Interview: Shraddha Kapoor

October 2015: A dreamer, a learner, a doer. The multitalented actress Shraddha Kapoor seeks to be everything she is not.

The cover of Harper's Bazaar.

She’s sitting in exactly the same place—on a sofa under a portrait of her father, in the Kapoors’ apartment facing Silver Beach in Juhu, Mumbai—as she was when we last spoke. She’s in give-a-damn clothes as before, a long-sleeved deep blue tee, skinny jeans, and laceless ankle boots in deep tan, with not a hint of make-up.

But I instantly sense something fundamental has changed about—evolved in—Shraddha Kapoor in the past year.

Once she starts talking, nineteen to the dozen, it’s not hard to figure out what it is. As a “creative, curious person,” she has always wanted to “have as many life experiences as possible” and to be in films. She hails from a family of performers and has always been a talented all-round one herself—she’s studied theatre, Kathak, Odissi, street jazz, and even the piano for 10 years! Now, watching her dreams dovetailing and coming true, making a mark with four hits in a six-film career, this 26-year-old seems to have gained a deep confidence and is emanating a powerful creative energy.

Although I’d met her last after her performance in the fabulous Haider, she is only now embracing the self-assurance of success and recognition. “When my first two films didn't do well, I was really shaken. You know how terrible it feels when you have failures.”

However, she feels more than fortunate now. “Everyday I have a moment of realisation that I am just so blessed to be getting the opportunities I’m getting.” There’s the travelling, of course. Director Mohit Suri got her to sing Galliyan for Ek Villain, during which she also got to relive her passion for scuba diving in the underwater sequence. “For ABCD2, Varun (Dhawan) and I got a chance to dance with the country’s best professional dancers. Who gets such a chance?”

She says her passions are intertwining, and she has the best job in the world. And she’s throbbing with inspiration. But there is also the awareness that it’s fleeting, that a Friday hit/flop can determine your standing and how people treat you.

So she’s seizing these chances wholeheartedly, keeping her nose to the grindstone and giving each one her best. And it shows—Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN wrote about the “sheer hard work” of ABCD2’s leads: “Both actors hold their own against the professionals without losing face.” Rani Mukherjee also recently told Kapoor that her hard work could be seen in every shot. Dhawan, a childhood friend, too comments on her dedication, calling her “a go-getter, someone who wants to get better and better.” She thinks these are the best kind of compliments to get.

Kapoor is also a believer in “the power of the universe”, that the universe will conspire to make something you truly want happen. “That’s what I really feel every day.” Take, for instance, Rock On!! 2, her upcoming project for which she’s been at band rehearsals all day at Yash Raj Studios. She remembers watching the first instalment with her family when it was released eight years ago, and being so blown away by the movie that she thought, “I must be really crazy to think this… but if they make a Rock On!! 2, I have to be in it.” And here she is, playing a singer in the movie, singing her own songs, playing the piano, alongside most of the original cast (“Oh My God!”) and some other biggies. She can barely contain herself.

Another project in the pipeline is Baaghi: A Rebel for Love, an action-romantic film opposite Tiger Shroff. They’ve just shot one song thus far—“I had to dance in five-inch heels while Tiger was doing his spins and flips, not fair,” she mock-complains, laughing. She leaves for Kerala the day after this interview to shoot for the latter, then to Shillong for the former.

Kapoor likes the excitement of changing skins, hair, make-up, and looks between characters, doing different roles. Since Tanya Ghavri’s become her stylist, she’s also been exploring her relationship with fashion in a deeper way. Though her personal style was “bohemian”, she now enjoys couture for events and magazine covers.

With a life so full of loves and passions—including Instagram and Snapchat that she now prefers to Twitter—I ask her what she thinks of love, the romantic kind. “I am open to it. I feel like love can come, spring up on you and surprise you at anytime.” It’s clearly not a priority though (“What is Tinder?”), and she’s not seeking. “I need to work on my skills, explore my passions. If it has to happen it will happen, if it doesn’t, it’s fine. I have my other loves that I am happy with.”

She reveals that she also writes, incidentally, and has been doing so since she was little. What about? “I write what I’m feeling and to capture my day. I just write to remember my experiences when am older.” She recently reread her last entry as a 19-year-old, about all the flowers and excitement of turning 20… “It’s so interesting to go back to that.” Does she rewatch her performances as well? “No, surprisingly, not since their screenings! I’m waiting to do so,” she says, wondrously aware that the benchmarks in her personal journey are public ones, frozen in celluloid for eternity.

