, knows what’s important and doesn’t sweat the small stuff.

The cover of Women's Health.

Fresh-faced Ileana D’Cruz is quick to bust the myth that looking superstar-good comes easy, even for someone as naturally pretty as her. She’s in the middle of a shot, music blaring, when I arrive at Studio 8 at Bandra’s Mehboob Studios, and I notice how uber particular she is about the angle she presents and how carefully she goes through the shots on Arjun’s computer. (“I have a big arse,” she tells me later.)

That beauty is beyond the skin-deep for Ileana, more than the make-up, cosmetics and the Photoshop, is the first thing she establishes when we settle into her vanity van for our chat: “A happy woman is a beautiful woman. Being a happy person within makes you a beautiful person.”

Beauty & Body

We talk about her skin and body anyway—it’s such a big part of her profession, plus she’s the new Pond’s Girl. “I’d like to say that I do it all by myself, but I don’t. I’d like to say it’s easy, but it isn’t!” she says honestly. Dermatologist Dr Jayshree Sharad, whose book Skin Talks Ileana has been tweeting about, manages her skin; she works out “like crazy” with celebrity fitness trainer Yasmin Karachiwala, doing Pilates and crunches—for two hours a day (sometimes three), at eight in the morning, every single day!

She isn’t on a very strict diet, just moderates her food and tries her best to stay away from unhealthy stuff, having a little rice and sometimes a little dessert. “The time I went on a very strict diet, and cut out carbs and sugar, I really shrunk. Crash diets don’t work, nor are they healthy.”

“Sex was probably made to keep you in shape. And it’s pleasurable, so why not?!”

Luckily, she doesn’t really have a sweet tooth: “But when I’m PMSing, I crave sugar to another level… sometimes, I wonder what’s going to happen when I get pregnant, this is just PMS!”

Family First

Apart from her fear that she’s going to “bloat like a balloon” when she gets pregnant (she’s already been looking up on how to get ones body in shape after a baby), Ileana can’t wait to have kids. Family is very important to her, and she lives down the road from one of her three siblings, her older sister whose son’s pictures she’s always posting on Instagram. “We are all very close. I still cry when I miss my Mum,” who’s in Houston where Ileana’s brother and sister are studying; Dad’s in Goa. “My sister and I catch up. I babysit when I’m not working. We always do things together, and keep making calls to Mum.” This keeps her a little disconnected, and is probably why she doesn’t have many friends in the industry. “There are a few who I am quite fond of and who I trust. But it has always been family for me.”

Ileana was born in Bombay, and when she was nine or ten, her mother moved with the kids to a small under-construction house in Goa. “Dad was still working in Bombay. My mum did everything single-handedly—she got the house up, she got the water running, she got the power going.” She recalls them having to put buckets on the terrace to collect rainwater. “It was really hard initially.” So it bothers her when people say that she’s lucky, that she’s got everything: “You cannot take anyone or their journey for granted.”

Despite the meager money, those were amazing, untouched, innocent times, the “happiest days” of her life. “Some days we’d put mattresses on the terrace and would fall asleep, and wake up in the morning with squirrels running around.”

In Her Skin

When the opportunity came her way, borne out of a meeting with Marc Robinson arranged by a colleague of her mother’s, Ileana was initially reluctant to be in front of the camera. “When I was in my early teens, I was really rowdy, a tom-boy running around, climbing trees, catching frogs. But when I got to college, I became really shy, I wasn’t sure of myself.”

And, like all of us, Ileana was very self-conscious about her body. “The boys would say ‘She’s so fat, look at her big arse!’” Now she’s proud of it—“Men like big booty!”—and, inevitably, our conversation turns to the video, Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’. “Oh my god,” she says astounded. “I mean, where did they get arses that big… I thought mine was big but that’s huge!”

It was her family who encouraged, inspired her to seize the day. (Inspiration is a big theme in her life, and she has the Latin ‘Inspirare’ tattooed onto the inside of her wrist.) As her confidence grew, she began enjoying her work and getting good at it. And she’s learnt to dress for her body, sticking to silhouettes in black, burgundies, deep wines, dark blue and bottle green, irrespective of fashion trends.

Filmstardom

She’s been part of the South and Hindi film industries (but doesn’t like being called a ‘star’). They’re different, she says. For one, the South is way more mass market. The actors’ involvement is lot less, sans script meetings; there aren’t emotional or promotional aspects to films. Plus, she doesn’t know the languages. “It’s really quick, which is why I have done so many films there, probably four in a year.”

Barfi, Anurag Basu’s 2012 masterpiece marked her entry in to Hindi films. “It took me three months to decide if I wanted to do it or not.” At that time, she had really big offers coming from the South. Here, there were Ranbir and Priyanka, and she even didn’t get the guy in the end. Plus, there was a clause in the contract that allowed the director to do away with her role.

Leading cinematographer and debutant director Ravi K Chandran, who also straddles the South and Hindi film industries, and has recently shot Ileana for the Pond’s commercial (“stunning—lovely skin, nice smile, gorgeous eyes”), understands her fears. “She’s a very big star in the South, especially in the Telugu industry. Every hero, every director wants to work with her.”

It was a big risk—that’s paid off, she thinks, despite the flop (Phata Poster Nikla Hero, 2013) and semi-hit (Main Tera Hero, April 2014) that have followed. “As much as I loved working in the South, I got into a very comfortable zone. I needed the change.” Happy Ending, scheduled for a November 2014 release, has her playing an author alongside Saif Ali Khan, Govinda, Ranvir Shorey and Kalki Koechlin.

She says that, although she loves her work, it is not her life. “Most of them make it their life and an obsession,” she says about fellow actors, “but for me, while I love it, it’s great, it’s exciting, I can do without it. The minute you get too attached, it is going to bring you down.”

It’s no wonder that she has such a healthy equation with this capricious career. Her father is famous for having told a reporter that he would rather have her home, living a normal life, instead of working 18 stressful hours a day; early in her career, her mother yelled at a director who kept Ileana hungry all day and then marched her off the set.

The Women's Health cover story.

At Home

“I’m a real homebody,” Ileana declares. Unusually, she has no household help, and cooks, cleans and runs her home all by herself. “I like the fact that people tell me I am crazy in the industry. For me, this is just a way of staying grounded.”

She’d be a couch potato if she could, watching cooking shows on TV all day. She’s always experimenting with food, and bakes a lot, desserts, donuts and pizzas (all of which she sends to her sister). While she likes sketching, her true love is singing (her Twitter profile says she’s a “professional bathroom singer”), which she would pursue was she not “terrified of rejection”.

I ask her about her relationship (she’s said to be dating Australian Andrew Kneebone). “I’ve never been really open about it. I just feel it is really unfair to my partner, because he becomes part of the media, which can be too offensive and aggressive.” When the time is right, she’ll tell the world. For now, “As long as my family knows, that’s all that matters.”

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An edited version of this interview was the cover story of Women's Health in October 2014.