It’s not Kalki Koechlin’s intention to shock

Kalki Koechlin made her Bollywood debut with Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D and went on to do some unconventional roles in That Girl in Yellow Boots, Margarita with a Straw and Waiting. But the Indian National Award-winning actress doesn’t mean to be “shocking and different”.

“When I cut my hair short recently, people were very shocked and I was like, ‘I didn’t think about it’. I wanted to change it, so I did that. I remember going on Google while in the parlour with my hairdresser to find out what should we do and how we should cut,” Koechlin said on the sidelines of the live edition of her podcast Kalki Presents: My Indian Life.

“Now it’s like people going ‘Oh my God, what has she done? Is she sick?’ Everybody has a different opinion. I am just saying that I don’t think I consciously try to be shocking or different. I express what I feel like expressing,” Koechlin added.

The actress visited St Stephen’s College in New Delhi to talk to students about her new podcast with the BBC World Service. It was released on August 4.

Kalki Presents: My Indian Life is about being young and Indian in the 21st century. Over 10 episodes, the podcast series explores extraordinary real-life stories from around the country. One episode is about a woman who talks to Koechlin about her part in India’s Mars mission, while another is the story of a man with a speech impediment trying to succeed as a musician.

“Podcasting is a complete new world. It is an interesting platform to understand young population in the world as we have lot of young adults who are extremely smart and talented and have lot of opinions,” she said.