YOU DEFINE WHAT YOU SEE IN THE MIRROR
What is a woman? Do her qualities have any value? Or is she still judged only by how she looks. You know those thoughts that run through your head when you stand in front of a mirror? In an age of shifting pressures — on men and women — one thing that seems barely to have changed at all is the subject of women’s beauty. It is absurdly defined by unrealistic standards and constantly supported by heavily-photoshopped images of only young women in mainstream media and entertainment. Standardized ideas of Beauty, especially in an industry where you are only judged for how you look, did not intimidate me. Many people told me, ‘Bleach your skin; colour your hair; wear blue contacts etc etc’ but I always felt, ‘Why would I want to look like someone else?’ Of course, I would if I was playing a particular character but not when I present myself as Tannishtha Chatterjee. Everyone asked me to click pictures in a particular way. It’s called ‘sexy’! I did some of those as well — sexy pictures ognise myself. But it just made me confident as an actor because it proved to me that if I need to I can transform myself to play a character. But then I asked myself, ‘What is female sexuality? What does it look like?’ We are in a creative industry. Let’s have more imagination than the obvious. I wanted to explore whether the entertainment industry could have place for a female actor who sets a different standard of feminity and sexiness, and gain respect for the art she pursues. I became an actress and worked on my art. Worldly success has followed, from awards to plum roles to international film festivals. And even in a world where so little is real, I look in the mirror and I