“She has really grown,” says Dhawan. “People thought she was over, and now look at her—she’s shown everyone who Shraddha Kapoor is.”

On her part, Kapoor says, “You have one life, and you want to try and do whatever you can do in it. Why not? Whether you are good at it or suck at it or are great at it—that’s a different story.” Carpe diem.

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An edited version of this interview was the cover story of Harper’s Bazaar in October 2015. Read another interview of Shraddha Kapoor here.

Are You Your Own Worst Critic?

August 2015: This media environment perpetuates a lack of self-esteem and feelings of envy in all aspects of your life, from beauty to romance, money and lifestyle. Is your self-perception in need of a shot of positivity?

Beautiful. Rich. Thin. Famous. Happy. Loved. Holidaying. Everyone is—going by the sparkly adverts on TV and in the glossies, the fairy-tale lives of stars and socialites in the gossip columns and on Page 3, and the Facebook posts of that detested school prefect. Everyone but you, that is. Or so it seems.

The ‘Perfect’ Myth

With advances in the internet, photography, advertising and technology, we’re consuming more media and advertising than ever before. Unrealistically stunning models sell impossible dreams—some tea in high towers, others bottles of creams.

And then, unwittingly or not, you’re in. We internalise these ‘idealised’ standards and are impacted by them. We are sucked into the vortex of this vicious cycle in our own thoughts and actions, at once victims and perpetuators of this myth.

Are You a Victim?

We’ve started to undervalue the beauty in ourselves and our lives, and some of us find it hard to see the beauty in ourselves at all. It’s time to evaluate if your self-perception is, indeed, skewed.

* Do you find the need to live up to the Jones’s, unable to count your blessings?
* Do you feel everyone’s doing better than you?
* Do you compare your post-baby body to Malaika Arora’s or your cellulite-ridden thighs to the gap between Kate Moss’s? Or, worse, a friend on Facebook?
* Do you evaluate your acne and aging on the basis of celebrities’ flawless skins?
* And, on social media, do you compare the likes and comments on your page to the number on others’?
* Do you suffer from Social Media Anxiety Disorder?

Don’t worry, you are not alone.

What is SMAD?

Coined by cyber-relations expert Julia Spira in her book The Rules of Netiquette, it explores the guidelines of interacting in the digital world. Here’s part of her checklist to know if you've got SMAD.

1. You’re addicted to your cell phone
2. You become anxious if you send a tweet to someone and they don't @reply to you within six hours
3. You keeping checking for likes and shares on a photo you uploaded on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or other photo-sharing sites, even if no one is liking or sharing it
4. You get upset if the number of your Twitter followers drops

But Wait a Minute…

This, despite knowing, as we all do, that all that glitters ain’t really diamond-crusted gold?! Here are some things for you to remember:

* Photoshop! Photoshop! Photoshop!

Let’s put it this way—unless you’re in the media, it’s safe to assume that image manipulation, popularly known as Photoshop, is more widespread than you think, however wide you think it is. As people in the media, we are used to assuming that everyone knows the models in advertisements are unrealistically stunning because, well, they aren’t real—everyone looks great with makeup, studio lights, a great photographer and that insidious little monster called Photoshop. Agrees celebrity dermatologist Dr Rashmi Shetty, “We think image manipulation is common knowledge, but it isn’t.” And this is in cities with literate people consuming mainstream English media that contains articles like this one from time to time.

First of all, let the name not fool you, it’s not only still images that are manipulated, even videos are. Yup, that’s how Angelina Jolie manages plays all sorts of roles despite her tattoos in real life.

Increasingly, it is applied to more images and videos than you know. From apps that allow you to edit camera-phone pictures and video on the spot, to high-end retouching agencies working on every single advertising and editorial image and video you see. And it can do more things than you’d imagined. If they could create Harvey Dent without actually burning off half of actor Aaron Eckart’s face, what’s a little leg elongation and bust enhancement?

“Most people have never met a star face-to-face, so assume that’s what they look like in real life. Naturally this will impact the way women look at themselves,” says Dr Shetty. So the next time you compare your butt to Nicki ‘Anaconda’ Minage’s, remember to chant ‘Photoshop! Photoshop! Photoshop!’

* You’re Being Made to Feel This Way

Consumerism thrives in the chasm between have and want, am and should be. It breeds in insecurity, seeking to define your happiness through that next bag, that perfect body, that luxury holiday, that next dream.

