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‘I would love to settle down with Anurag’

Kalki Koechlin on what attracted her to director Anurag Kashyap and why she decided to play a prostitute in her very first film

Kalki Koechlin, who plays Chandramukhi (Chanda) in Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D, has no qualms admitting to the world that she is very much in love with her director.

“Yes, I’m seeing Anurag Kashyap,” she declares even as she clears some misconceptions about Kashyap’s image in the industry. “Unlike the general perception that Anurag is hotheaded, he is in fact a sweet person. He is very romantic. After the film shooting got over he called me out for dinner. And perhaps this first dinner united us. Sometime ago, when I was hospitalised due to dengue, Anurag cancelled all his meetings to be with me for that whole week, sitting beside me for hours together. If everything goes well, I would love to settle down with him,” says the actress, who was born in India to French parents.

Talking about what he likes in her, the 25-year-old actress says, “He adores my humility. Also, he always tells me, ‘I like that quality of inquisitiveness in you…wanting to learn more and more about things’.” And in turn, she says, she loves “all the qualities in Anurag”, adding with a smile that she believes in the phrase ‘Love is blind’.

Kalki makes no bones about that fact that she has been in love twice in the past. “I had fallen in love for the first time when I was just 15-years-old. I was studying in a boarding school in Ooty then. We were so much in love…we used to always walk around holding hands…it was very innocent. We broke off just after six months. You may say it was just an infatuation,” recalls Kalki.

The second instance was when she was studying in the University of London where she fell in love with her classmate. “We were in a relationship. Then I decided to come down to India. We continued for two years and then broke off. Perhaps long distance love does not work out,” said Kalki matter-of-factly.

Kalki says that “more and more love” is the mantra to keep any relationship going. “While in a relationship, one needs to be ‘in love’ all the time. And when it is love all around, you become less angry and more stable. Also, honesty keeps a relationship going,” she opines. 
The actress, who has lived most of her life in South India before she went to London to pursue a course in drama and theatre, admits that her knowledge of Hindi is poor hence she had to work a lot on her diction to dub for Dev D.

Kalki says, “Though the story is known to all, Dev D has contemporary visuals. There’s much more to my character than just being a prostitute. When she is not entertaining customers, she dresses up like any other girl in jeans and casuals and leads a normal life. The film shows the kind of issues prostitutes in Delhi face. My character even goes to school.” Considering this is Kalki’s first Bollywood film, wasn’t she apprehensive of taking up a controversial role?

While Kalki agrees that it was no dream debut for her, she did not want to keep waiting for that “ideal role if there is anything like that”. “My role in the film has a controversial streak to it, but I still don’t know what would have been an ideal role to debut with. I feel even this is a big role for me. I am a theatre person and I feel I’m lucky to have got a challenging role like this for a debut,” she replies.

Before she continues with her Bollywood career, there’s one more hurdle that Kalki has to cross - getting a permanent citizenship. “I am planning to get a permanent visa citing my birth,” says Kalki.

But for now, Dev D and beau Anurag Kashyap keeps the actress busy.

citytime@emirates.net.ae