Kalki Koechlin: A Voice For Change

Kalki Koechlin doesn’t like being called an activist, but you hear her when she speaks.

- Suchismita Ukil

Lucid. That’s the first word that comes to mind while in conversation with Kalki Koechlin [for the curiousminded, her last name is pronounced as ‘cake-la(n)’ and not ‘coach-lin’]. Easy to laugh and with a good head on her shoulders, this 32-year-old actor is someone we could all relate to. She would make a good role model, I can’t help thinking. And I wouldn’t be too wrong to say that she’s sincere to a fault, as also someone who doesn’t mince her words or beat around the bush to call a spade just that.

Kalki caught our attention in 2009 with the breakout film Dev.D, a modern retelling of the classic Devdas, where she portrayed Chanda and there has been no stopping her since. We saw this star shine in more than 10 films over the years. There have been blockbusters like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani and performances in That Girl in Yellow Boots, Shaitan, Shanghai and, more recently, Waiting that won her critical acclaim. In May, she picked up the special jury award at the 63rd National Film Awards for Shonali Bose’s Margarita with a Straw, for her sensitive portrait of Laila, a collegegoing girl with cerebral palsy (CP).