Multinational corporations’ dollars influence social standards and fan your insecurities, and so it is bloody hard to “keep your head when those around you are losing theirs”, to quote that famous poem. You’d have to a sanyasi in a cave to not to get affected by standards of beauty, wealth, body type, success, happiness and lifestyle all around.

* There’s No Such Thing as a Fairy Tale

Just as we’ve grown up dreaming of happily-ever-afters in a romantic sense, we’ve also dreamt of a ‘perfect’ life. It isn’t, neither yours nor anyone else’s.

Notice how some friends on social media get active only while on European holidays, tagging this and Instagramming that, nary mentioning the mundanity of their daily office jobs, or the many late nights, stress, heartbreak and missed Sports’ Days it took to save up for those trips. Notice how mother-baby pictures always reflect only the joy, the knee-length under-eye circles, sleepless nights, post-baby weight and other challenges of real-life motherhood all glossed over. And happy couple pictures show no hint of either the farting or the fighting!

It is no wonder that we, women in particular but also people in general, are comparing and contrasting ourselves with an artificial idea of ‘normal’, to the perpetually perfect persona that most of us formulate online. Not that I’m recommending you or your friends all become social-media whiners and bores instead. But, realise that, just as you don’t always post your private troubles and have a propensity towards only taking pictures in happy moments, everyone else is doing so too.

And, let’s not forget that we’re all mostly photo-chronicling the moments where we look our best—made-up for parties or weddings. Just as your out-of-bed look isn’t as great as your party one, your friends don’t always look that good!

As long as you’re aware if this big increase-envy, reduce-self-esteem downside of social media, you’ll be able to better enjoy its many positives.

On social media, we all perpetuate the myth of the perpetually perfect persona.

More Help at Hand!

Many art and media projects have been addressing the effects of photography, advertising, media and social media on culture and women. Beyond seeing pictorial comparisons before-and-after makeup and Photoshop, and uncensored celebrities’ candids (wrinkles, et al), these projects will help you feel better about your looks and life…

Must read: The Beauty Myth

Long before the media exploded like it has today, American feminist author Naomi Wolf, in her iconic 1991 work The Beauty Myth, wrote about the damaging effects of the obsession with physical perfection. Modern women’s insecurities are heightened by unrealistic images and the corresponding societal and internal expectations, then exploited by the diet, cosmetic and plastic surgery industries, trapping them in an endless spiral of self-consciousness, hope and self-hatred. It impacts all areas of life—work, religion, sex, violence and hunger.

Although the book is almost a quarter century old and based in America, it nevertheless rings deep and true for the Indian woman of today. A true eye-opener, it will never leave you.

Must watch: What's On Your Mind?

“Facebook can be depressing because everyone else's lives are better than yours... But are they really?” reads the introduction to this short video that’s been viewed over a million times since it was uploaded a year ago. Created by the HigtonBros, it compares a man’s real life and his parallel one on Facebook, and his friends’ responses to them.

What’s On Your Mind? strikes a universal cord, and is two and a half minutes very well spent.

Must watch: Killing Us Softly

Jean Killbourne’s Killing Us Softly series focuses on the impact advertising has on the way women view ourselves, and the way men view us. She explores how the concept of ideal female beauty, absolute flawlessness achieved through make-up and Photoshop, impacts women’s self esteem. And since women’s body language in ads is usually passive and vulnerable, it propagates an unhealthy idea of ‘normal’. It changes the way men feel about the very real women in their lives, and the objectification and dismemberment of women’s bodies and passive body language creates an increasingly “toxic cultural environment” that propagates violence.

You will find yourself nodding along with Killbourne as she explains her ideas with relevant pictures in a series of presentations, and will come away with a deeper understanding of the world around you.

Must see: BeautyFull

Concerned about the impact of the photography and media eruption has on society, culture and women in India, photographer Sahil Mane started his art-ivism project BeautyFull in 2013, inspired by the writings of his wife, yours truly.

“The steady diet of images creates a homogenous ‘normal’ and idealised (and fake) ‘beauty’,” he says. Though the show, he seeks to dispel the idea of an ideal beauty, and hopes to “empower men and women with the realisation that there are as many beautifuls as there are people.” While the project will eventually lead to a photo-art show, it has so far involved public performances in various places including the Kala Ghoda Arts Fest this year. Here, Sahil and I invited people to participate in a few photo and video performance art pieces, spanning skin tone, beauty treatments, image manipulation and ‘The Tootsie Experiment’, where men confronted the standards of female beauty they subconsciously carried.

