Katy Perry - Pop Star With A Purpose

With a new love and a fresh perspective, pop provocateur Katy Perry is ready to reveal her real self to the world.

- Megha Mahindru

Katy Perry has found the cure to jet lag. Last November, in the four days in the lead up to her performance at the OnePlus Music Festival in Mumbai, the singer-songwriter ticked off a meet-and-greet with fans, mingled with Bollywood, glided through interviews with newspapers, television channels and radio, and wrapped up a meeting with her music label—all belying her red-eye flight. From our 12-hourlong cover shoot that started at the crack of dawn, she headed straight to a charity event marking Prince Charles’s 71st birthday. “Transcendental meditation,” she shares, is the secret. “There are so many different forms of meditation I’ve done, but nothing supersedes TM. It changed my life.”

In 1967, when the Beatles first met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, it paved the way for the West’s obsession with the workings of the mind. Now, half a decade later, David Lynch’s mantra has repackaged the Hindu practice for stressed-out, modern-day professionals and is calming the rich and famous the world over. “You’re supposed to do it twice a day, but I only ever do it once. It’s all about opening your third eye, your pineal gland, and connecting with the divine. It helps me with jet lag, anxiety, mood swings, and creativity. Some of the coolest ideas I’ve had were during meditation.”

Few would believe that her 2017 disco-pop confections like ‘Swish swish’ or her innuendo-wrapped ode to oral sex, ‘Bon appétit’, came out of a spiritual awakening. But move on to her 2019 discography, and a sense of maturity prevails. As she runs through a gamut of emotions—from obsession (‘365’) to heartbreak (‘Never really over’) to post-breakup (‘Small talk’) to breezy love (‘Harleys in Hawaii’)—she turns from a bionic woman to a leather-clad biker chick.

SECOND LIFE