She is hard to classify or sum up in stock phrases that are usually used for a mainstream female actor. She strains against the tyranny of preconceptions about women and their bodies in cinema and in life. She speaks passionately against misogyny at every level. In language that does not sound like sloganeering but comes from deeply processed thought.
No, Kalki Koechlin is not just an unusual looking Indo-French girl from Kallatty, a village near Ooty, who just happens to have studied drama and theatre at the Goldsmiths, University of London. Or has inconvenient view-points about feminism.
Hers is the success story of a woman who is not afraid to be anything. An activist. A theatre and film actor. A playwright. A clown even. Slated to perform Trivial Disasters (Directed by Atul Kumar) in Bangalore on July 25, she speaks about the things that consume, anger or inspire her.
On using her voice for activism
That is why I love this job… acting, writing because I get to address human behaviour and human problems. Recently the issue of women has been in the forefront of the media so I guess I’m being noticed, but even when I wrote my play Skeleton Woman in 2008, it was about the struggle of the woman (it came from a short story in Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ feminist book, Women Who Run With The Wolves). Perhaps because I’m more in the limelight today, or perhaps because people don’t associate Bollywood celebrities with serious issues, they are surprised that I have something to say. But this is not anything new in my life.
Also I think everything becomes such an extreme image, today I’m a feminist to many people, tomorrow if I wear a bikini, the same people will turn against me. This is why I resist being labelled as someone who heralds any one cause.
I believe in the multiplicity of a woman and her equality. Not that she has to be revered and put up on a pedestal. Also there are so many other issues I support which don’t get highlighted because they are not as ‘dramatic’. I will continue to work on campaigns as and when I really have something of significance to say. Mostly this will be unplanned and organic, so I can’t say what will come next.
On the anti-blame, viral video about rape, ‘It’s Your Fault’
The video was all AIB’s (All India Bakchod, an edgy comedy collective, co-founded by Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhat) idea.
Tanmay came to me with the script, and honestly I had been wanting to do something regarding the lack of safety for women in India ever since I blogged about the December 12 rape that really, really shook me. When the script came my way, it was like the answer I had been looking for.
On why she shared her own childhood memory of sexual abuse
You know, when I spoke about my CSA (Child Sexual Abuse), I did not expect such a large reaction. I was not going to narrate my story to the media because it is not a place to heal. But I felt it was important because every woman I know has a story about CSA, and we so often think we are the only ones who’ve been through it and keep quiet. Or we think our story is not horrific enough when we hear so many shocking cases in the news, so we brush it away. But it affects us in some way sooner or later in life. It’s acceptable and healthy to go to someone trusted and qualified who can help us heal.
On gender stereotyping in the media
Well, naturally in my line of work, there is a lot of pressure for young women to look a certain way. Whether it is having to be fairer, or having tiny waists and big bums and big breasts, long wavy hair, no wrinkles, big lips, small nose, straight teeth, the list goes on and on. We are told (on the sets) things like, ‘cry prettily’ or ‘smile only slightly, without your gums showing’. There’s a sense of ‘plastic-ness’ that is being thrust upon us and resisting that is very very tough and even humiliating and humbling at times. Branding has become so generic. There is only one idea of beauty, when in reality there are such striking and beautiful people who simply don’t fit this brand and so these people actually start to believe that they are not beautiful. That makes me sad and angry.
Then the characters (in films) themselves, are often so flat. A babe can only be a babe, without too much to say, just to look pretty. The vamp woman or sexually liberated woman is portrayed as having loose morals. We don’t see, for example, a woman in the role of a driver, or a billionaire or a thief, or a gay woman (who is not stereotyped). We don’t see many female characters who are multifaceted.
On her widely-celebrated monologue Truths of Womanhood
It was scary performing it at the India Today Conclave because frankly it looked like an intimidating crowd with politicians, great literary personalities and critics. So I was very nervous, but once I began, I felt the audience’s attention in the room. They were really listening and reacting, so that was beautiful. Then when it went viral, it became something much more scary. Millions of people had an opinion on it. There was of course amazing support, but also a lot of hate. I’ve learnt now to distance myself from that and not to hold on to it once it’s out there, but to move on to the next thing in my life.
Juggling the sensibilities of theatre and cinema
Every film or play I do is complete and unique in itself. So even if we are clubbing Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani, the two were so different for me. Zoya Akhtar was specific in her writing to the last beat, whereas Ayan Mukherjee was constantly improvising as we went along, rewriting and yes, wanting me to be larger-than-life. He would keep saying, “Kalki, it’s Dharma Productions, be loud na?’ But actually in theatre, there can be a lot of larger-than-life performances too. Like in Hamlet, The Clown Prince, where I play a clown (who plays Ophelia), and there’s this baffoonery and madness that is required of the character. And then there are films like The Girl In Yellow Boots, where you’ll see me in one corner of the set with headphones on, sulking in my lunch break just to get into the mood for the next scene. But this is the fun of acting for me, never settling into one genre or one way of acting, constantly breaking out of my comfort zones.
Future plans
I have no particular long-term plan. I keep getting affected by things on a daily basis and that comes out in my writing. I want to direct my first play soon, though when I’ll find the time, I don’t know. I think, there’s no end to the stories we have to tell, and I will continue to tell them, whether it is through theatre, film, acting, directing, poetry slamming, cabaret or documenting. There are hundreds of mediums, and I don’t know where life will take me next but in one way or other, I will be expressing myself creatively. I learnt a lot from co-writing The Girl In Yellow Boots, mostly that writing is a full time job and that it has to keep evolving and getting better. That’s why you keep going, you keep attempting at getting better at expressing. That dissatisfaction is funnily what inspires you to do more.
On being fearless
I am not consciously trying to be free. I was lucky enough to be brought up in a household where freedom was not rebellion, but a discipline. A really simple example is when I really wanted a cat. I must have been about 10 and my parents finally conceded but I had to feed the cat, clean her litter tray and sure enough that was tougher than I had expected it to be. The choice was mine but then I had to be responsible for the consequences.
I just really believe in being honest to myself, because I am the only person who has to wake up and face myself for the rest of my life. When I’m over 60, all wrinkly , it would be no fun if I’m looking to others for approval and support. I better look at myself and be happy.
The Bangalore connect
I grew up partly in Bangalore. My dad lives there. I have some good memories of my teenage years, like going to the Roger Waters concert, going out to a club for the first time and not being able to afford a drink there! Hanging out at Koshy’s, Nagarjuna’s, Corner House. Now of course its more about Ranga Shankara or spending time with family but I still go to Nagarjuna’s when I get a chance.
On Trivial Disasters
I have known Atul Kumar since I first landed in Mumbai. The Company Theatre was holding auditions and I went there and met a whole bunch of theatre people who I am still close to today. I’ve done workshops with Atul, acted with him and learnt a lot from him over the years. Trivial Disasters is exhausting because Atul is killing us! I feel like I’m 10 different people in one day. He pushes the actors, never lets them rest or get complacent. It’s a painful process and sometimes I want to throw something at him, but in the end, it’s worth it because his performances have an incredible energy about them.
with
Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be silent with her cats.