‘Divorce with Anurag Kashyap was bitter initially, hurtful to see him with someone else': Kalki Koechlin recalls how parents' hated each other after ‘nasty' split
Speaking to Zoom about how her understanding of relationships and love was shaped by her parents' difficult marriage, she said, 'My parents divorce when I was 13, and it was really bad. They were really nasty to each other and it was like cold and mean growing up between them. That was very tough. Maybe that's why I'm divorced.'
Kalki admitted that growing up in such a toxic environment conditioned her to sabotage relationships. She said, 'There is a certain part of you that jeopardise relationships once they start turning bad, but you are like 'oh this happens' because you have witnessed that as a child. I have witnessed as a child my parents separating and hating each other. A part of you loses the faith to walk through the worst.' Kalki acknowledged that over time, 'consciousness and therapy' helped her overcome this conditioning and come to terms with her parents' divorce.
She also opened up about her divorce from Anurag and how it was difficult for her to see him with someone else post-separation. Speaking about how it took time for them to be civil with one another after their divorce, she said, 'The first few years after the divorce were not easy for us. Then came a point when we were like 'we need to stay out of each other's lives' because it was hurtful to see the other person with somebody else, just the reminders are so strong.'
She added, 'It does take a few years. We didn't get to it immediately and distance helped. Now we are in a good place and we are able to catch up once in a while.' Kalki was present at Anurag's daughter Aaliyah Kashyap's wedding last year. Aaliyah is Anurag's daughter from his first marriage with Aarti Bajaj.
Kalki made her acting debut with Anurag's Dev D. Shortly after the release of Dev D, the two tied the knot in 2011. However, they parted ways in 2015.
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Hindustan Times
13 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
From Brooklyn to Rome: Katie Kitamura on writing, family, pleasure
Dear Reader, I wrote Audition during the pandemic, during that tension of sharing space again with people you love, having to recalibrate those relationships. That fed into the story --- Katie Kitamura (The The Booker Prize longlist is out and our most discussed book of the year is on it! For weeks we have been obsessed with this brilliantly constructed novella. What is the truth of our protagonist's life? We don't know what to believe about this New York-based theatre actor — she is an unreliable narrator for sure — but which version of herself is 'true'? There is a war on, when we read the book. 'Art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience,' says George Eliot, and in a bizarre sequence of events, we watch this come true. We see a correspondence between the competing narratives in Audition and in life. On national television, Indian anchors declare they have won the war. On the internet, Pakistan claims it has won, having shot down Indian fighter jets. There is a third version as the US takes credit for a ceasefire, contradicting the Indian and the Pakistani versions. Reading Audition, we don't know what to believe. Is our protagonist really a mother — is the young man called Xavier her biological son? And can we ever truly know a person? It is thrilling when Katie Kitamura agrees to join us on Zoom to discuss her writing. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation — everything from the truth of this Booker Prize longlisted novella to how Katie met her writer husband Hari Kunzru, plus tips on how to get your children to read. Katie Kitamura on Zoom Thank you for joining us on your Friday morning. Can you tell us what you see out of your window? I am at home in Brooklyn, and when I look out the window, I see trees, which is surprising because I'm in the middle of a city, but in fact, the neighborhood where I live has these enormous, very established trees that are about five stories tall. Your parents immigrated from Japan when they were in their twenties. You were born in California and grew up living on the college campus at UC Davis. What was your childhood like? It was an idyllic childhood, full of reading. I read indiscriminately — Little Women and the Ellen Montgomery series, Anne of Green Gables, Sweet Valley High. We had a full shelf of Agatha Christie novels and my mother and I read them together. I loved reading those books and the pleasure remained even once you knew the solution. And that taught me about reading and pleasure — that it isn't simply linked to plot and narrative; fiction can feel like a world that you can escape into. You're married to the novelist Hari Kunzru; you're this power literary couple. And of course, we've read Hari's work, and we love it — and love yours too. So can we be a little cheesy and ask you how you met? We met a long time ago, at a dinner that Zadie Smith organised. I was working at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. And Zadie was a