Kangana attends the Burberry autumn-winter 2014 showing in London

I don’t know why I did it. I don’t really plan many things that I do. I’m not a journalist. I have never interviewed actresses. Not even Vidya Balan during her tenure of many awards and Rani Mukerji while dressing her for her wedding.

But instinct told me that I had to pick up the phone and call Kangana Ranaut to do a little interview with her. Because somewhere down the line, I think she is my soul sister. I called up Rangoli and she was very amused that I wanted to interview her star sister. Rangoli, Kangana and I have worked together to create a few looks (in pictures), so I know them pretty well. At least over the cell phone.

I decided to call Kangana at 1.30pm despite knowing that she would be very busy. Imagine how mortified I was at 3.45pm when I realised I had forgotten to call her! I spotted my phone between batches of dyes and embroideries and there were three missed calls from her.

When I called her, there was a dog barking in the background. She was trying her best to hush him up. But why would the dog care that someone was interviewing Kangana Ranaut? He was demanding Revolver Rani’s time.

I told her, almost shyly, that I have never really done this before. I still haven’t managed to see Queen, I just read the reviews in t2 and I felt that it was going to be a beautiful film. Something told me that it would be about Kangana, me and so many other people who have braved our lives for a better future. So that’s why I decided to interview the ‘queen’.

- She and I are so alike

The first thing that strikes you is her voice. It’s almost sing song. But beneath the sing-song voice and a rather strange accent is a bulldozer of a woman. And this woman knows her shit. Three seconds into the conversation I know that I am not talking to an actress or a superstar. I am just talking to a rock-solid human being. I have met and seen so many that I can tell you that she is from a different crop.

My first question: “Did your parents have resistance about you getting into the film industry?”

I believe that everything that we are today, whether successful or not, a lot of the contribution comes from the family. I know the hell my parents gave me when I decided to get into fashion. I was sure that Kangana, being middle class, being born in Himachal Pradesh, might have gone through a similar evolution. What I was not prepared to know was that our similarities would be so similar! She told me that Himachal had only one movie hall. There was no movie culture. She had not grown up seeing movies. She was unsure of what she wanted to do. The Internet told her that there was life beyond the mountains. And she wanted to go out there, be closer to the rest of the world. She told her father to let her go to Delhi so she could decide what she wanted to do. The fact that she was brilliant at academics and came within the first three didn’t help things.

Cut to the 16-year-old Sabyasachi. He didn’t know he wanted to do fashion but he definitely knew he didn’t want to be a doctor fuelled by his mother’s expectations. He told his dad to let him come to Calcutta to find his dream. t2 wasn’t there. There was no Vogue India. No Elle. Maybe a few cut-outs from Femina and Eve’s Weekly. How could I convince my dad that his son was going to become a darzi because that’s all that he could envision. But for some of us idealists where our hearts rule our head, one must realise that no matter how many heartbreaks we have, the heart is always stronger than the head. And where the heart will take you, so shall you go.

So I came to Calcutta and Kangana went to Delhi. The only thing I do not have in common with Kangana is the fact that she found inspiration in her Chandigarh school friend Bandana. Bandana was a sculptor and Kangana found in her the perfect life that she wanted to get. Kangana left science to pursue arts. I had no mentors. I did not have people whose lives I could emulate. But then I found my answer in a friend who used to wear these little dresses with power heels, rouge on her cheeks, Chanel lipstick and Opium — Meeta Ghose. Incidentally she is also my store manager today. Had I not met her, I do not think I would have been inspired to become a fashion designer. Some people push you towards your destiny, either directly or indirectly. So Kangana went to Delhi to pursue theatre, I went to NIFT to pursue design. Sometimes when you want to become big, people, situations and the universe conspire to push you towards your destiny.

Kangana told me that in theatre, people wait for months and months to get a break. But she found hers soon when her mentor Arvind Sir asked her to slip into the role of an actor who had dropped out. And Kangana the actress today debuted as a boy in theatre. He gave her the validation that she was great and that’s all she needed to hear at that point of time.

In my case, I was egged on by Celina Jaitly and Koena Mitra, both of them put their faith in me and asked me to pursue choreography. Celina pushed me to design an outfit for her for Miss India. Like Kangana, this was the turning point in my career. These little events did not bring Kangana and me a great deal of fame and recognition, but it did help both of us hapless creatures find what we wanted to do with our lives. She went on to become a celebrated actress and I am quite successful in what I do right now, which is designing clothes. But you know what? There is something frightening about both of us, something that worries me and worries her — that both of us are drifting.

We are drifters and we are loners. And that’s because we are both middle class. There was a time when Kangana said she could not buy bread. And I remember I had to borrow stationery from my friend Bipasha to finish my homework. Somewhere down the line, that lack of money gives us a little bit of perspective, that life is not going to be bound by 10 minutes of fame and a few billion dollars in your bank. Life is all about breaking out of your shackles and boundaries of consumerism and attachment and looking beyond into the unknown.

