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Kalki: I didn't want a huge, impersonal wedding
Barely four days after getting married to director Anurag Kashyap in a private ceremony in Ooty, Kalki Koechlin is back in Mumbai, and busy promoting her new film Shaitan, produced by her husband.
After racing through the day with the media, Kalki was scheduled to catch a flight out of town to shoot for an ad for a couple of days.
She was so tied up that we ended up interviewing her in her car, as she made her way from J W Marriott (where the press was invited to interview her) to her new home in Versova, a suburb in Mumbai.
And if that wasn't all, Kalki is scheduled to travel to Israel on May 14 to tour the country with her theatre group.
"What kind of husband is that! He puts me straight back to work! Terrible! I should be locked in the house making chapattis," she huffs, pretending to be angry, and then breaking into peals of laughter. "The reason we are together, and the reason we got married is because both of us love our work a lot. That's very important for us."
So why did they plan the wedding at a time when her calendar was so choc-o-block? Why didn't they just wait it out? "Actually, we planned the wedding in January. My work was supposed to get over in March and I was to have the whole of April free. But that did not happen," Kalki explains. "I worked till a few days before the wedding and have joined work immediately after."
No honeymoon plans? "There will be one, but we haven't made specific plans. We definitely want to go away somewhere. But when we go, I want to disappear completely, switch off my phone and not have any work on me. That's why we are finishing all our commitments. We will go for our honeymoon after a couple of months," she answers.
'Everyone wanted a traditional wedding'
The wedding was quiet a hush-hush affair in Ooty, with not many people from the film industry in attendance. "That's because if we had made a big announcement, it would have been unmanageable. I did not want it to become a huge impersonal wedding, where you don't even know who's there at your wedding. That's why we had only close family members. We thought the best way to get married was quietly... chupke... before everybody finds out," she explains.
The couple got married under a 100-year old mango tree, the same one that Kalki used to climb on, as a child. They got married according to traditional south Indian rituals even though Kalki's parents are French. The wedding ring that Anurag gave her belonged to her grandmother.
"Everyone wanted that, including my mother. His parents wanted a traditional wedding as well. I was born in South India and that's our culture. My mom was very particular about that," Kalki explains.
Kalki promises to have a party for Bollywood in a couple of months, before they head out on their honeymoon.
'I eat twice as much as Anurag does!'
Was she nervous at her wedding, like most brides? "Thankfully, no," she says, "because it was so quiet and peaceful. There was nothing to be nervous about. It was a very emotional day for both of us. There were lots of speeches, poems and things like that. It was a really lovely day."
So is she ready for wifely chores like, say, cooking? "We have always had a cook at our home so I have not cooked much. But I love to bake cakes and pies," Kalki says. "I am very fond of Indian food. I love South Indian food, as well as Kashmiri and Bengali food. I am a complete foodie. I eat twice as much as Anurag does! But I don't put on weight. He thinks it's unfair," she giggles.
Did life change for her after her wedding, even though it's been only four days? "No," she answers. "Life has not changed. The only change is that everybody is asking us about our wedding! So far, it's good. There's no pressure, no rules. It's exactly the same as we were before the wedding. Hopefully, it will stay like that."
'It's a breath of fresh air to do lighter films'
Kalki will be seen soon in three films: Shaitan, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and My Friend Pinto.
"It's a breath of fresh air to do lighter films, and not to cry all the time," she says. My character in Zindagi is very comical. She's a South Mumbai girl, very posh, always dressing fancy. She's very funny."
In My Friend Pinto, she plays an innocent Catholic girl, who believes everybody is good. "She is 'cartoony' innocent, wide-eyed with her head in the clouds," Kalki says.
Since she loves romantic movies, will she ask husband Anurag to make one with her? "Anurag still has to mature. I can't tell him what to do. It's his journey. I can't guide him," Kalki reasons.
So when does her maddening work schedule end? Her next film shoot stars in September, so she has 'a nice long break.'