writer-in-residence, and one of the things she did as part of her program was to organize a dinner with like 20 of the most exciting new young writers in Britain, and Hari was one of them. And I was not. I was not even writing at the time. I was just working, but Zadie had asked me to help organize this and also come to the dinner, and that's when I first met Hari, and we stayed friends till we got together eight or nine years later. And then, Katie, you wrote The Longshot, and it was set in the world of mixed martial arts? It received a lot of attention and readers were fascinated with this slender young Asian woman who was once a ballerina now writing about mixed martial arts. Tell us more about this experience. I was following in the footsteps of my dad, doing my doctorate, on my way to be an academic. I had never studied creative writing. Then I had this strange thought, which was that I wouldn't follow the golden rule, which is, write what you know. I would do the inverse, and I would write what I didn't know. I would try to use the process of writing fiction as a way of learning about the world. I chose to write a very masculine novel, to write about the dynamic of a relationship between father and son. When I finished writing the book, I realised that although I had done vast amounts of research, what I had really been drawing from was not just all those hours of following fighters and going to matches and studying technique. What I was drawing on was actually my own childhood and adolescence as a classical ballet dancer, the incredibly tough physical regimen of dancing three to four hours every day. Trying to write about these men and writing about training, I was actually writing about myself and my own experiences. That was the first real lesson I learned about writing fiction, which is that you're always revealing yourself in some way. You're always drawing from your own experience, whether you like it or not. So no matter how far away from your own life you write, you always end up face to face with yourself. That was freeing and helped me to continue writing fiction. I wanted to ask you about your relationship with language. Your protagonists in A Separation and Intimacies are both translators. You also speak more than one language. For the first few years of my life, Japanese was the household language. When I was five, we spent a summer in Japan with my cousins, and everybody was speaking Japanese. When I came back to the United States, I forgot how to speak English. Soon after, when I started kindergarten, the school told my parents to stop speaking Japanese to me so that I would be able to catch up and learn English. It was a terrible mistake, and today I can see it as part of this ideological programming of assimilation. Over time, my Japanese slipped away. Today I can speak Japanese, but I cannot read with any ease, and I certainly cannot write in Japanese, which is a source of real sadness to me. But I think, in a funny way, it's something that has fed my fiction because the prose that I write is in some way haunted by another language. I'm very interested in trying to find syntax and forms of sentence structure that are perhaps outside the norm for English. I use a lot of comma splices, a lot of what would be called run-on sentences, which are not technically grammatically correct, but which wouldn't be so unusual in some other languages. There was also an experience that will be familiar to many second-generation children of immigrants. If you acquire fluency in the dominant language in a country, you're often called upon to speak English on behalf of the family. There was a period when I spoke English better than my parents, and I was the one who had to order the pizza or do whatever needed doing. I think that dynamic probably led to my interest in this question of interpretation, which I explored in Intimacies. In both Audition and Intimacies, we see multiple versions of competing narratives. What motivates you to create this kind of play? When I was a very young reader, I thought my assessment of what was happening in a book was objective. Now I understand that it varies wildly depending on where I am in my life—even where I am in my day. I realise how much of my own history and baggage is involved in interpretation. To be really honest, a book can seem much better when I've had a cup of coffee! The books that have moved me most over the course of my life are the ones that accommodate multiple readings. Take Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady—a brilliant book. When I was young, I thought it was a novel about a young woman's coming of age. Later, I saw it as a novel about the tremendous disappointment of life. It's both, of course. That mutability—how a text shifts depending on the reader—is something I wanted to explore actively in this book. That meant writing a book that felt airy, with a structure big enough for both me and the reader. I didn't want to write a book where the author knows all the answers and the 'right' reader has to guess them. I don't want that kind of relationship with my reader. I wanted the book to