HER HOURGLASS FIGURE HIDES HER STEELY RESOLVE. HER PORCELAIN BEAUTY MASKS HER STRENGTH HIDDEN BENEATH. HER FRAIL VOICE BELIES THE DETERMINATION SHE IS DRIVEN WITH. SHE IS ALL THAT YOU WANT TO BE, AND HAS A FIRM MIND OF HER OWN.
REFUSING TO BE LET DOWN BY HER INTIMIDATING PAST AND THE FEAR OF AN UNKNOWN FUTURE, KANGANA RANAUT, THE NEW ‘IT’ GIRL IS LIVING HER LIFE TO THE FULLEST, TAKING ONE DAY AT A TIME.
SD: How has life been and how have you changed with stardom?
KR: Life is cool, yaar. Whether it’s my work or my personal or professional life. I feel like your personal life is deeply related to the way you work. I don’t know how people talk about keeping their professional life and personal life apart. But
I think that as a human being, if you’re in a state of peace in your personal life, then it shows in your professional life and working relationships with people. I feel much more focused now about what I want to do and where I am heading. Earlier, it was not like that.
SD: You have gone though so much at such an early age. Unlike a girl who is generally more worried about what she will wear to college and such trivia, you have a career to look up to and are fending for yourself
and your family.
KR: You’re right. I’m 20 and girls my age don’t have the way of life I have. My friends are in hostel and they still take money from their parents and all that. But if you go to see, I have never been like a normal kid. My mindset, my friends, were never like the people of my age group. I never reacted the way my parents expected me to react to certain things. I was always very mature.
I mean, whatever you go through in life, only you are responsible for that and you can’t blame others for your actions. At 16, I told my parents that I want to do my own stuff and you better not interfere in that. I have always taken my own decisions and I am here because of me. I did have trouble in life because of my own self. So it is a mix of gain and loss, but I’m happy the way I am.
SD: Generally when you learn with experience, you realise how foolishly you behaved in the past. When you look back at your past, do you regret your decisions?
KR: Regret? No. I don’t even know how it feels when you say you regret. I’m the kind of person, if I lose my phone right now, I will never think about where and how I lost it. I will always make the next move. I will just try and get my stored numbers fast. But I’m not the kind of person who will sit and crib about my past. I can’t believe when people instead of making plans for the future and coming back to normal, they are just so stuck in past losses.
SD: You’ve taken up yoga in a big way. Is that your first step toward spirituality? When on the one hand, you meditate to attain peace of mind, on the other, you’re constantly in a profession which lingers around bloated egos, insecurities, fame and money. Do you feel out of place now?
KR: In my case, I have not taken up spirituality, I don’t even know the exact meaning of spirituality. Yes, I am into yoga but my idea is not to get moksha, or sanyas or any enlightenment. I always try to explain to everyone that it has nothing to do with supernatural powers or my being religious. It’s very scientific. We have brains and 90% of our brain don’t work, only 10% does.
So with Pranayam and following few asanas and bringing about certain changes in your lifestyle, you can really concentrate and your entire brain starts working. That is the case with all big people in the world. I just want to concentrate better on work; I want to be a better actor, a better person. I don’t want people to feel great about me nor do I want to be some kind of Buddha. And when it makes me feel good, why not.
SD: You have always been appreciated for your work, from the time you entered the industry with ‘Gangster’. How did you deal with the failure of Suneel Darshan’s ‘Shakalaka Boom Boom’?
KR: ‘Shakalaka….’ didn’t do well and I’m really sad about it. I think that I did
what I was asked to do. Even when ‘Gangster’ was a huge success, I always said that I don’t know why everyone was appreciating me, I just did what Anurag asked me to do. And even now, I did what Mr. Darshan asked me to do.
And it’s not that I am not taking the responsibility of the failure; of course I’m the part of the team and all of us are. Agar picture nahi chali toh yeh hum sabki zimmedari hai. But I think that every movie is close to you and you always feel bad about it when people don’t like it.
SD: Are you ambitious?
KR: Yes. It is a very strange feeling. You do feel very ambitious sometimes. You want to possess Gucci clothes, buy Chanel make up, you want everything in the world for your sisters, your brothers, your parents. You want to go with your boyfriend and get all the material things.
But then maybe the next moment, I feel like giving up everything I have. I just feel like wearing white clothes and going and staying in some kind of jungle or ashram. It is a very strange feeling. I don’t know but I feel I live a life, which is a mixture of that. Sometimes I feel ambitious, sometimes I feel contented.
SD: You seem to be a person who is capable of giving up fame and money on a whim. How much do you really want it?