Some Things to Think About

As with all things, balance and self-awareness are key to beating the negative impacts of the images and messaging we’re all always consuming today.

As with everything from plastic surgery to fashion, the balance one has to strike is between whether you’re doing it to improve yourself, be the best you can be, or because you’re doing it for or trying to look like someone else. Does the urge originate from comparison or from within?

Dr Shetty observes that those who don’t go overboard or have unrealistic aesthetic expectations are those who seek treatments for themselves—“These people tend to treat a wrinkle or a blemish as any other problem that needs solving.” And why not, she asks. “Like you keep your house clean, wear certain clothes… if you want to look good, great. Do it for yourself.”

And about the envy-inducing lives of others, ponder on the word ‘sonder’, from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: ‘the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.’

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An edited version of this article appeared in Good Housekeeping in August 2015.

Shahid-Mira, The Age-old Age Question

July 2015: Is there something creepy about an age gap as vast as their 13 years?

I’m no Bollywood fan, nor star crazy or anything of the sort. But try as I might, I haven’t been able to escape all the little details about the 'private' affair that was Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput’s wedding. All over the internet and in the papers, I’ve been force-fed oh-so-important nuggets of information (the bride comes with Anamika Khanna, Anita Dongre and Masaba Gupta in her trousseau; the groom refused to sport mehendi at the ceremony). Aside from concerns about how we are increasingly becoming a celebrity culture, the little piece of information that’s really been troubling me is their age gap. More specifically, the age of the bride.

My husband, who’s two years younger than me, and I have a running inside joke. We call it the ‘Pygmalion Project’, after the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, which, in turn, is based on the Greek story of a sculptor by the same name who decided to create a sculpture of the perfect woman. My Fair Lady, the classic film is based on the play.

Anyway, in the film and the play, an older man, Professor Henry Higgins teaches and moulds a poor younger woman, Eliza Doolittle into a high-society girl. So whenever I give Sahil lots of gyan about something or the other (and vice versa), he’s my ‘Pygmalion Project’ (and I his). In seriousness, we also use the term to describe couples we know or know of who have a skewed power dynamic and experience gap between them. Like in my first marriage.

When I was younger, I gathered that it was important to marry young. “The older you get, the more set in your ways you get; it’s harder to adjust to a partner,” was the refrain I would hear. And I did! I married a 31-year-old when I was 19, and that didn’t work out so well.

I don’t think the problem was the age gap—I know some perfectly happy couples with many years between them. The problem was me: how young I was, how little I knew myself, how well he knew himself, and the corresponding clashes as I grew.

Today, the very reason touted in favour of marrying young is the one I use to recommend marrying later in life. (I’m using the word to mean ‘finding a long-term partner’, the legality/sociocultural aspect of ‘marriage’ aside.) It’s important to grow up, know who you are, find yourself, travel, live, fuck, etc, before you decide to commit to a lifetime with one person, especially if the person is much older. And conventional (as Shahid is known to be).

If the pattern in his long list of past relationships with female actresses, as reported by the media, is anything to go by, Mr Kapoor cannot handle his women being more successful than himself. He also seems to suffer from the dichotomy of the typical Indian male—wanting ‘hot’ girlfriends but a ‘good’ wife. (In this case she’s selected by the family, so double points, yay!) To make matters worse, he’s the rich and famous ‘catch’ in the relationship.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish them ill any more than I do any random couple I’ve never met. They look happy enough. I just hope he respects her and treats her as an equal, and supports her career if she wants one, no matter that it pales against his. And that he lets her grow, not like as vine around his path and personality, but as an individual in her own right.

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

Congratulating Sapna Bhavnani

July 2015: All praise for her speaking out about being gang raped in the viral Humans of Mumbai post.

They say there are two reasons one keeps secrets—because something is private or because something is wrong. Over the years, I find that secrets play an increasingly insignificant role in my life. Because, in my quest to have/be an ‘integrated personality’ (my friend Jordyn’s term for being the same person in all situations while responding to context, of course), I’ve been seeking to dispel the ‘private’ and reduce doing—and creating secrets of—things that I consider ‘wrong’.

