Bollywood actor tells Dear Daughter podcast she feels ugly sometimes

Kalki Koechlin has acted in blockbuster Bollywood films, modelled for international beauty brands and appeared on the cover of Vogue India. But in a world that puts such a premium on looking young, she says at times she feels “ugly”.

“We live in a social [media] world that has distorted beauty,” the actor, writer and producer tells the award-winning BBC World Service podcast Dear Daughter. “It has tricked us into thinking beauty is a certain size, a certain colour or a certain shape.”

The half-hour programme features letters from parents to their children – in which they pass on the advice and life lessons which matter to them – and a conversation with the show’s host Namulanta Kombo.

Kalki’s letter is addressed to her five-year-old daughter. In it, she offers advice for navigating pressures around body image and describes the ways unrealistic beauty standards have affected her personally.

The actor, who lives in Goa in India with her husband Israeli musician Guy Hershberg and their daughter, says the inspiration for the letter came to her when, one day after school, the child came to her to say she didn’t feel pretty.

“When they’re so young, they’re so perfect and you think, ‘Oh my goodness. How is it possible that you could think you’re not pretty?!'” she says on the podcast.

In the letter, Kalki, who is herself the host of another BBC podcast, My Indian Life, writes that she also feels “ugly sometimes, even though I’m constantly told by the world around me that I’m beautiful”.

She advises her daughter that “beauty standards will change throughout your lifetime, so do not hold too much value to what society deems beautiful currently”.

“Remember that your scars, your wrinkles, your eyes, your lips, your hands, your feet, your hair, your skin are all here as witnesses to your beautiful life. They are here to grow old with you, and carry you through the ups and downs. They are your friends for life,” she writes.

Born in Puducherry, India, to French parents, Kalki describes herself as a “geeky introvert” while growing up. As a teenager, she says, she was uncomfortable with her appearance, and pursuing a career on camera only intensified those feelings.

“Becoming a celebrity, having your face out there and being in front of the camera… There’s another layer of self-consciousness that kicks in.”

Working in the film industry, she says she experienced a particular pressure to maintain a youthful appearance. Once, she says, a producer even suggested over lunch that she get dermal fillers for her wrinkles.

“He said, ‘All you need is a little filler for your laughter lines.’ I smiled and said, ‘Well, I better stop smiling so much.’ So I think my approach has been to deal with it with humour.”

Kalki says this happened when she was in her 30s and that she’d “already lived enough life to not be affected”.

“But I know that 20-year-olds are being told this and they feel the pressure to go and change their face very early on.”

Kalki says she believes this pressure is worsened by the rise of social media. “We all scrutinise [ourselves] and we all have these filters.” And in her letter, she shares her fears of trying to protect her daughter from such scrutiny.

She jokes that she even wondered about moving to Australia when she heard of the country’s plans to ban smartphones for under-16s. “That’s how my mother-brain is working!”

Kalki is not the only celebrity to speak about the pressure to appear young that is faced by women in the public eye.

Stranger Things actor Millie Bobby Brown made headlines earlier this month for calling out journalists who have criticised the way she has aged.

“The fact that adult writers are spending their time dissecting my face, my body, my choices is disturbing,” the 21-year-old said in a three-minute video on her Instagram page.

Dear Daughter podcast is the brainchild of Namulanta Kombo, a mother from Nairobi on a quest to create a “handbook to life” for her daughter, through the advice of parents from all over the world.

Each episode has a guest reading a letter they’ve written to their children, or their future children, or the children they never had, with the advice, life lessons and personal stories they wish to pass on.

In one of the episodes of the current season, Bridgerton actor Adjoa Andoh tells her three children to trust their instincts. In another, wildlife documentary presenter Rae Wynn-Grant offers advice on how to survive self-doubt and encounters with bears.

Dear daughter,

One day after school you told me, “Maman I’m not pretty.” You were only four. I panicked and immediately responded with, “What do you mean, of course you’re pretty, you’re as pretty as a butterfly, as bright as the sun.” And you continued to say angrily, “I’m not, I’m just not.”

In retrospect, I wish I had listened to you and been curious enough to ask you why you didn’t feel pretty? You see I make mistakes too, my own insecurities and need to protect you took over and I didn’t allow you the space to feel what you were feeling. Don’t let others decide who you are. Not even me. You have far more experience at being you than anyone else. And no-one else can be a better you than you.

Thankfully, I get second chances at being a better mother, and when a few weeks later you said “I don’t like myself”, I stopped my impulse to tell you what you were and listened. There was some silence and then you opened up about how you were having a hard time with some other children in school.

I thought about how to ensure you know that beauty is not skin deep. The truth is sometimes you will feel ugly. I feel ugly sometimes even though I’m constantly told by the world around me that I’m beautiful. And so now I have made it a point to tell you how beautiful you are, not when you’re feeling bad about the way you look, and not when you’re dressed your best, but when you are being the best versions of you.

As you grow older I know that you will not always believe that you’re beautiful because we live in a social world that has distorted beauty, that has tricked us into thinking beauty is a certain size, a certain colour, or a certain shape. These beauty standards will change throughout your lifetime, so do not hold too much value to what society deems beautiful currently.

Remember that you are whole and that if you start to pick apart your little nose or your hairy brows or your not quite right ears, you will start to feel ugly, but that is only because you are forgetting the whole. An elephant is a beautiful animal, but pick it apart and it’s got a long wrinkly nose, strange side glancing eyes, huge sticking out ears and a big fat stomach.

Remember that your scars, your wrinkles, your eyes, your lips, your hands, your feet, your hair, your skin are all here as witnesses to your beautiful life, they are here to grow old with you, and carry you through the ups and downs, they are your friends for life.

Dear daughter, do you know when I’ll stop loving you? Never.

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