wrong and all those I was ignoring, the big media houses, the
ex factor, all came together, in a big smear campaign, with
me being projected as a witch, practising black magic. Things
went a bit supernatural. They tried to shame me, my sexuality,
my past relationships. I was put through many tests,” she says,
but it didn’t fluster her at all. “The industry is so vile,” she
adds, “worse than a small village.”
She has two films in various stages of readiness: Mental Hai
Kya, directed by Prakash Kovelamudi, and Panga with Ashwiny
Iyer Tiwari. She wants to direct movies, make TV series, and
act in films that challenge her. As she cuddles her excitable
German spitz, Pluto, she says she is not sure about children,
given that her sister Rangoli has a child and is planning to adopt
a girl now. The sisters, not close when they were growing up,
share a deep companionship now. “Rangoli’s accident, though
cruel, taught me many things. I remember standing in the
middle of Hinduja Hospital and thinking how wrong my notion
of bad times was—failing in an audition or a relationship. It was
an overwhelming experience,” she recalls, shooting for Life In A
Metro (2007) in the morning and doing shows to raise money
for her sister’s surgeries in the evening, and being at Hinduja
Hospital at night. “Rangoli’s ear had melted, her eye was
damaged, one breast was dysfunctional. A kind of superhuman
energy was driving me, like I could do the job of 100 people,” she
now says.
Since then she has also found a guru, Sadhguru Jaggi
Vasudev, to whose work she was introduced by her sister.
Initially reluctant, she was drawn to him because she found
that while her life was disciplined and focused, it had no joy.
“Swami Vivekananda’s work makes you fiery, hot-headed, gives
you muscles of iron and nerves of steel, That’s why I relate a lot
to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, We both come from humble
backgrounds. I started to follow him in 2014 and then did a deep
study of what he stands for, what the opposition had against
him.” But she herself is hesitant about joining politics, despite
offers this time. “I have to be very competent at what I do,” she
says. “I don’t know enough about politics to be good at it. I may
have cultivated a 100 mini super powers, but to be a leader in
India you have to be selfless, without family baggage, with no
weakness at all. And be totally dedicated, have that much time
and passion. Can I be that person?”
She is in no hurry to find love, to be in a relationship and
have the life force sucked out of her by a needy man. “In my
late twenties I found myself quite desperate to tick that box.
But once I turned 30, I realised I no longer seek it or crave
it.” Her craft is improving. “Earlier my work was good, but
in Manikarnika, I felt it was the fine work of a fine artiste.” It
is inevitable, she says, as she has grown as a human being, she
has also evolved as an artiste. Her Panga director Iyer Tiwari
calls her a “badass super girl with a heart full of love for those
dear to her.”
Kangana wants to be somebody who was a real player, who
made something from scratch, who made a difference. Try
and stop her.The writer is a senior journalistELLE.IN 99 JULY