00:00I still feel like I'm unfinished, and I felt a sense of confidence.
00:03I felt prepared for the world.
00:05I was thrown into the deep end, and I learned how to swim.
00:19So the book is not like, here's my life for people.
00:24It was more sort of introspective for me,
00:26and looking at my journey now, at this point in life,
00:30where I'm content, and I'm confident, and I'm not insecure about my past.
00:36And it was very healing for me.
00:38But the timing was just because, I guess, I was ready to sort of dissect my life
00:43with having the time during quarantine.
00:45I was home for six months.
00:50I still feel like I'm unfinished, and I have a lot I want to do in my career, in my life.
00:55But also, it's OK to be unfinished.
00:58A lot of us constantly strive to be perfect and the best versions of ourselves.
01:03And trying is all we can do.
01:06And we are all in different forms of unfinished, and work in progress.
01:11So it was a little bit of both.
01:26My pageants were a springboard for me, not just for my career, but as a woman.
01:31I felt a sense of confidence.
01:32I felt prepared for the world.
01:34I was thrown into the deep end.
01:36I learned how to swim.
01:37At 18, I was made to feel like I could walk into a room and talk to heads of states,
01:44and hold a conversation.
01:46And that is the way my pageants, which was the Miss World pageant specifically,
01:51and the Miss India pageant, were designed.
01:54And they both give a lot of credence to having a sense of purpose,
01:59and not just surface beauty.
02:01But at the same time, I'm also someone who believes that women shouldn't be judged
02:06predominantly on the way they look.
02:09And it is an archaic thought, and I don't think I would do it again,
02:13first of all, ever be in a competition again.
02:14But it was honestly a really big springboard for me at that point,
02:18and launched my career.
02:19And I wouldn't have had it if I hadn't been in the pageant.
02:23And it gave me a large sense of self.
02:26So I'm very divided when it comes to it.
02:43I know that when I came to Hollywood, it was really hard for me to understand
02:48that I don't think it was conceptually normal for American filmmakers of movies or TV shows
02:56to think that, you know, the lead of a mainstream show,
03:00not a genre movie, not an indie movie,
03:02but like of a mainstream show or a movie could be Indian, could be an Indian lead.
03:07I think that was conceptually really far away from how people thought at that point.
03:13And that was something I didn't think about when I was, you know, working in India.
03:17I didn't think about what representation means in the, you know, in global entertainment,
03:22in English language entertainment, until I started seeking work in the US.
03:27And this is just about six years ago.
03:28So, you know, it really became my quest to sort of create those opportunities for myself
03:33and other people that look like me and come from an extremely prolific industry
03:38that has us equipped to be a part of global entertainment, which is Bollywood.
03:47It wasn't just Nick and I that got married.
03:48Our teams had to get married too.
03:50They knew that our priority is always us.
03:54And at the same time, being married to somebody who's in the same profession,
03:57you know, we kind of get the professional demands that both of our careers have
04:01and are supportive to each other.
04:03So whenever we have a break, we fly across the world to make sure that we see each other.
04:07And, you know, we're always there whenever it's important days and important events.
04:12And I'm just so grateful to have a partner who understands that.
04:15And at the same time, values our relationship, you know, as something that is a priority.
04:20So it's not been that hard as I would have thought it would have been.
Comments