feel more like a collaboration. Audition, for instance, is what I call a rabbit–duck novel—you can look at it one way and see a rabbit, and another way and see a duck. Couples have come to book events and said, 'I thought it was this,' and their partner said, 'I thought it was that,' and asked which one it is. And of course, it's designed to be both. The Rabbit Duck novel How did the idea for Audition come to you? It started with a headline I saw: 'A stranger told me he was my son.' I didn't read the article—I assumed it would have a logical explanation, and that wasn't interesting to me. What fascinated me was the tension between 'stranger' and 'son.' I went for a walk with a friend of mine whose son was around 24, and I said, 'This headline preoccupies me, and I don't know why.' And she said, 'That's motherhood. Every time your child returns home, it's like a stranger has walked into the apartment.' That was really the feeling I carried into the book. We're conditioned to believe in total knowledge and intimacy between partners, and I was interested in exploring how even the most universal experiences—marriage, parenting—contain moments of profound strangeness and unfamiliarity. In A Separation, the narrator finds her husband a stranger. In Audition, it's the mother–son dynamic. And I always feel the period in which you're writing a book expresses itself in the book, even without any direct references. I wrote Audition during the pandemic, during that tension of sharing space again with people you love, having to recalibrate those relationships. That fed into the story. You are married to a fellow writer. Do you discuss each other's work? We're each other's first readers, and we want to come to the manuscript as fresh as possible. So we don't talk about our work while we're writing it. Because if I explain what I hope the novel is doing, then by the time he reads the first draft, he already knows—and he's no longer the ideal litmus-test reader. And you are all readers? It's the thing that ties our family together. At all moments, everybody would rather be reading. How did you raise your children to be readers? Our children are growing up surrounded by books, and they see us reading all the time. But it's not just that. Reading is a pleasure. Our children were always allowed to read whatever they wanted. If they asked for a book at the bookshop, we would get it. They took pride in accumulating books, just like us. We also let them find the books they wanted to read. When we've tried to give them the books we loved as children, they've resisted a bit—like when my husband gave our 12-year-old son the complete Terry Pratchett collection and said, 'You're going to love these.' He didn't. But when he finds a series on his own that feels like it belongs just to him, he devours it. As a child, I felt that reading was a private place where I could feel and know things that no one else in my family did. I try to respect that with my children. If they want to read something that feels completely their own, that's actually the best way to make reading a source of deep pleasure. A Separation is set in Greece, Intimacies in the Netherlands, and each setting feels like a character. Do you travel as a family to these places? What is the experience of travel like? I like to set my books internationally—except for Audition, which is set in New York. I'm drawn to characters who have just arrived somewhere and must figure out what it means to be there—whether in terms of behaviour, custom, or even ethics. I can't imagine life without travel, and I see my children organize their imaginations around it, too. Both Hari and I teach at New York University, which has campuses around the world—especially the one in Paris, where we teach every summer. Hari has family in India, and we took our son there when he was two. I have a family in Japan. So our children have the travel bug. Even though they're still little, they're great travellers. New places give them a sharpness of observation. And finally, tell us about your next book. It's a novel set in Rome, and it's about pleasure in a way my earlier books have not been. I did a fellowship in Rome, and we lived there for six months as a family. It's a complicated place, but one filled with many, many pleasures. Our book club conversation with Katie ends leaving us with much to think about. Like what parts of our lives are performance? Which version of ourselves is the 'real' one? And can anyone—ever—truly be known? These are just the kind of provocative questions that capture the problems of our age, thus giving Audition a well deserved place on the Booker Prize 2025 long list. (Sonya Dutta Choudhury is a Mumbai-based journalist and the founder of Sonya's Book Box, a bespoke book service. Each week, she brings you specially curated books to give you an immersive understanding of people and places. If you have any reading recommendations or reading dilemmas, write to her at sonyasbookbox@ The views expressed are personal)
Hindustan Times
16 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Gulu & Hulk-Star: Kalki and Gulshan's bond behind the frames
