Swara Bhaskar: "I Am Like A Fluke Story"

Actor Swara Bhaskar is as outspoken about her politics as she is determined to make it big in Bollywood

- Asmita Bhakshi

ACTOR SWARA BHASKAR

There’s something oddly wholesome about interviewing a star in the allegedly seditious surrounds of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus. Not only is the experience a heady mix of the two great Indian pastimes— Bollywood and politics—it also reiterates refreshingly that the proponents of the Hindi film industry are more than a swell blow dry and PR-driven sound bytes. Nothing quite demolishes a Bollywood-related stereotype like Nil Battey Sannata actor Swara Bhaskar, 28, feet up on a garden chair outside her home in JNU (her mother is a professor on campus), in all her spunky, expletive-spouting glory.

“I’m a typical Delhi girl. Professional parents, nuclear family. My father was in the navy. I’ve spent my whole life in government accommodation and it’s been lovely,” says Bhaskar, describing younger self as both “bratty” and “f****** precocious”. Her rosy childhood was a result of a liberal and democratic upbringing, thanks to her parents who she says were fairly conventional in most ways, but very modern in their thinking. Growing up, Bhaskar’s mother, Ira Bhaskar, then a professor at Gargi College in Delhi University, went to New York University to complete her PhD. “When I grew up, I realised what an amazing thing my parents did. It was such a big deal for my mom, a middle class woman, to decide to leave her children and husband to go and do her PhD for three years. And my dad, who is even more middle class, a traditional South Indian, to let his wife do that.”