In one aspect, Sapna’s and my views on secrets differ. “It took me 20 years to voice my incident, but for me a woman keeping it all within her because she has no other choice isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s a mark of strength and something we need to start respecting,” she says in her viral Humans of Mumbai post about being gang raped at 24. To my mind, the “no other choice” bit of the sentence contradicts the ‘silence is a mark of strength’ assertion, but I’m going to let that slide. At this point, I cannot compliment Ms Bhavnani enough.

Though she and I know each other and say hello when we see each other at parties, we’re not friends or anything. I’ve always admired her spunk, from the time she was writing those Sex and The City-style columns in Mumbai Mirror back in the day. Over the years I’ve watched her become increasingly activistic on Facebook where we are connected, stray cat this and village that, making the shift away from Bollywood that had claimed her for a brief moment. Then there was her role in the evocative play Nirbhaya…

And now this. Her post is a win in so many ways, big and small.

There’s the casual back-at-ya censure of society for labelling a 14-year-old a "whore" for talking to boys, driving motorcycles and smoking; and the contrast with Western freedoms. There’s the appropriation of the word ‘whore’, loud and proud.

Most important is her assertion that she never let the incident break her spirit.

One of the many problems with Indians’ attitudes towards rape is the exaggerated ‘haaaaw’ that society reserves for survivors. Even when it’s well-meaning: there were those who said it was good Jyoti Singh Pandey died, whatever would the poor thing do without her honour if she had survived?!

Don’t get me wrong: being raped is a terrible thing to happen to someone, raping someone is one of the worst things you can do. But victims of sexual violence left with no permanent physical damage could well choose to deal with the emotional scars by brushing the incident off as just another stick in the hole, no permanent physical damage done, big deal.

I have. Sapna took a (deeply symbolic) shower, and then pushed the incident to the back of her mind. This is not an option for women in environment where there are permanent social repercussions to reinforce the momentousness of that moment—as though your own emotional and physical trauma wasn’t enough.

Unlike most victims of sexual violence who internalise blame, it appears that Sapna kept the rape secret because it was private, and not because she felt she was in the wrong.

“I still wear short dresses and the brightest red on my lips,” she says, standing out as a beacon of hope. Yes, there can be—and is—life after rape. (Or anything else for that matter. As Jung said, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.")

I’m glad she’s said it, after “keeping it all within her” all this while, and for the number of people it’s reached. I scroll down her Timeline and, 10 minutes of scrolling later, I’m still only seeing the flood of congratulatory messages  (filled with words like "inspiration", "hero") coming her way about this post.

Here’s mine.

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

Why Liberals Should Wear Our Hearts On Our Sleeves

July 2015: #selfiewithdaughter & #lovewins: despite the criticisms, these two campaigns are social media wins.

These past few days, I’ve been reading a number of updates, tweets and comments, and having a number of conversations about both, #selfiewithdaughter, and #celebratepride and #lovewins. There are those going yay-yay, there are those going nay-nay. But, you know what, I’m a yay-yay.

One could argue that the selfie culture is only skin deep, and that there is a lot of more meaningful work left to be done on the governance and policy level—“how can you have a #selfiewithdaughter campaign but at the same time not criminalise marital rape in India, saying that it’s a ‘personal issue’ that is sensitive and so the government doesn’t want to take a stand?” asks Ishita. Shruti Seth asked the PM to “try reform”, and got trolled for it by blind Modi bhakts.

And one could say that love has only won in America, take a chill-pill Indians, we’re still in the dark ages, far from decriminalising gay sex, let alone celebrating gay marriage.

These criticisms are all true and, as someone deeply involved with gender and equal rights issues, I am well aware of all the work left to be done on both these fronts.

But I am also aware of how skin-deep the world is at the moment, where all that glitters is seen as gold. We see the negatives of this every day—from men and women who base standards of beauty on airbrushed images to the damage caused to Australian treasurer Joe Hockey’s reputation by headlines and tweets that proclaimed ‘Treasurer for sale’ (he isn’t corrupt, the stories were about a fundraising activity and he’s since won a defamation case against Fairfax Media).

It’s also interesting to explore the definition of ‘liberal’. Many of us liberals have been content with living and letting live, ‘your rights end where my feelings begin’, a social laissez faire. Increasingly (and ironically) though, it has become important to fight for the right to be oneself (and to let others be themselves), to be left in peace unless you’re hurting something other than ‘culture’. Militant upholders of mainstream culture and religion—those that propagate ideas against daughters and gay people—are pretty proud and loud, in case you haven’t noticed. Too blatant and outspoken about your liberal ideas? You’re a ‘sickular’ bitch who must be jailed.

