Kusha Kapila has been hitting the headlines for her personal life. On June 26, she took to social media to announce her separation with Zorawar Ahluwalia after six years of marriage. What followed was incessant trolling and vilification. Zorawar even issued a statement defending Kusha and stated that attacking her character and “paint her as some villain is shameful."
What added fuel to the fire was a picture from Karan Johar’s party that led many to speculate a brewing romance between Kusha and Arjun Kapoor. The content creator went on to dismiss the rumour on an Instagram Broadcast message. And now, Kusha, who is gearing up for the release of Sukhee with Shilpa Shetty Kundra, in an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha, shares her thoughts on the general public perception around her life and how she chooses to deal with it.
“Making sure that people always say nice things about you means you want to be in control of your narrative and how people feel about you all the time. And that’s impossible because that’s not how life is. As much as you want to be in control of your narrative, it can’t happen, especially if you’re in the public eye,” she asserts.
She goes on to tell us that she wouldn’t stop living her life the way she wants because of the fear of the negative perception. “There’s no point bearing the emotional burden and labour of what people think of you or their expectation from you. I don’t want to be that person who at the age of 50 feels like she didn’t live her life, do what she wanted to do and give it her all. That’s not how I want to live,” she says.
Kusha admits to be being a ‘people pleasure’ and how that often takes a toll on her. She points out that she is working on achieving a Zen mode where she remains unfazed with everything that people have to say about her. “As a Virgo who’s a compulsive people pleaser and micromanages everything in her life, I feel like I should let go at some point to be able to be happy and present in the moment. I really struggle with being present in the moment because I’m constantly thinking of 5000 different things,” says Kusha, who will also be seen in Thank You For Coming.
She adds, “But I’m doing everything in my life to reach that point of Zen and remain aware. I think I’m somewhere there, about five percent (laughs). I hope to reach that goal by another 40 percent by the end of the year.”
Talking about how her next film Sukhee also deals with ‘being ‘unapologetic’ and ‘battling perceptions’, she explains, “Sukhee is the story of so many women. Women constantly battle people’s perception of them and their ideas of who they are. In the process, they lose themselves. So, when I read the script of Sukhee, my first thought was, ‘My mother is going to love this movie so much!’ And that’s because she’ll feel represented thinking that someone has penned a story for a woman like her.”
Lauding her co-star, Kusha remarks, “Shilpa ma’am brought so much reality, compassion and a sense of endearing quality to her character, which makes you like her instantly. She’s also on a journey of self-discovery much like most other women who’re constantly trying to find themselves, especially those in our mothers’ generation including those who are managing homes and careers at the same time. They don’t even know how life is getting away from them.”
