The Strength to Soar: Rhea Chakraborty on ‘Rising Above and Moving Forward’
In conversation with Rtn. Priya Tanna
Rhea Chakraborty: Thank you, that’s really kind; kindness is something I’m recently getting used to. This looks like a very esteemed, beautiful crowd. From the little bit that I saw on stage, it’s a really cute Club, man. It’s so sweet, and it seems like humanity still resides in these parts of south Bombay. So, congratulations to you guys on having such a beautiful bond with each other.
Rtn. Priya: Rhea was talking to me downstairs, and I was raving about Rotary, telling her how inclusive and wonderful this organisation is, and how I’ve really made great friends here. She said, “So when I walk up, everybody will be a friend?” I said, “Yes, you’re walking into a room of a hundred new friends.” And that’s what this is for you.
Rhea, I’m going to start off by asking you a very obvious question. When you think about your journey over the last few years, so much of your life has been open to the public and under intense scrutiny, do you feel there have been parts that have not been understood at all, even today? And if yes, what would you say they are?
Before I speak about my life, I’d like to give a small disclaimer. I’m not here for pity or sympathy, no pati, sampatti maybe, but none of that stuff. I’m doing well; all is great, I’m making lots of money, life is good. I say this because it tends to happen that when I talk about my life, people start crying, and I’m just like, “Are you okay?” And I don’t really want to console anyone, so please be happy, all is well.
Yes, of course, Priya, there are lots of things. I don’t think anyone’s life can be truly understood by the public. Not even by another individual in your life, not even the closest person. And if you’re not lucky enough, not even yourself. You can’t always understand every emotion that you go through.
The parts that I feel have been lost, when we talk about the public side of things, are very basic, it’s humanity. It’s normalcy. Normalcy for me has become very special. I can’t explain it better than with an example: when you go through a trauma to the degree that I did, there’s a gift that comes at the end of it. Which is — relatively, everything feels better. When you go through the worst, everything else feels better.
So a little bit of a boy problem, or a film not happening, or a T-shirt that we make failing a QC check, these are now non-issues. That gift comes from the trauma. The normalcy, even with its tiny first-world problems, feels amazing. I feel great to have these issues today because my issues were once beyond my own understanding. They no longer are, touch wood, and that makes life feel really good.
Just being able to walk in here today without being chased by the media, to sit down and talk to a bunch of friends, like you said, that’s a really big achievement for me. Because from where I was, it felt like I couldn’t live in India anymore. The conversations with my parents at one point were: “We can’t live in Mumbai, let’s move to Pune,” or “Let’s move to South India where nobody knows you.” But I stood my ground. I told my parents, “No, we live in Khar, and we will live in Khar only.” And I’m glad we did, because today, we can properly roam around and meet lovely people like you.
That’s amazing, Rhea. What do you hold on to? I’m coming back to a darker moment only to set context for what’s to come, for how you’ve managed to rise and overcome. When the world seems like a hostile place, what gets you through? What’s your coping mechanism?
Well, I think I tried every coping mechanism on this planet, because I had to. But what really worked for me… so as you all know, let’s just address the elephant in the room, I was in jail.
On the 14th day of being there, I was in solitary confinement. It’s very dark in your head. You can’t meet anybody or speak to anyone in the outside world. Slowly, you start thinking, “What if people have forgotten that I’m here? What if they’ve forgotten to get me out?” You start spiralling, “What’s going to happen to my life? Will I ever get work again? Will I ever walk on the streets? Get married? Have children? Oh my God, my life is doomed.”
And in that darkest moment, it’s a bit spiritual, I sought an answer from the universe. I asked for an explanation: “Why me? Why is this happening?” I kept asking for guidance. On the 14th day, I requested the jailer to allow me to go to the prison library. I decided that whichever book I picked up, I’d open to a random page, and whatever was written at the top right would be my answer from the universe.
Now, my life is quite dramatic, so you’ll believe this, when I entered the library, a book fell on my head. I thought, “This is a sign.” It was by Paramhansa Yogananda Ji, not Autobiography of a Yogi, but another book. I opened a random page, and on the top right, it said: “We are all actors in God’s play, so don’t take it personally.”
