Indefatigable Crusader

Besides her oeuvre of cinema and her acting chops, Swara Bhasker is known for taking her trolls down epically on Twitter. Think that she is a fiery diva? You couldn’t be more wrong.

- Mehul Reuben Das

What attracts us towards Swara Bhasker is not just the charm and beauty that she has, but how effortlessly articulate she is. Although her ability to be on point when speaking her mind has landed her in one controversy after the other, she doesn’t seem to mind the backlash and trolling that she faces online. “I don’t know, it sometimes feels as it is completely orchestrated by a certain section of the Internet. People are very nice to me when they meet me,” she says. Will she heed her friends’ advise and tone things down? We don’t think so. Here’s a conversation with our cover girl over our favourite poets, the purpose of art and of course, tea, the staple for every JNU student and alumnus.

Intellectualism and great oratory skills run in your family. Your mother is a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, whereas your father retired as a Commodore in the Indian Navy, and is very vocal about India’s Strategic alliances, defense, and national security. How was your childhood like?

We had a very chilled childhood. I look back at my childhood as having golden hues. We had a very upper-middle class life, but because both my parents were government officials, I spent most of my childhood in Lutyen’s Delhi, right beside India Gate, which is the most beautiful part of Delhi to live. We also had a lot of access to the cultural scene of Delhi, be it the India International Centre or the Indian Habitat Centre. Imbibing my parents values, their intellectual culture, or cultural capital, if you will, was a very organic process. Our parents also really encouraged us to be culturally inclined. They put us into music and dance classes. Besides that, our father would take us to the National Museum or the national Gallery of Modern Art, even though we would get bored out of our minds.