The Bollywood actor tells a dear daughter podcast that sometimes feels ugly

Kalki Koechlin has acted in the Bollywood Films blockbuster, modeled for international beauty brands and appears on the cover of Vogue India. But in a world that puts such a premium on looking young, it sometimes feels “ugly”.

“We live in a social (media) world that has distorted beauty,” says the actor, writer and producer of the BBC World Service award -winning podcast dear daughter. “This lies to us to think that beauty is a certain size, a certain color or a certain shape.”

Half an hour, the program includes letters from parents to their children – in which they convey the advice and lessons of the life that matter to them – and a conversation with the host of the show Namulanta Combo.

Kaki’s letter is addressed to her five -year -old daughter. In it, it offers tips for navigating the pressure around the body image and describes the ways in which unrealistic beauty standards have personally affected it.

The actor who lives in Goa in India with her husband Israeli musician Guy Herserg and their daughter says that the inspiration for her letter came when one day after school the child came to her to say that she was not feeling much.

“When they are so young, they are so perfect and you think,” Oh my God. How is it possible to think that you are not quite?! “,” She says in the podcast.

In the letter Kalki, which herself hosts another BBC podcast, My Indian Life, writes that she also feels “ugly sometimes, although I am constantly told from the world around me that I am beautiful.”

She advises her daughter that “beauty standards will change throughout your life, so they do not have too much benefit to what society considers to be beautiful right now.”

“Remember that the scars, wrinkles, eyes, lips, arms, legs, hair, your skin are here as witnesses to your beautiful life. They are here to grow old with you and bring you through the ups and falls. They are your friends for life,” she writes.

Born in pudders, India, to French parents, Kalki describes himself as a “terrible introvert” as I grew up. As a teenager, according to her, she was uncomfortable with her appearance and the pursuit of a camera career only strengthened those feelings.

“To become a celebrity, to have a face there and to be in front of the camera … There is another layer of self -awareness that begins.”

Working in the film industry, she says she has experienced special pressure to maintain a youthful appearance. She once, she says, the producer even suggested that he receive dermal fillers at lunch for her wrinkles.

“He said,” All you need is a little filler for your laugh lines. ” I smiled and said, “Well, better to stop smile so much.” So I think my approach is to deal with it with humor. “

Kaki says this happened when she was 30 years old and that she was already living enough life so that she would not be affected. ”

“But I know the 20-year-olds say this and feel the pressure to go and change their face very early.”

Kaki says he believes that this pressure is deteriorating from the rise of social media. “We all look at (ourselves) and we all have these filters.” And in her letter, she shares her fears of trying to protect her daughter from such control.

She jokes that she even wondered to move to Australia when she heard the country’s plans to ban smartphones for under 16. “That’s how my mother-brain mother works! “

Kalki is not the only celebrity who speaks of the pressure to look young who is facing the women in the eyes of the public.

The actor more sorts of things dear Bobby Brown titles Earlier this month, to call journalists who have criticized as old.

“The fact that elderly writers spend their time disseminating my face, my body, my choice is disturbing,” says the 21-year-old in a three-minute video on his Instagram page.

Dear daughter Podcast is the birth of Namuel Kombo, a mother of Nairobi in an effort to create a “guide to life” for her daughter, through the advice of parents from all over the world.

Each episode has a guest reading a letter they wrote to their children, or their future children, or children who have never had, with the advice, life lessons and personal stories they want to convey.

In one of the episodes of the current season, Bridgetton actor Ajaa Ando tells his three children to trust their instincts. In another, the leading Wildlife Documentary RAE WYNN-GRANT offers tips on how to survive in uncertainty and meetings with bears.

Darling daughter,

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

In a retrospection, I would like to listen to you and it was curious enough to ask you why you didn’t feel pretty much? You see that I make mistakes, my own uncertainties and I have to protect you, and I did not allow you to feel what you feel. Don’t let others decide who you are. Even I. You have a lot more experience in being you from anyone else. And no one else can be better than you.

Fortunately, I get a second chance of being a good mother and when you said a few weeks later, I don’t like it, I stopped my impulse to tell you what you are and I listened to. There was some silence and then you opened up to how it is difficult for you with some other children at school.

I thought how to guarantee that you know that beauty is not deep skin. The truth is that you will sometimes feel ugly. I feel ugly sometimes, even though I am constantly told from the world around me that I am beautiful. So now I made sense to tell you how beautiful you are, not when you feel bad about the way you look, not when you are dressed best, but when you are the best versions of you.

With aging, I know that you will not always believe that you are beautiful, because we live in a social world that has distorted the beauty that has lured us to think that beauty is a certain size, a certain color or a certain shape. These beauty standards will change throughout your life, so they do not have too much value for what society considers to be beautiful right now.

Remember that you are a whole and that if you start to separate your little nose or hairy eyebrows or not quite the right ears, you will start to feel ugly, but this is just because you forget the whole. The elephant is a beautiful animal, but take it divided and has a long wrinkled nose, strange side eyes, huge protruding ears and a large thick stomach.

Remember that the scars, wrinkles, eyes, lips, arms, legs, hair, your skin are here as witnesses to your beautiful life, they are here to grow old with you and bring you through the ups and falls, they are your friends for life.

Darling daughter, do you know when I will stop loving you? Never.

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