I thought, “What? Don’t take it personally? Excuse me, it is personal!” I kept shutting and reopening the book, reading that line again and again. And when you’re in jail, you really have nothing else to do, so I read it about 400 times. Then it hit me: this is not about me. The whole universe is not conspiring to make my life miserable. I am not so important that everything bad that happens to me is because the universe doesn’t like me, or God doesn’t like me, or that I am some very special being. That’s where I think I broke away from slipping into victim mentality, which is such an easy way out. Whenever things go wrong in life, it’s very simple to say, “My life is so bad. Why is this happening to me? Why me?” It’s still very narcissistic — even in pain.
To break away from that and understand that there is a whole universe out there — galaxies upon galaxies — and that we are part of just one galaxy, one solar system, one planet, and within that planet, one country among so many others, and within that country, one single city, and in some small corner of it, a pin code — 400054 in Khar — that’s where I was living. That perspective, about how vast everything else is and how small we really are, changed everything for me.
And I think that perspective stayed with me — it’s no longer something I just heard or read; I feel it. I feel it every day, especially when I’m about to complain about something relatively small.
In the process of this understanding and learning, however, I have completely lost empathy for first-world problems. I have zero empathy for my girlfriends who are dealing with boyfriend drama. “Oh, he didn’t pick me up from dinner.” And I’m like, “He should break up with you. You deserve to be single.”
I don’t feel those things anymore because I believe that anything happening to you out of your own choice is fine. If it’s outside of your choice, then it’s a problem — and that’s when I’ll feel bad for you. Because everything in life is a choice.
You sitting here today is a choice. Me coming here today is a choice — until it’s not.
I lived with many women in Byculla Prison for a month, where I saw people who had no choice in life, nobody fighting for them, and 70–80% of them were innocent. That’s when I realised that if these women don’t pity themselves, and they’re not victims, then nobody I know in my world hereafter can be either.
I think that deserves a really, really big round of applause. I don’t know too many people who would come out of incarceration with such an optimistic view on life. Most certainly not me. And actually, that brings me to my next question, Rhea. You find the tools to help you cope, you come out. But how do you find the means to help you rebuild? Because I know when you got out, your movie career was pretty much either non-existent or up in the air. You faced immense scrutiny and had to deal with a lot of mental trauma. How do you start rebuilding? What was the first step you took? And what made you think, I have it in me to rebuild again and I don’t care what the world thinks? Especially in professions like yours, you care what everyone thinks. So how do you go from that to saying, I know myself, I’m going to do this, and I don’t care what everyone thinks?
I think another gift of trauma is indifference. Indifference is beautiful. It’s a beautiful place to be, where you realise that you’re not really driving the car, you’re sitting in the car that’s being driven. You can say, bhaiya left le lo, right le lo, but beyond that, you have no control.
It’s amazing as a woman when you’ve been labelled so many different things, right? You’ve been through everything you can think of, black magic, witch, chudail, drug peddler, murderer, kidnapper, and lots more. Thereafter, what will you judge me for? It’s only upward from here. You’ve already thought all that of me. Now, if you meet me and think I’m rude, that’s a compliment, that’s an upgrade! If you think I’m a sl*t , that’s still an upgrade because it is better than a murderer.
So in turn, I can live my life however the hell I want. I can abuse, I can say f*ck if I want to, because if you judge me, I don’t care. I’m indifferent. Before this, I would always play to the gallery, and most women are raised to be that way: good girl, nice girl, smile all the time, be pleasant. That’s pretty much not my agenda anymore. I can do as I please, behave as I please, and not pretend any longer, and that’s very liberating.
Trauma liberates you from societal judgement, at least the kind I went through. Having said that, yeah, of course, perception, we’re all in the perception game. We’re all putting out a version of ourselves we think is best for society, for our friends, for our careers. If I behave this way, if I dress that way, I’ll make more money. It’s a capitalistic world.
But it’s really important to understand why you’re playing that game. In my case, there was no option to play it. There was no external validation to seek, it didn’t exist. I couldn’t go out. What I’m experiencing right now, speaking to a room full of you esteemed people, is external validation. So I had to look inward and seek internal validation. Inner validation, which sounds spiritual but is truly necessary.
It’s the need of the hour, given the Kalyug we live in. Inner validation is difficult to find. If you want to fast-track it, you can go to Byculla! But if not, you just have to spend time with yourself and figure out what makes you, you, beyond being Rhea, Colonel Chakraborty’s daughter, Shobi Chakraborty’s sister, actor, whatever. Even good labels take you away from inner validation.