Long before the spotlight found them, Kalki Koechlin and Gulshan Devaiah crossed paths in the most organic way, which was through their love for theatre. Their bond began not on film sets, but in green rooms and after-show hangouts, when neither of them was famous. Kalki first noticed Gulshan's "striking stage presence", while he was drawn to "her ease and goofy authenticity" in social settings. What started as effortless camaraderie, free of pretense or pressure, has quietly "evolved into a deep, enduring friendship" — the kind where you're not just close, you're family. Gulshan & Kalki on friendship day Jab we met Recalling their first encounter, Kalki says, "The first time I saw Gulshan was actually in a play, Butter and Mashed Bananas. It was written and directed by Ajay Krishnan; not only was he performing, but Gulshan was very good at it." Gulshan adds, "When I met her in Bengaluru, while performing the play, I didn't know who she was, as she wasn't that famous then. There was an ease about her; she was just so chill, and there was no fuss, though we didn't become friends immediately." Having worked in the 2010 thriller Girl in the Yellow Boots, Gulshan calls it a memorable experience, describing Kalki as a "fantastic" actor. He says, "I really love working with her. We've had to improvise scenes together, and there's this familiarity — she knows how to irritate me, and I know how to irritate her back! But that's what makes it fun. There's chemistry because we're so familiar with each other." The duo was also seen in Shaitan (2011) and Love Affair (2016). Camaraderie and special names Where Gulshan admires Kalki's energy and openness, Kalki connected with him for who he was off stage — grounded, thoughtful, and real. 'She was really easy, chill, and quite charming, also a little goofy. What stood out most was her natural social ease when she was around people. She could just flow in and out of conversations, of groups; where as I used to be self-conscious, and I admired that about her,' shares Gulshan. Kalki, in turn, recalls her earliest impression fondly: 'I enjoyed the play and we all went out for dinner later. It was my first introduction to Gulu and both on stage and off stage meetings left a mark. While I mostly like him as a person, we often joke that Gulshan has OCD. For him, everything has to be in place all the time. There have been times when I've told him, 'Gulu, let go!' But that's also part of his charm.' Ask them if they have any special names for each other, Gulshan mentions: "She's like a superhero to me and I call her Hulk-star because she's the strongest woman I know. People think she's carefree, but there's a lot of character strength in her.' Kalki adds, "I call him Gullu out of my fondness for him." Through thick and thin Gulshan reflects, "I've seen her go through a lot in life. Many times, I used to worry or even disapprove of some boyfriends she had. After she separated from (filmmaker) Anurag Kashyap, there was a lot going on in her life. But then she became a mother, and it's such a joy to see her as a mom, caring for her baby." He adds, "When I met her, she was a young girl. She's a woman now. It's beautiful to see your friends grow and mature in life." Kalki shares, "He's just been there so often when I've been down. There have been times when I've stayed at their home (Gulshan and his ex wife, Kallirroi Tziafeta). When I started dating my now-husband (Isareli classical pianist, Guy Hershberg), I took 20 people to my mom's house, and my mom was overwhelmed. Gulshan was the one who managed everyone; he was the darling of the house." She continues, "We've gone on holidays together, seen each other through rough times, and even recently, he showed up at one of my interviews as a surprise – that was really sweet." Fond memories Recalling how Kalki has been there for him without even asking, Gulshan says, "We had just moved into a studio apartment, and one day, she came and had an AC delivered. That was my first AC – gifted by Kalki. She somehow figured out that I was low on finances and did what she thought was best for me." Recalling the memory, Kalki adds, "Yeah, I just got it for him. I read between the lines. He didn't have to ask. Isn't that how friendship works?" When asked about her fondest memory, Kalki recalls a house party the two of them attended, sharing, "We were once at a house party, and as soon as the song from the movie Fashion – 'Fashion ka Jalwa' – played, we went wild. That was the moment we knew we'd be friends forever." How has the bond evolved Kalki sums up by sharing how, over the years, the bond between the two has only evolved. She says, "When you're young, friendship is about going to parties, and now it's about people who make you feel safe, who don't judge you." Adding to her thoughts, Gulshan mentions, "We don't need to talk daily or give gifts to each other. But I know she's a well-wisher, and I'm there for her too; we're those friends who show up if and when the other one needs us."
News18
a day ago
- News18
Related To Arun Jaitley & Ex-J&K FinMin, She Co-Starred With Shah Rukh Khan. The Actress Is...
