David Bowie
Rekha
Madonna
LadyGaga
Hair and Make-up: Maniasha. Nail Artist: Oshin Lemos. Production: Studio Little Dumpling.
Helen
Kalki Koechlin is game for anything that’s out of the ordinary… Donning a tangerine wig to resemble David Bowie or a massive, pink bow on her head to look like Lady Gaga, exclusively for Bazaar India, is completely up her alley. But it’s not just the theatricality in performance that catches her fancy (Kalki, for the uninitiated, co-wrote the award-winning play Skeleton Woman in 2009 and made her directorial debut in 2015). The 39-year-old has recently penned a tongue-in-cheek, graphic novel about her pregnancy, The Elephant In The Womb [Penguin Random House], and it’s nothing you’d expect a book on motherhood to be like… There are references to “an alien invasion” in her growing belly, an honest appraisal of how she felt lost after giving birth, and many doodles on bodily realities that no-one really talks about.
“Sappho [her daughter with partner, Guy Hershberg] was just a month old when I started. She would wake up every few hours at night; it was quite tough. But the consistency of just being able to shut the door, be on my own, and write was really helpful,” she tells us over a video chat from Israel, where she is enjoying the rustic, domestic life, far away from the din of the city. Kalki, as she tells us, is also whipping up for her neighbours there, getting back in the swing of shooting, and exploring a whole new universe of motherhood as India, Kalki opens up about why she wishes she had the superpower to be invisible, her hopes for herself, her joys and sadness, and a lot more…