Having lost faith in society, lots of money in legal fees, and more, I got to a point where I thought, now what? I can’t constantly just be healing. I need to work, find purpose, move forward, make money. So my brother and I started chatting. He’d got 97 percentile in his CAT and had admission to IIM that same year. Unfortunately, he got arrested the same year in his first trimester. Again, don’t feel bad, no crying, okay? I’m not going to console you.
Then we decided, let’s do something. Let’s start a brand. I initially wanted to call it Chudail Ka Badla.
Thank God you didn’t. That may not have sold anything!
Because that’s how I was feeling! Then I wanted to call it Badnaam, which again was shot down by many people. Finally, it became Chapter 2.
We started off thinking we’d sell soaps, because in jail, soap is such a scarce commodity. Then we thought of many things, and finally landed on t-shirts. I wore a t-shirt when I got arrested that said, Roses are red, violets are blue. Let’s smash the patriarchy, me and you. For some reason, that t-shirt went viral. People spoke about it. I realised, Oh, this garment can speak for me when I can’t speak for myself?
So I thought, can I create more garments for people going through difficult things, that can speak for them when they can’t? We made a bunch of t-shirts and thought, if nothing else, our Bandra friends will buy them! But as luck would have it, karma is a good debt collector, and in this case, I was collecting from karma. Things just changed thereafter.
I have to say, I’ve never met somebody who says words like incarceration, ****, murderer and all with a smile and a joke. This has got to be a first for me!
Tragedy is comedy. It’s true.
Touché. Question, when you started off with the label and then the podcast, how easy was it to market yourself in this new avatar as an entrepreneur? To go from public figure, actor, to now being taken more seriously as an entrepreneur?
I think people were already taking me too seriously, so I had to be like, Relax, I’m normal! Right after 2020, we went to a friend’s birthday dinner at Taj Bandra, and a waiter saw me and fainted. That he saw Rhea Chakraborty. He was terrified, like he’d seen a don or something!
So yes, people were scared of me, and it was amazing. I really enjoyed that part. I had this amazing power of polarising any room I entered. Half the people would be like, poor girl, strong girl, and half would be like, hmm. I could sense who was judging me. I’d just play around with it. At the dinner table, I’d look at them and say, Shring, briiiing, sarvaling, and they’d get up and leave, thinking I was doing black magic! I found it hilarious.
Of course, I had moments of pain, but the way people reacted outside my house, it was funny. So I used it to my benefit. Eventually, people realised: Gym jati hai, ghar aati hai, char doston ko milti hai, salon jati hai, boring ho gaya. After 600 times, they stopped following me to the salon.
As that happened, I didn’t have a PR agency or much money when I started Chapter 2. I just wanted to live, to make some money. And recently, I was gossiping about a colleague with my brother, and he said, “You’re so mean, karma’s watching you.” I said, “No, brother, I’m watching karma. It’s the other way around.”
I really believe there’s a universal law: when so much bad happens, good eventually follows. And I think this is a benefit of that.
And tell me about the podcast. Did that come on the back of Chapter 2 Drip, or was that before?
I started the podcast and Chapter 2 simultaneously. The reason for the podcast was that I didn’t feel safe speaking with anyone. I feel like everything is a scandal. Today, the news is saying Dharmendra ji has passed away, whereas he hasn’t. His wife and daughter are putting out articles saying he’s alive and stable. Why post such stuff?
I obviously received a lot of misinformation about me through the news. I tried speaking on other people’s podcasts, but they felt the same, just journalists covered in the garb of new-age media. So I thought, I don’t want to go on anyone else’s show; I’ll start my own. People come, say what they want, and we edit anything that might land them in trouble. We take a month to edit and send it to them for approval. It’s a safe space for honest conversation. A lot of my healing happened through other people’s stories and journeys, and that’s the space I wanted to create, a place for collective catharsis.
For those in the room who don’t know what Chapter 2 Drip is about, can you tell us a little about the label? What’s the essence of it?
Essentially, Chapter 2, if you know my chapter 1, you’ll understand why it’s called that. I think everyone has a chapter 2 at some point, often many points, in life. Whether you’re going through a divorce, a breakup, moving cities, changing jobs, joining a new club, it’s your chapter 2.