In this environment, then, it is important to declare ones support for ones ideas, if marching on the streets is not for you. So when we take and propagate #selfiewithdaughter and make our profile pictures rainbow-coloured, we’re aligning ourselves with our beliefs, even if the expression is skin-deep, frothy and feel-good. We’re counting ourselves (and being counted as) people who believe in women’s and gay rights, even if (especially since) they aren’t yet constitutionally and socially guaranteed, even if it is armchair activism. We’re declaring that we want a certain type of world, even if we’re not actively going and seeking it. We’re coming out of the closet with our counter-culture beliefs, even if, in the former case, it propagated by the same government that is simultaneously regressive.

I’ve never been one to follow the ‘if you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all’ adage. In this case, though, may I recommend that, if you are indeed a believer in women’s and gay rights (human rights, really), please keep the hole poking of these feel-good campaigns to yourself. There are enough regressives out there doing just that, for motives more sinister than yours.

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

Interview: Parineeti Chopra

July 2015: For Parineeti Chopra, being fit is waking up fresh in the morning. Once carrying 90 kg on her petite 5’6” frame, she discusses her weight-loss journey, and newfound love for fitness and health as she flaunts her toned new bod.

The cover of Women's Health.

"Body con at its best! Body con at its best!" she yells excitedly as she emerges from the dressing room in what is her fourth change of the shoot. The dress is bright red, perfectly offsetting her creamy complexion, and figure hugging to show off her new fit frame. Her body language is confident and casual; she’s smiley, friendly and chatty, her language peppered with casual expletives… every bit as “real” as co-star Arjun Kapoor says she is. 

She’s in jeggings and an aquamarine tee, her hair in a high pony when she sits opposite me for our chat. Some things have changed for Parineeti in the year since we interviewed her last. For one, she's gone from being a person who wasn’t into labels and designerwear to someone who has grown to appreciate them. “Saying I will only wear this brand or that, to be ‘branded’ at all times doesn't come naturally to me. But I’m a sucker for quality, I literally stretch clothes to test them, and you can see the difference in cut and quality with good brands.” Having said that, her staple clothing is still gunjis and shorts, and loose shapeless t-shirts. And she’s still not going to spend three lakhs on a dress—the investment-banker-turned-actress says she “would rather pay an EMI or buy something more substantial!”

The biggest change though, is that she’s acquired a new, if belated, interest in fitness.

The Unlikely Actress

Despite cousin Priyanka’s movie-star status, Parineeti was “never influenced”, and, growing up in Ambala, Haryana, only ever wanted to be an investment banker. Upon her return to India after graduating from Manchester Business School in the 2009 recession, she landed a job in the marketing department of Yash Raj Films. Here, she fell in love with acting, decided to give it a shot, signed a three-film deal with the YRF banner… and the rest, as they say, is history. Six films later, here she is.

Being an actor sure feels good, and she loves performing, being in front of the camera. But there are many things that come with it that she doesn't enjoy so much—the lack of private life, too much scrutiny, too many cooks in your life. “There are so many elements, from the team of people to the fans, that contribute to you as an actor and as a brand—those can be slightly high pressure.” She admits to having no idea about the behind-the-scenes aspects of the business when she first faced the camera.

Kapoor reminisces about their film, Habib Faisal’s 2012 hit Ishaqzaade, which was his first and her first in a lead role. Despite a tumultuous start, they became and stayed friends. “I don’t think that equation can change, especially with your first co-star. Because, for what it’s worth, they know all your insecurities, strengths, weaknesses, flaws and issues because you've faced the camera together at such a vulnerable time in your life.”

Had she known earlier in life that she wanted to be an actress, she would have been more prepared for this journey, she says. “Even if you’re making an omelette, there are more failures if you don’t know what you’re doing.” She’s learnt everything on the job, growing in the eye of the camera. It, and audiences at large, has also been privy to her weight-loss journey.

Motivation from Without

She’s pleasantly plump in Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl (2011), but seems to have gotten steadily fitter since. “I was always a lazy person, never a sportswoman, and it led me to be obese in university,” Parineeti discloses. Even when she was 90 kg, she never considered herself unfit or fat. “Most people who are unhealthy or unfit don't consider themselves so. The brain switches off. I would eat like it's no ones business; I had no stamina, no health, the worst skin, the worst hair… I was one podgy person!”

