Alia Bhatt On How To Deal With Heartbreak, Lean In At Work And Make Time For Daily Selfie

Actor to watch and star on fire, Alia Bhatt knows how to deal with heartbreak, lean in at work and still make time for a daily selfie.

- Vatsala Chhibber

Your twenties aren’t meant for good decisions, but I don’t think Alia Bhatt has got the memo. At 23, her four-year-old filmography reads like oppressive a wildly optimistic bucket list. Storm into the scene with a glossy Karan Johar film, check (Student Of The Year, 2012). Get critics on your side with a contrasting sophomore feature, check (Highway, 2014). Rock a hammy romantic-comedy, check (Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, 2014). Ace an unfamiliar dialect, check (Udta Punjab, 2016). Share screen space with a leading Khan, check (she stars alongside Shah Rukh Khan in this month’s Dear Zindagi). Plus, she’s already ticked off two for next year: create a successful franchise (Badrinath Ki Dulhania) and be part of a superhero film (Ayan Mukerji’s Dragon, opposite Ranbir Kapoor).

Your twenties are also a time of maddening self-doubt. But with Bhatt, all you get is a cool-girl confidence and a general disdain for complexities. She won’t defend her privilege. She is happy to leave compulsive opining to those who know better, and lets slander and ridicule slide off her back with no trouble.

When we meet in her vanity van, she tells me how she’s benefitted from reading The Power Of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and now passes it to anyone struggling with change. “Put that in the interview,” she chuckles. “Alia Bhatt is recommending a book.”