Change is the most misunderstood part of human existence. It feels scary, nobody likes it, but it’s the only constant, and it’s beautiful. In that metamorphosis of change, we’re building a community that says, we’ve got you. We’re in our chapter 2, you’re in yours, come join us. So we’re creating a community for anyone who understands that life is about change, and that’s okay.
It’s unisex clothing, hoodies, sweatshirts, and the likes. Do you enjoy the business side of it? How do you measure success today? Is it a number you want to reach with the label, a guest you want on your podcast, how do you define success now?
For me, it’s pretty simple. Success is just having enough money so that if I ever have to hire any lawyer in this country, I don’t have to think twice. Like, “Hello, you, yes, be at court. RTGS, bye-bye.”
I’m a survivor, so I have a survivor’s instinct. This has happened once; it’s unlikely to happen again. If it happens a second time, that’s just bad luck, then the universe hates me! But there’s no chapter 3. So I’m earning just enough to feel secure, and that makes me happy and satisfied.
You’re openly saying you’re doing this for money?
Yeah, capitalism! Of course, everyone here is a capitalist. Money is the most important thing. If anyone says otherwise, they’re lying. It’s true, if you don’t want money, why are you working? Why wear nice clothes? Go take sanyas in the Himalayas!
So yes, money is important. Luckily for me, because my life has been so interesting, the two things I gained from trauma were purpose and drive. And my purpose, in a strange way, is explaining itself to me, that through my story, other people will feel their life traumas are smaller. That’s what Chapter 2 does for me. And yes, it also makes me rich.
I love it. You’ve lived through a media storm at a young age, that can change anyone’s relationship with visibility. How do you balance sharing your truth with keeping your peace? How do you decide what’s yours alone?
I don’t think I even share 1% of my personal emotions. I don’t have to balance it because there’s already so much about me in the public domain. You all know I went to jail, had legal fees, started a brand, it’s all there.
In fact, I think it’s powerful that people know so much, because that’s the power of a story. I can just reference “15 crores” and everyone understands what I mean! Mere paas pandrah crore nahi hai, and people laugh. There’s power in that.
It’s rare for someone spoken about so negatively to get a clean slate five years later, while still alive. I thought that would only happen when I was 90!
That’s amazing. It’s very rare to be forgiven publicly to a point where people actually like you.
Yeah, now people seem to be asking me for forgiveness, “I’m so sorry I judged you.” “I’m sorry I believed that.” And I’m like, it’s been five or six years; I’ve moved on! I never expected this in my lifetime, I thought I’d be 80 or 90 with dentures, joking with my lawyers. But that didn’t happen, I still have my teeth, and I still have my passport!
Good on you for having both teeth and passport. Okay, talking about people and relationships, what surprised you about those who stayed, and those who left?
It’s a strange thing. If you have one true friend, just one, you can make it through anything. For me, that friend was Shibani Dandekar. There was no reason or question, she was just there, through and through. Having one person not questioning me, not listening to the noise, just saying “I’ve got your back”, it was so empowering.
And I’m lucky I had more than one friend who stayed, in a situation where most people’s parents would have said, “Even if she hasn’t done it, don’t go to her house, beta.”
The ones who left, of course, initially I was filled with rage. I wasn’t this Zen or indifferent. I was angry, upset. But I realised anger only leads to acidity. And acidity means no coffee, no alcohol, no spicy food, so I switched anger off pretty quickly!
Everyone’s on their own journey. You can’t hold on to these things. If I had to hate everyone who thought badly of me, I’d have to hate most of this country. I can’t hate everyone. I’m sure many in this room once thought, “Maybe she did something.” And that’s okay, it doesn’t define who you are. It doesn’t define who I am. But it does define what Indian media is, hell yeah.
They’re the ones to blame, but they don’t seem to be stopping. So, since you’re all rich and successful, if there’s one change you want to make in society, go for the media. It’s a good place to start.
I’m so glad I quit when I did. I feel quite targeted right now.
Yeah, you should, if you were still a journalist.
What are you looking forward to most at this juncture in your life?
I’m really enjoying my life suddenly. I wake up in the morning and don’t have anxiety. PTSD is there, little-little. But PTSD is quite interesting. It gives you hypervigilance, like if someone comes running towards me to open a door, for a second my body goes into fight or flight. But it’s kind of like a game now, so I treat it like that.