Today Kangana wants to direct films. She wants to go to Paris to do bakery classes. I want to do architecture. I want to write. I want to direct films. Maybe hopefully, someday, in our quest of film direction our paths will meet. But the observation here is that because both of us are middle class, we can actually detach ourselves and turn our back on our monumental fame and try something else. The only thing that holds us back, perhaps, is the attachment to people whose lives we have directly touched, because at the end of the day middle class can never really be irresponsible.

The power of choice

So with that profound thought, I asked her a quick question: “What makes you tick? What really makes you happy?” She giggles and says, “Food”!

In my mind, I do cartwheels. I giggle too. I ask, rather politely, so what kind of cuisine? She says, “You know Sabya, I think I just love food — rajma chawal, dal chawal, everything. There are days when I want to sit down for a seven-course gourmet meal in the world’s finest restaurant.” I asked, “Are you apologetic about it?” She says, “Absolutely not! I love both. I love that I am in a position to choose.”

I told her that I find it really fascinating that she leads such an exuberant life, makes it to fashion pages every single day, the world following her, being Googled, making news as an actress.... Yet at the same time, she has a quirky simplicity that stops people from slotting her. That is why she has the ability to become a sustainable star. But I also see a little disarray in this whole arrangement. I say, “I feel that there are two people living inside you — Kangana and a twin sister. Care to throw light on both of them?!” She agrees. “The two people living inside me are poles apart! One does yoga, reads Vivekananda and wears Fabindia kurtas, and the other struts out in Dior, Balenciaga and Sabyasachi and plays to the gallery. I like dal chawal and also sushi. I want to be able to study. I also want to become an entrepreneur. I want to give up films to bake pastries. I want to slum it out in New York City and be anonymous, yet at the same time I want to walk the red carpets. I am happy doing both. At no point of time do I feel like I am doing injustice to one side by being the other.”

By this time I have a broad smile and had gone into my own zone. I realised that I am so much like my little soul sister. I wear Gap — that’s my preferred clothing. But I love sitting in Harrods and having caviar. Of course Japanese is a common denominator between both of us. I love being on a rickety train on a road to nowhere, but when I am driving to my factory I am sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of my Jaguar. I own a very large company and the most exuberant stores in the country. But I still live in a one-bedroom rented house. I love the dichotomy of my life. I love the fact that I can make my choices. I love the fact that within this perfect imbalance there is a terrific balance that only I can understand and no one else. And I am sure Kangana will approve.

This queen will never lose her crown!

I ask her: “What do you do with your free time?” Kangana tells me she is terrified of people, and very suspicious of a person who cannot spend time with himself. “I love my me-time. I deserve it. Because I am an actress, I get out of my body to become another person. I am living that role for two years or one year, trying to get it perfect. So when I come back to my own self, I become the woman that I am. I realise there is a little bit of catching up to do, otherwise resentment will grow in. I like to spend my time doing nothing, eating good food, reading, switching off my cell phone. There are days on end that I don’t look into my phone. So if it means an assignment is lost, an assignment is lost! I need to go out somewhere in the world, eat great food and do some great shopping. It makes me very happy. I like to be a girl.”

I smile broadly even more. By now my jaws are aching. Because I remember many Christmases and New Year’s Eves that I have spent alone, not even looking into my phone to see if anybody has called to wish me because I am so happy with myself.

My favourite pastime is checking into anonymous hotels and sitting in my shorts and watching TV. Once in NYC, I spent five days doing nothing but just looking at Central Park and ordering room service. By the end of the fifth day, I was guilty that I did nothing, so I went to a souvenir shop and picked up a ‘I love NY’ T-shirt! But what the hell — that’s me!

What binds me to Kangana, and a whole lot of other people we call our tribe, is the fact that we are selfish to a fault. We like to do things our way. If we never lived our lives our way, we would not become an example to so many other people who are trying to make a better life for themselves. I salute Kangana, the woman and the actress for living so fearlessly. It is just so fascinating when I asked her my ultimate question, how she would like to be remembered. She smiled and said: “Like a person who lived fearlessly.”

Before I end the article, I would just like to mention somebody whom I have always secretly admired. Ex-supermodel Madhu Sapre. She never spoke good English but was a lesson in confidence. When she went for Miss Universe she was asked a question as to what she wanted to do with the title. She did not bat an eyelid and said to the world very proudly that she was a sportsperson and wanted to build a stadium. Not a very Miss Universe answer because she didn’t talk about saving lives or fighting for AIDS or world peace or saving children in Africa. But Madhu said she could not lie to win a title, so she said what she believed.

Kangana is so much like Madhu Sapre. Had that girl been a little more politically correct, she would have probably gone places but she decided to take the long route and stay true to herself. And do things at her own pace and time. It took her a very long time to get into her elements and do a film like Queen. And let me tell all of you that this queen will never lose her crown!