‘Let’s not lose the momentum on gender equality’

CHANDIGARH She is a youth icon, is keyed in to Twitter and other social media, but Taapsee Pannu is not a big fan of gadgetry. “My kids, whenever they happen, will not have access to mobile phone, tabs and all till high school. I’ll be a nasty mother,” says the ‘Pink’ actor.

She was speaking during a panel discussion with fellow actor Anil Kapoor, filmmaker Imtiaz Ali and cricketer Gautam Gambhir at the HT Youth Forum 2017 in Chandigarh on Friday evening.

Referring to the movie that spotlighted gender bias and made her a star, she said as a young person she feels a sense of responsibility towards the cause of women empowerment, “We have seen a lot of positive steps… We must keep up the momentum, and not lose it.”

About her Punjabi connection — as the Forum is a flagship annual programme of HT-Punjab — she gushed about how she’s a “hardcore Jatti” who can read and write Gurmukhi (script). “My Hindi, English, everything sounds like Punjabi,” she laughed.

When panellists were asked to pose questions to each other, she turned to the moderator, HT’s Sonal Kalra, and had a tough one for her instead: “How important is it to have a controversy attached to your name to be a trending ? Has niceness stopped selling?” Sonal agreed with what was essentially a rhetorical question but assured her that there are people within the media fraternity who are working towards changing this.

Taapsee was not done. She turned to Imtiaz and asked : “When will you cast me in a movie? I’ll be a first-take-OK actor. I am even ready to audition.” He agreed right away and sought shooting dates. Needless to say, the audience was as excited as Taapsee.