Motivation to lose weight came in fits and starts. Her weight dropped owing to her busy lifestyle when she got to Mumbai, and the compliments that began coming her way drove her to join the gym. Since she doesn’t like the gym, that didn’t last, and she yo-yoed. Being offered her first film got her inspired again: “‘Okay, now I’m an actress, I’ve got to do this,’ I said to myself.”

But it never really came as a calling from inside.

Fitness Bug

Until the start of this year, that is. Like her love for acting, there wasn’t an ‘Aha!’ moment when she acquired the fitness bug, they both came through “slow catharses”.

It started with wanting to become thin: she wasn’t fitting in to her jeans, didn’t like the way she was looking in pictures and was always trying to camouflage her fat. “But now it’s beyond the aesthetics. I have to feel healthy, fit and energetic no matter what I may look like.”

As she gets bored easily and has “spent 26 years without any exercise”, she’s taking it slow and doing what she enjoys. She does one-on-one hour-and-a-half classes with a trainer 15-20 days in the month, alternating between martial arts like kalaripayattu, yoga, weights, the gym and dancing. “It’s informal; she comes to where I am—either home, the YRF gym or a dance hall—and we will do whatever we feel like that day.” It helps that she’s had the time to focus on her fitness this year, while perusing scripts and meeting directors before zeroing in on her next projects.

“Fitness simply means having no fatigue when I wake up in the morning. If I don’t wake up fresh, I know something’s wrong—it may be that I’m unfit or I’ve eaten wrong the previous day or I’ve not worked out.”

While she’s not on a conventional diet, she follows a food plan based on allergy and intolerance tests conducted abroad. She doesn’t reveal details, but explains it as such: “I’ve been told that there are these foods that don’t agree with me. I’m allowed to eat everything else whenever I want.” There are no set rules: just lots of water and no eating after 7 PM. “I eat biryani casually because rice is apparently good for me.”

I ask Kapoor, who met her only a few days ago, what he thinks of her newborn interest in fitness, and he insists it must have been there all along. “Once you become an actor you do take care of your body, if only subconsciously. I just think she's become more aware of the finer details of how to take care of it and her health. With time and age you have to become increasingly conscious of your body because that's your most important tool.”

The diet and exercise is working, she believes. (Kapoor and I agree.) “I feel so much better! I love the changes in my body. My skin, hair, nails all feel great.” Will this newfound passion last? “Oh yeah,” Parineeti says emphatically. “Once it comes from within, it stays. Your body feels so good that you know you can’t let this go.”

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An edited version of this interview was the cover story of Women’s Health in July 2015.

Sleazy Slobbery Boss Men

June 2015: Training the spotlight on everyday sexism in the work environment.

He is a noted Delhi-based advertising and marketing guru, and we’d connected when I was the editor of a magazine. Sometime in 2010, I met him for coffee one afternoon, for banal shoptalk they call ‘networking’. After, he’d come to Mumbai as often as I’d go to Delhi, and, after years of “we must catch up the next time you’re in town”, he called during the summer of 2013 to say he was going to be in Mumbai for a day. “Let’s meet?”

He had meetings in South Bombay all day, and would return to his hotel, close to the airport and my home, only in the evening. I proposed dinner at one of the many lovely places in the vicinity; he chose the coffee shop at his hotel.

He kept getting delayed (happens—media, Mumbai, traffic, life), and it was rather late when I reached his hotel. The coffee shop was now closed, and I told him so when he emerged from the lift—“The other restaurants in the hotel are still open,” I said.

“Oh, doesn’t matter, we were going to my room anyway,” he replied.

Umm, were we? I realised it had been the plan all along; the coffee shop was close to the lift that led to his room. My antenna went up—that little superpower instinct kicked in. I seized him up—I’m a big fit girl in my 30s, I’d be able to take on this 50-year-old if it really came down to it.

In his room, now on guard, I strategically chose the big single chair, not the two-seat sofa—placing him across the coffee table and myself closer to the door. He tried to break up this arrangement several times during the evening—“Come, let’s read the menu together”; “You’re so far, I can barely see your face”. Strike 2.

We talked about this and that… and then, he started talking about sex. Look, I’m no prude. I write about gender and sexuality, and it’s a subject that fascinates me. I’m also very tuned to the difference between talking about sexuality and talking about sex. Strike 3.

