Feelin' Good

Being happy takes work. Just ask Mandira Bedi. Here, she spills on what it takes to be your most authentic self

- ARUN JANARDHAN

It’s Day 198. The video Mandira Bedi has posted on Instagram is of her doing bunny hops in the gym. The day before, her post read, “You can’t please everybody.” The day after, she wrote, “All you need is love”.

In between these self-motivational punditries and self-punishing routines in the gym, are other pictures, more glamorous ones that are indicative of what Bedi is better known for – an actor. She has over a million followers on this platform.

The day count is part of a challenge she has thrown herself – to exercise everyday for 365 days. It initially started as a 21-day challenge, which increased to 40, then 100 to a year because the shorter margins turned out to be “a breeze”. So she could be doing a headstand one day or push-ups while bent over backwards, and follow it up with a message that says, “Wherever there is gratitude, there’s no room for unhappiness”.

In between these intense one-hour long workouts, working as an actor, master of ceremonies, motivational speaker, talent show judge, fashion designer, social media influencer, a possible talk show host and mother of an eight-year-old boy, Bedi also managed to write a book, which is – perhaps not surprisingly – named after her Instagram description.

Happy For No Reason, co-authored by Satyadev Barman, is Bedi’s own discovery of, as an Amazon user says, “some kind of non-scientific, non-spiritual formula for finding peace in everything.” It is also her latest – and maybe her only intentional – reinvention.