Last Updated: Ridhi Dogra initially began her career in dance with Shiamak Davar's institute and later worked as a co-producer at Zoom. In the wake of Shah Rukh Khan winning his first-ever National Film Award for Jawan, actress Ridhi Dogra who played his on-screen godmother shared a heartwarming reaction. Calling herself the 'fake mother" of the actor's Jawan character, Dogra said she felt 'real joy" for what she called a long-overdue moment in his career. 'The best news. The best film. This fake mother of her Jawan son is over the moon with real joy @iamsrk congratulations bigeesssttt love to you and @Atlee_dir and entire team !!!" Dogra wrote on X (formerly Twitter) as she reacted to SRK's win for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 71st National Film Awards. Not Just An Actress, Also Arun Jaitley's Niece While her fans know her from her performances on screen, few may know that Dogra is also related to one of India's most prominent political figures: Arun Jaitley. Her paternal aunt, Sangeeta Jaitley, was married to the late BJP leader which makes Dogra his niece. 'I have grown up around him and buji, played innumerable times with Sonali and Rohan, in his office when he was a lawyer," she wrote in a post on Instagram. In her post, Dogra also highlighted Jaitley's intellect and his ability to make anyone feel heard. ''How's your work going beta? What's new in your industry these days?' He would always ask me. And I would always feel short of words because I knew I would not know a patch of what he did about my industry but still he had this great quality to make everyone he spoke to, feel important to his time," she said. Ridhi Dogra's Journey Dogra is a well-known name in television and OTT circles. After completing her education at Apeejay School, Sheikh Sarai, and graduating in Psychology from Kamala Nehru College, Dogra initially began her career in dance with Shiamak Davar's institute and later worked as a co-producer at Zoom. She gained popularity through roles in shows like Maryada: Lekin Kab Tak?, Savitri and Woh Apna Sa for which she even won Best Actor in a Negative Role at the 2017 Gold Awards. On the web, she was seen in The Married Woman, Asur and TVF Pitchers Season 2. In 2023, she made her Bollywood debut with Lakadbaggha followed by significant roles in Jawan and Salman Khan's Tiger 3. She also appeared in The Sabarmati Report where she shared screen space with Vikrant Massey and Raashii Khanna. On the personal front, Dogra was earlier married to actor Raqesh Bapat. The two parted ways in 2019. Rahul Gandhi Alleges Threat By Arun Jaitley As Dogra's connection with Jaitley comes into focus, a recent remark by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has also brought the late BJP leader back into political discourse. During a recent event in New Delhi, Gandhi claimed that the government sent Jaitley to 'threaten" him during the farm law protests in 2020. 'I remember when I was fighting the farm laws, Arun Jaitley ji was sent to me to threaten me. He told me 'if you carry on opposing the govt, fighting the farm laws, we will have to act against you." I looked at him and said 'I don't think you have an idea who you are talking to"," he said. Notably, the late BJP leader had passed away in August 2019, almost a year before the three controversial farm laws were brought in as ordinances in June 2020. Arun Jaitley's Legacy Jaitley was a towering figure in Indian politics. He served as Finance Minister from 2014 to 2019 and also briefly held the Defence portfolio. As a key member of the Modi government, Jaitley was involved in several major reforms including the implementation of GST, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and banking sector overhauls. Earlier, he had served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (2009–2014) and was the Minister for Law & Justice as well as Commerce & Industry under the Vajpayee government. About the Author Buzz Staff A team of writers at bring you stories on what's creating the buzz on the Internet while exploring science, cricket, tech, gender, Bollywood, and culture. News18's viral page features trending stories, videos, and memes, covering quirky incidents, social media buzz from india and around the world, Also Download the News18 App to stay updated! tags : arun jaitley ridhi dogra viral news view comments Location : Delhi, India, India First Published: August 02, 2025, 16:37 IST News viral Related To Arun Jaitley & Ex-J&K FinMin, She Co-Starred With Shah Rukh Khan. The Actress Is... Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
