ALAYA IN WONDERLAND

Charming, brilliant, and so damn cute. We present our most winsome breakout talent of the year

- Drishti Vij

Twenty-two-year-old Alaya F belongs to the so-called avocado-loving, snowflake generation notorious for getting amused by cancelling Kardashians and snapping selfies to commemorate any moment. But, the truth is most millennials just want to get their lives together. So they hustle. And, they have side hustles. They try to do more with less and they want to do it while they Marie-Kondo their lives to find their inner Ikigai. And, Alaya— the most promising star from this decade—isn’t any different.

HAPPY LANDINGS

The young actor (she’s also a fabulous artist, by the way) believes in working hard and being kind while she’s at it. With a headline debut alongside Saif Ali Khan in Jawaani Jaaneman (which was released last month), Alaya has had her own share of setbacks and learnings that have helped shape her get-up-and-go spirit.

As we speak over a Skype call scheduled towards the latter half of the day when one would expect her vivacity to be somewhat tempered down—her warm, infectious smile lights up my screen immediately. Alaya is refreshingly candid, values humility, believes in surrounding herself with positive affirmations at all times and is most certainly a girl with a plan.

But, wait. Let’s rewind a little bit. Before making her much-awaited debut, Alaya studied in New York for two years. She enrolled for a film-making course at the New York University followed by an intensive acting programme at New York Film Academy. No surprise that the Big Apple is one of her favourite cities in the world. “I saw how different worlds can come together there,” she muses. And perhaps this city let her inhabit a new universe altogether— one that she couldn’t find back home.