I'm A Miracle

Actor Richa Chadha reminisces about the days when she was the one writing articles and taking interviews.

- Reema Behl

Interviewing someone is like going on a blind date. Or so I imagine because I haven’t ever been on a one yet. But if I had one planed, I assume I’d look up all that I could about ‘the date’ on the internet and form an impression about him that, depending upon the evening, will change or strengthen. So, when I was asked to interview actor Richa Chadha, whose performances I had thoroughly enjoyed in movies like Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and Fukrey, I asked myself if I wanted to do a superstructured, research-fuelled interview, or just go with the flow. I decided not to over-research this but on my way to Film City in Mumbai where she was shooting, I gave in and looked her up on Google. I came across articles like ‘Richa Chadha opens up about bulimia’; ‘Seven controversies about Richa Chadha’; ‘When Richa’s short dress made her uncomfortable’; ‘Richa Chadha: My sex scene in Masaan is simply two people in the act’, and so on. I was disappointed. The clickbaity world of digital journalism had swapped an artist’s body of work with ‘anything that sells’.

I wondered if Richa Chadha ever Googled herself. How does she want to be known? After a gruelling three-hour journey, I reached Studio Number 15 at Film City and was sent straight to Chadha’s vanity van. She was flustered. “Why are the people here so rude? Let’s get this done with quickly, please? I don’t want my friend to wait,” she said agitatedly to someone on the other side of the van. When she finally met me, she apologised and asked me to wait. I had Murakami to keep me company for the three hours it took for her shoot to wrap up. I was consoled by the fact that some fans had been waiting for a selfie with her for five hours.

When she stepped inside the vanity, she erupted into a series of apologies, changed her clothes, took her dinner