As she completes five wildly eventful, successful and life-altering years in Bollywood, Alia Bhatt pens a letter to her future self. Her plans, hopes, dreams and all the stuff in between, the actor and megastar cover them all.
Dear Alia,
Remember this year, 2017. It’s the year I started to form a relationship with myself. It’s also the year I started meditating—I’ve stuck to it for three weeks now, and I’ve really been enjoying it. Hopefully, you’re still at it, 15 years from now. I’ve always wanted this; not to meditate necessarily, but this moment of stillness in a day. The thing is, I’m not a people person. I stick with the few who really matter, and that’s it. It’s not like I hate human beings, I just consider myself a cat.
At 40, I hope you are a good person. And that you haven’t allowed success or failure to ruin your relationships or make you forget your roots. I hope you haven’t changed drastically. I’m sure you’ve had to change, but I just hope not too drastically.
You know, I can’t take breaks? I feel very guilty when I try to clear my schedule. I feel like I should work rather than chill. But one day, I want to go on a safari to see wild animals—you know, the typical South African safari. I also want to travel to New Zealand and Australia, and I want to see the northern lights too. Maybe take a solo hiking trip somewhere. I hope you did all that.
How’s the girl gang? We’ve stuck together since we were four and I don’t think it’ll have changed. I know this because I’m not special to them; they don’t care. They’re like, “Who are you?” I surround myself with family, with people who treat me like a regular person—the people who knew me before I became who I became. And I know it’s a cliché, but I hope you still focus on work and don’t get carried away with the limelight, which can get exhausting.
I am working on being less anxious. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop being paranoid. But honestly? I think it can be helpful to be paranoid sometimes. It stops you from doing a lot of stupid things. Paranoid, anxious, obsessive, all these things—whatever I don’t like about my mother, I am all that, and it doesn’t look as if I’m letting go of any of those soon. Did I?
What are you doing at 40, exactly? My guess is you have kids. You’re married. Because I want to have kids. You’re a pretty obsessive parent, aren’t you? I know this because I co-parent my cat and I’m obsessed with him. It’s not normal. I would like to have two kids by the time I am 35 and be done with it, because I want to act. I want to go back to acting.
I want to work with Rajkumar Hirani. I want to work with Karan [Johar] again. I feel like in my first film (Student Of The Year; 2012), I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t get to experience the director. He’s been my mentor, my friend, my father figure. But I want to just be directed by him once again. And I want to work with my own father in whatever capacity possible. I have a bucket list in terms of the people I want to work with and the things I want to do, apart from acting. I don’t want to be known as an actor only. I want to be known as everything you can think of. I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to be a philanthropist. I want to be associated with something creative—maybe singing. I want to be an octopus. I’ve always wanted to be everything. I want to invest in a restaurant someday, or own a boutique with my mother or something. I don’t mind having a production company like Anushka’s [Sharma]—producing good, small content. I don’t mind doing smaller films.
The way we look at women 15 years from now will be completely different. It’s going to change. Tell me it has.
There’s one thing that I decided quite some time ago: I don’t ever want to prove a point to anyone else but myself. So whatever I do, I do it for myself. If I’m competing, it’ll be with myself.
It is very important to me that I give back. For example, I think animals are way better than us—I would choose an animal over a human being any day. And they are not getting enough love. In whatever capacity, I hope you are using your voice. I’d like to think you’ll use it for however long it is relevant.
I’m not under the impression that I’m going to be relevant for the rest of my life. In whatever way it happens, it will happen. It will hit its peak and then it’ll go.
I see you living between London and Mumbai now. Are you? London is my soul city. I love everything about it—the weather, food, people and the atmosphere. Hopefully, you have a house there now.
I hope you are reading more. Mum and dad read a lot. Right now, my generation is all about technology, it’s all about Netflix and chilling, and Instagram. So I’m trying to focus on the real moments, and not only the virtual ones.
I hope you have good posture, which is what I’m working on right now. I also hope you can lift the kind of weights Katrina [Kaif] lifts in the gym. And finally, stay curious. My curiosity always makes me ask the question, even when I feel stupid about it.
Love,
Alia
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Photographs: Tarun Vishwa
Styling: Rahul Vijay
Art Direction: Reshma Rajiwdekar
Hair: Gabriel Georgiou/ Anima Creative Management
Make-Up: Puneet Saini
Assisted By: Divya Gursahani And Vedika Chotrimall (Styling)
