Kalki Koechlin: A Voice For Change

Kalki Koechlin doesn’t like being called an activist, but you hear her when she speaks.

- Suchismita Ukil

Lucid. That’s the first word that comes to mind while in conversation with Kalki Koechlin [for the curiousminded, her last name is pronounced as ‘cake-la(n)’ and not ‘coach-lin’]. Easy to laugh and with a good head on her shoulders, this 32-year-old actor is someone we could all relate to. She would make a good role model, I can’t help thinking. And I wouldn’t be too wrong to say that she’s sincere to a fault, as also someone who doesn’t mince her words or beat around the bush to call a spade just that.

Kalki caught our attention in 2009 with the breakout film Dev.D, a modern retelling of the classic Devdas, where she portrayed Chanda and there has been no stopping her since. We saw this star shine in more than 10 films over the years. There have been blockbusters like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and performances in That Girl in Yellow Boots, Shaitan, Shanghai and, more recently, Waiting that won her critical acclaim. In May, she picked up the special jury award at the 63rd National Film Awards for Shonali Bose’s Margarita with a Straw, for her sensitive portrait of Laila, a collegegoing girl with cerebral palsy (CP).

Kalki’s influence goes beyond the reaches of cinema. As someone who doesn’t view their work in isolation from their beliefs or chooses to live in a self-imposed bubble, she isn’t afraid to speak up in her words, she likes to lead by example. In addition to her depiction of powerful roles, her monologues and spoken words, social satires, which she shares with her millions of followers on social media, speak volumes of her empathy and involvement with her surroundings.

In this interview, Kalki speaks freely about her art, the people who inspire her and what makes her tick.