ARMY of ONE

We couldn’t have asked for a better star to grace the cover of our wellness edition than the bold and beautiful Huma Qureshi. Playing the perfect host was Hilton Shillim Estate Retreat & Spa, where the Western Ghats stand sentinel and the sun and clouds play a perpetual game of hide and seek.

- Adila Matra

Huma Qureshi is not your run-of-the-mill Bollywood actor. When she is not tackling scripts that revolve around dystopian futures, feminist political upheavals, or zombie apocalypses, Qureshi can be found championing body positivity and self-love. The actor gets candid about her Hollywood debut, fitness mantra during the pandemic, and favourite filming locations.

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As a Bollywood actor, how pressured do you feel to conform to a certain body image and what has helped you to break the mould?

I have never felt pressured. But I do feel that in this industry, we don’t put out the right kind of role model for young women to follow. And this is something that we need to rectify; we need to question ourselves and the society about how we want young girls and boys to grow. The greatest way to empower [someone] is to show all kinds of people on covers of magazines and [in] films, so that when kids see them, they feel represented. The key is to encourage them to bring out their personality in an authentic way rather than push them to chase an unattainable idea of beauty.