My Household Wasn’t Bollywood at All, in Fact It Was Detested and Looked Down Upon” – Vijay Varma Reveals at We the Women

The second half of the day at 8th edition of We The Women by Barkha Dutt, witnessed some distinguished personalities weighing in on some consequential topics and sharing personal experiences. Among the guests were ace fashion designer and recently-turned producer - Manish Malhotra along with Vijay Varma - the versatile actor known for his compelling performances. Speaking about his journey, coming from a lower-middle class Marwadi household to making it today in Bollywood, the actor took us back to where it all began, he shared, “Even I had applied to NIFT Hyderabad. I wanted to do something in the creative field and wanted to get my father's signature on the form. I took the form and told him that I want to do a fashion designing course and he said “Tailor banega?” and tore the form.” Elaborating on how his parents view his profession now and his recent film Gustaakh Ishq, he further added, “My father just sent me a voice note this morning” saying - “Teri film acchi hai, akhbar mein aaya hain.” “I was like thank you so much. My entire family went and saw the film last night at Hyderabad and they loved it.” Speaking about his new stint as a film producer and how different he is in the role of a fashion designer, Manish Malhotra said, “As a producer, I have just started the journey, so I can experiment. I’m not sure as a designer or brand how much we can experiment because people expect a certain kind and businesses are higher. But the thing is that what we can constantly do there is evolve. Change in the same narrative but constantly evolve. But here is a little bit of a clean slate right now or a new slate rather than a cleaner slate and I can experiment for some time but ultimately of course I'm going to land up doing glamour films because that's the core.” Bollywood actor Ishaan Khatter, currently riding the wave of immense adulation with his film Homebound, now India’s official entry for the Oscars,  shared, “At the moment we're putting in the work, we're doing the due diligence, we're trying to make sure as many people as possible can watch this film. So when it comes to all of you, who are supporting it, saying your kind things about it, talking about it, that every word counts. It is overwhelming because as you mentioned, it is a film very personal to me. It's very dear to me. Outside of being a milestone in my career, I think I always had the sense that this is in many ways a role of a lifetime.”