And then, on one of his trips to the bar table behind my chair, he reached over and started fondling my neck. “Stoppit!” I repeated a couple of times, craning away until he did… And strike 4! I was out of my chair and out of the door, and drove home shaken into the loving arms of the husband and some friends who were over for drinks.

I never did confront him, but blocked him from all channels of communication. Often since (in classic victim self-blame) I’ve wondered whether I’d given him mixed signals—and the answer is no, I hadn’t, ever. This was no more than symptomatic of a misogynistic work environment replete with casual sexism, signs of which we encounter every day.

“How come clients only want to meet us female models for evening drinks to ‘discuss work’, and are perfectly happy meeting the guys for a quick chat in their offices?” a friend said to me once. In my previous workplace, every successful female colleague was rumoured to have been sleeping with the boss (myself included). Reprimanded by a female superior? Must be her time of the month. Insidious little parts of a much bigger puzzle.

So today, as heads roll at Greenpeace India for the perpetration as well as mishandling of the sexual harassment of a former employee, I can’t help a bittersweet smile. Small steps for women, big leaps for womankind.

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An edited version of this article appeared on iDiva in June 2015. Watch my interview of 'The Greenpeace Girl' Sonam Mittal here.

October 2018: In light of #MeToo #MeTooIndia #TimesUp, I reveal that the man I am talking about in this post is Navroze Dhondy, founder of the advertising/marketing firm Creatigies Communications that works with the Indian Super League.

Who's Responsible for Jahanvi Gadkar?

June 2015: It’s time to change our attitudes towards governance and become community conscious.

I was 18 and in my first year of college, and reached the bus stop at New Delhi’s posh Chanakya Puri locality to catch a bus home, as I did every day. Here lay a little calf that was clearly in distress, and I stopped to help it. Soon a crowd of about 40 gathered to watch, though only three boys responded to my requests for water/milk/any help—two from Meerut, in town for an entrance exam, and a student from a nearby college.

A deep realisation dawned that day, that’s only gotten stronger since—in India, there is a lot of curiosity but no (or very little) concern. Bystanders stand by watching, talking, as others cry for help—or die for help, in the case of Jyoti Singh Pandey.

So when corporate lawyer Janhavi Gadkar got behind the wheel that fateful day two weeks ago, no one said a word. Not the bar or valet staff at Hotel Marine Plaza in whose bar she started the night, nor her colleagues Rahul Dutt and Shailendra Rane who she was there celebrating with. Not the staff as Irish House where she continued to, nor Alok Agarwal, the CFO of RIL who she there with. (Rahul did apparently ask if she was okay to drive, but bought her “Don't worry, I have done this before” answer.)

She drove, drunk, on the wrong side of the Eastern Express Freeway, killing cabbie Mohammad Hussain Sayaed and his passenger Salim Saboowala who was in the car with his family. Since, she’s lost her trial by media, even if she, like other privileged people before here, manages to out-machinate the law.

Shouldn’t someone have stopped her? If one sees drunk driving, the wilful act of endangering others, as ‘homicide’, aren’t her drinking buddies and those serving her the alcohol morally (if not legally) culpable? Shouldn’t someone—anyone—have got involved?

But we don’t give a shit. The ‘Indian Psyche’ dictates a deep involvement with our respective blood families and religious communities (the romanticised cores of our culture), and somewhat with friends and colleagues. We’re apathetic towards the rest, our heartstrings immune to the hungry beggar children beyond our cars’ windows (philanthropy isn’t really a thing here), or a person or animal in need. (The worst thing about being gang raped and left unconscious in a ditch on a busy highway, my friend told me, was the three hours it took her in the morning to flag down a motorist. “I was barely clothed, bleeding and could barely stand—no one stopped.”) I wonder what Gandhi would say.

Divisive politics don’t help. Neither does the process of law enforcement—seen as inherently unjust, as well as stressful and lengthy. I don’t for a moment deny that we need stricter laws, stronger enforcement and a less sluggish judiciary. But we also need to mend our public attitudes towards governance.

Everything is not someone else’s problem. And while we need to start following ‘the spirit of the law’ ourselves, we should also develop a sense of community responsibility and get involved, in big ways and small—from giving strangers in distress lifts to preventing drunk friends from driving.

In the case of my friend, and in my years of animal rescue and general activism since the incident with the calf, I’ve noticed that the few who do help are invariably of college-going age—not yet overcome by the cynicism of real life, still idealistic enough to believe one can make a difference.

We all can. Because the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

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