There’s something enigmatic about former Miss India runner-up turned actor Sobhita Dhulipala. She’s not your average, bubbly young starlet raring to take over Bollywood. Tall, svelte and arresting, she carries herself with a gravitas that belies her 25 years of age. After an hour-long chat about her geeky childhood, the futility of beauty pageants, writing poetry, the dangers of right-wing politics and why she doesn’t need to socialise to get a part in a movie, it felt like I was just beginning to know her. Perhaps it was because of her disclaimer, “You should not take me very seriously, I’m an actor!”
In her second outing as lead actor in a feature film ( Kaalakandi, directed by Akshat Verma after a scorching performance in Anurag Kashyap’s Raman Raghav 2.0 ), Dhulipala seems a seasoned storyteller and interviewee. Not one to wait shyly for a question to trigger her thoughts, the actor opens up about whatever is on her mind. It’s this clarity of thought and expression that seems to have brought her to the intimidating city of Mumbai in 2010.
Small-town girl, big dreams
Dhulipala left behind the small town life in Visakhapatnam at age of 16, after randomly choosing one of three cities from a map of India — on the radar were Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai. She decided on Mumbai and convinced her parents to let her go. “I grew up in Visakhapatnam and after my 12th grade I moved to Mumbai because I was aching to move to a big city,” she said. “I was obsessed with the idea of flyovers, the big city, music and the hustle.”
At the end of her third year of college (she was studying commerce at HR College), Dhulipala auditioned for the Femina Miss India Contest when a classmate told her to go for it because she was tall. “I wasn’t very pretty — I was lanky, too many limbs, and wasn’t attractive to boys,” she said. “I think most of my childhood, adolescence and teenage years I was struggling to feel validated — which led to a lot of my career choices as well.” Did winning the Miss India-Earth title make a difference? “Strangely it was a huge setback to my sense of self. I felt I was reduced to entertainment,” she stated candidly
Why did a girl who always yearned for validation from the world, not enjoy her success in winning the much-coveted title of Miss India? “I thought I would feel good, I would feel desired — which is how billion-dollar industries work, but I was made to feel insufficient so that people could sell things to me, be it products or dreams,” she recollected. “I was told ‘You’re not fair’, you know the typical pop culture idea of a pretty girl. But it’s funny, I won more because of my answers or conduct than my looks.”
After a dissatisfying stint in modeling (Dhulipala featured in the Kingfisher Calendar 2014 edition), where she would constantly feel the gap between real life and the glamorous life of modeling, selling products (“what was I selling, man?”) or be objectified and told not to think (“I was offended”). She decided to start auditioning for parts in advertisements and began to learn Hindi as well.
Things moved happened quite rapidly after Dhulipala responded to a call from a casting director. “I got a call from Mukesh Chhabra to audition for a part, within an hour after the audition, Anurag Kashyap was there. In 48 hours I was shooting the film and in six months I was in France — in Cannes!” she shared. Playing the lead character Raghav’s (Vicky Kaushal) casual girlfriend, Dhulipala was nominated (alongside Cate Blanchett and Robert Downey Jr.) for the critic’s choice best supporting performance at Cannes 2016.
How did this change her life? “I just felt very liberated because maybe I was associated with people like Anurag sir and Nawaz sir — who were very passionate about what they were doing, it wasn’t a fickle fame for fame’s sake attitude,” she said. “That really influenced me. Until then, I would say what others would comfortably accept, not really voice my opinion for what it was.”
Cannes also had a huge impact on Dhulipala in terms of understanding the value of cinema being more than just entertainment, but a transformative artform. “Everyone [in Cannes] respected films as an avenue that has the scope to affect people,” she said. “There was a [immediate] responsibility on the storytellers, and you suddenly see [films] as a machinery that can change lives or free people from their own judgments. And that is so much bigger than being popular — which is what is there in our country.”
The greatest prize
So what’s next? Doesn’t she want to be a popular actress in mainstream cinema? Or is she happy with her offbeat choices like Raman Raghav 2.O and the soon-to-be-released black comedy Kaalakandi ? “There were huge films that I said no to because I felt I wouldn’t have watched that film if it came out. Every time I decide not to do a commercial film, a masala film, I’m closer to myself,” she says emphatically. “I’m not obsessed with the idea of fame, or lots of money or social power. I can actually do want I want to do—I’m free — isn’t that the greatest prize?”
