Quiet Glory

Kriti Sanon is riding the crest of the wave, thanks to her recent National Award win for best actress. In an introspective mood, she lets HASINA JEELANI in on how an engineering graduate without industry connections got here, where she hopes to see herself five years from now and why she's probably going to need another National Award-win to raise her manifestation game.

- HASINA JEELANI

“I DON’T OPEN this too often.” Kriti Sanon’s voice assumes a self-effacing lilt as she reflects on a diary that she keeps beside her bed. There’s an imperceptible shift in her voice that signals to me that its pages likely contain something far more than a routine rundown of her days. As I wait for her to offer more details, I steal a glance at my notes to confirm what I know about her writing ritual: having rediscovered her love for journaling during the pandemic, she has often hunched over the contents of her diary late into the night. Inside the margins is evidence of the catharsis that comes with pouring out one’s feelings on paper. But despite once being an important part of her après-skincare nightly routine, she tries not to revisit these ruminations often. Why?

The sounds of the dusk blanketing her in Nainital fills the spaces in our conversation as she lapses into a contemplative silence. The star is currently stationed in the postcard-perfect hill station in Uttarakhand for the shoot of mystery thriller Do Patti. She has plans to fly out to Delhi briefly, where she will accept the National Film Award for Best Actress for her role as an abandoned surrogate mother in Mimi (2021).