KALKI KOECHLIN
‘My life is bigger than Bollywood’
I n Dev D, her movie debut, critics called her a sorceress as she cast a spell on the audience, mesmerising them not only with her beauty, but with her award-winning performance of a schoolgirl who ends up in a brothel.
That was five years ago. Not much has changed since. Eleven films and an estranged husband later, 30-yearold Kalki Koechlin (pronounced coeklan) is still a sorceress, albeit in real life. Slim and deceptively delicate looking, with bee-sting lips and mocha eyes, she’s not your typical starlet – her intelligence, wit and personality are spellbinding too.
Just when you try to stereotype her as one of those actors obsessed with their appearance, Kalki entices you even more with her refreshingly down-to-earth and practical attitude towards life. “I eat like a man and if it wasn’t for good food, I wouldn’t do any of this,” she says.
Her effortless charm is a potent blend of French sophistication and Indian grace. Yes, Kalki has French blood running in her veins. But French she is not. Born in Kallatty, a small village near Ooty, a picturesque hill station in Southern India famous for its tea plantations, to a French couple who came to India in search of spiritual gratification and decided to stay, Kalki is a pukka Indian.
For starters, she does justice to a spicy curry, lends grace to a sari and speaks impeccable Tamil, a south Indian language she has grown up with. “As I’ve always said, I am a Tamil,” she reiterates with a hint of defensiveness. No doubt she is referring to her typically European looks, implying that she has always stood out and not fitted in, neither in India nor in Europe.
As if reading my thoughts, she says, “I’m tired of trying to belong. Growing up, I tried to find refuge in humour just so that I could get acceptance but now I kind of don’t care. This is the way I look and this is the way I was born. And over the years, I’ve realised that I love being unconventional as that makes me who I am – unique, and that’s the reason I stand out.”
If it was this constant battle with cultural ambiguity that stencilled Kalki’s character during her formative years, it is her quest for creative gratification through time spent in cinema and theatre that has defined her adult life.
When her family insisted that she get a degree, Kalki decided to go to Goldsmiths, University of London, to study what she loves most – theatre. So in 2002 at the age of 18, she flew the nest for the first time, not just to do a three-year course in drama and theatre, but to learn to be independent and live in London, a cultural melting pot, where she should have
‘Over the years I’ve realised that I love being unconventional as that makes me who I am’
‘I found myself writing more and more about India… and that’s why I went back, it’s inside me’ fitted in. “Initially, I found university life to be very lonely, considering that people there are very particular about their ‘space’ and are very private and I, like most Indians, am used to having people around, there is no concept of personal space and we are just so used to having someone to talk to at any given time of the day.”
But that wasn’t all that bothered her. Soon she realised she still was an outsider, a misfit. “The minute I started speaking, people were like, ‘Where are you from?’ You’re not English or even French.’ And when I said I am from India, they said, ‘But you don’t look Indian’, so again I didn’t fit into any box.”
For someone who grew up straddling cultures, you’d think Kalki would know how to handle it all, but she was overwhelmed. “I found it hard to understand the English culture. I didn’t know about the TV shows or the jokes. But towards the end of my time, I realised that I couldn’t reject my identity because I couldn’t be English. Since I couldn’t be that culture, I found myself writing more and more about India or doing stuff that had to do with India and that’s why I went back, because it’s inside me.”
Kalki has never looked back. After a few years spent modelling and doing theatre, she discovered Bollywood. Or rather Bollywood discovered her. She auditioned for a role in Anurag Kashyap’s cult film a gritty adaptation of a Bengali classic novel that revolves around the male protagonist’s loves and losses. “When Anurag saw my portfolio pictures, he thought I was some trashy chick and rejected me instantly. It was only after he was forced by the producers of the film to see my audition tape, that he decided to take me on,” she says.
Kalki played Chanda, a teenage schoolgirl who ends up selling her body. It was considered an extremely risky choice of role for someone who was taking her first steps into an industry that loves to pigeonhole its actors. “Everybody worries about their image a lot,” she says. “I have never worried about it as I never