KR: As I told you, it’s just the flickering mind. Sometimes you do feel that all this is not worth it. At the end of the day, it’s an illusion. We have a lifespan of 50-60 years. So much pain, so much misery is not worth it and you feel that. But then whatever it is, living is the most beautiful thing in the world. But like always, you don’t feel sure of what you want to do. But now that I’ve taken up yoga, it calms me down, it shows me what I want to do in life, what I wish to be.
SD: Are you really so steely and strong for your frail frame and young age?
KR: I didn’t deliberately do anything to show people. I don’t think anybody’s face or appearance can give you the real idea of how he or she is. I have seen the most beautiful people who are really f…..d up and really bad human beings. But if I come across as a very soft or very strong person and if I look like that, then that is the way I am. If I looked very fragile and innocent, I used to be (smiles), but no more.
SD: You have grown up in a small town. How have you adjusted to the fast life in Mumbai. Has the city changed you?
KR: Ya, life here is fast but my motion is slow, I sleep at 8 o’clock and get up at 5 o’clock. My life is the same that it used to be when I’m not shooting. But when I’m shooting, the story is completely different. Your basic way of living doesn’t change. If you’re talking about change of lifestyle and the external factors, then yes, of course I have changed. I mean I’m a completely different person altogether. But if you talk about the internal factors in my life, then I don’t think I have changed much.
SD: Are you assertive as a person? If you don’t like something on the sets, do you put you foot down?
KR: Yes. I am, and to an extent that I feel, ‘karo ya maro’. If I find that something is really wrong and it should not go the way it is going, then I easily put my foot down for anything and won’t let that happen.
SD: Do you feel other actresses view you as competition now?
KR: Other actresses? Do they? I don’t know. A lot of actresses who are in the industry from some time shouldn’t take me as a competitor but they should take me as a junior because everybody is like so senior tome. Also everyone is here from the last 10-15 years. Actresses come and go, so there’s no need to feel competitive.
I don’t think they really care that much. I don’t think that. But on second thoughts, it also feels bad when people really don’t care. That is worse you know, because I think they should feel scared of me but they don’t, that’s the sad part. (Laughs)
SD: You have always shown an impeccable dress sense. Were you always aware of fashion even growing up as a small town girl?
KR: Well, there is a secret desire in me to become a designer, so I’m just working towards that. I want to be everything. I’m learning classical dance so I want to be a classical dancer, then a singer, then a fashion designer, then a painter, because we just have one life and then you know I am going to die.
As a kid, I used to make funny clothes and my mom used to really fire me. I used to cut my trousers and I used to cut my skirts and make them into really tiny ones. I was in a girls’ school so I used to fold my skirt up and my parents and my teachers used to fire me.
SD: Apparently during the shoot of ‘Shakalaka Boom Boom’, you took up dancing seriously because Bobby Deol criticised you. Even otherwise, how do you deal with criticism?
KR: No, it’s all made up. I was always learning classical dance but that’s a different story. But if you go and stomp your co-actors while dancing, they are surely going to comment about it. It was a salsa, and I was wearing high heels and I also almost slapped Bobby. But he was a very kind guy. But nothing happened overnight and I said, ‘Arre, ab toh mujhe dance seekhna hoga’. Criticism doesn’t hurt me. In fact, I like people criticizing me more than anything.
When people praise me, I really feel like my pants are down in public, I feel so ashamed and I start blushing with embarrassment. I think criticizing is better because I feel that any fool can impress anybody. What I like about people is when they tell you what is wrong with you. It takes a lot of guts for others to tell you that. Because I can’t.
I will torture myself to the core but I won’t say it, that’s the middle class’ funda. People with good character and good hearts will always tell you what is wrong with you and what you should do. You have to get rid of the false ego. I am also in the process of killing the devil inside me but if you are not aware of the devil, then you will feel bad about it.
SD: You give an impression of being a recluse already. Do you enjoy your solitude?
KR: I never give this impression that I am so different. In a way, all of us are different, nobody is alike. In that manner, if you go to see, I am very much like any other girl but my priorities are different. But if someone gets to know me better, they will never say that there is anything abnormal about this girl or anything.
In fact, I don’t like to be isolated but when you need time for yourself, when you need to speak to yourself or when you need to sort out things within you, then where do you go? You can’t do it in the midst of 10 people. I don’t think anything is wrong with that and I think everybody should do that.
SD: So have you sorted out yourself?
KR: Yes, but it gets entangled again and again. Then again, I try to sort myself out, and again I get entangled. And finally one day, I will be a linear line.
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