I’ve done four years of therapy, every Wednesday at 4 p.m., without missing a single session. I even borrowed money from friends to go to therapy at one point. I told them, Bro, if I don’t do therapy, I’ll never be able to earn and return your money, so just pay for my therapy.
That really saved me. I have an amazing therapist called Susan Walker, but she won’t have appointments, so don’t try! She gave me a lot of perspective.
What I’m enjoying today is that I can wake up in the morning and go anywhere, do anything, the world is my oyster. I have my passport. I even have a Schengen visa, two-year multiple entry!
The question is, do you have a US visa? Then let’s talk.
I have applied, okay.
Talk to me when you get it.
All right, I’ll see you in New York, baby.
I’ll see you there. So, I’m going to do a very cute rapid fire with you before I open the floor to our guests to ask questions. How do you introduce yourself to somebody who doesn’t know you? And I don’t know if there is anybody who doesn’t, but say somebody lived under a rock and met you, how would you introduce yourself?
I would hug them. It’s so nice if someone didn’t know my past. It would be just so nice to start this time.
Just because they didn’t know your past, only you would go and hug them.
That would be like, you don’t know me! Because then there’s no baggage on their side, no baggage on mine. I can be whoever I want to be. They’re not secretly judging, thinking has she done it or not? So that’s fun. I mean, I would just say, hi, I’m Rhea.
If a movie was made on your life, who would you want to play you? And don’t say yourself.
No, I can’t repeat this trauma again. Are you mad? Not even for money. This I won’t even do for money. I don’t know, honestly. I’m in talks, I’m in conversation. I think I want to tell the story now from my perspective. But I think it should be a newcomer, someone who has no public persona, no public identity.
One word your friends use to describe you.
It’s a very boring word. Even boys use this word to hit on me nowadays, you’re very strong. I’m just so bored of being called strong. What is strong? What kind of a compliment is strong?
I recently got offered an endorsement for a steel ad, they want to use me on the poster! Like, what the hell is going on in my life, guys? Yeah, guys come up to me and at dinner they’re like, hey, I just want to tell you, you’re really strong. I’m like, just say my hair looks nice and let’s be done with it. We don’t have to do all this strong nonsense.
I know you’ve already said this in some capacity, but is there a book that changed something within you?
Yeah, I think a lot of books. But definitely the one I spoke about changed a lot. It fell on my head, so my brain structure changed. But beyond that, I think outside of a book, there’s another realisation that made my life so good. I’ll share it with you all, because you’re very cute people.
I think when she’s saying cute people, she’s only looking at everybody on that front row and saying you all are cute people. She’s not looking at anybody else. I think she’s just made everybody’s day on the…
Yeah, you look like twins. They say you start looking like your lover, you know, over years.
You have made so many people’s day Rhea.
Yeah, so the realisation is that, guys, when I was going through my worst moment, I had like an epiphany, everyone’s going to die. Everyone’s going to die! And that made me feel so good.
I can’t tell you, I’m going to die? Okay, amazing. The media people, the journalists, they’re all going to die? Wow, too good. People who love me will die, people who hate me will die, I will surely die, so nothing really matters.
Whatever I do, however I behave, whatever people think of me, it doesn’t matter. And that truly changed my life to the core, because if it doesn’t matter, why not just do what I want to do?
And if it doesn’t matter, why am I wasting so much of this precious time – the only gift we have – wondering what he’s thinking of me, or she’s thinking of me, or they’re thinking of me, right? We all do it. So that has truly changed my life.
So remember, when in first-world problems, everyone’s going to die!
That’s such wisdom, and such a positive note, leaving all of us with the feeling that we’re all going to die. That’s rather morbid, I must say.
A small joy you would never skip.
A home-cooked meal made by my mother, who’s a great cook.
And the last question, if your life had a song, what would be its anthem?
Seven Nation Army couldn’t hold me back, White Stripes.
They’re all pretending they know what you’re talking about, but nobody in this room knows it, I’ll tell you that.
I really thank you for having me here today, because normally I’m thirty-three years old, and whichever room I enter, especially with this Gen Z brand I’ve started, I feel like a dinosaur. Today, I feel really young. Thank you.
ROTARIANS ASK
Thank you for this afternoon. Your candour is really refreshing. Now, I want to take you back to a different journey. You’ve been in MTV. You started with MTV India, and then you came to MTV Roadies. Quite a long journey of, I think, 15 years. If you can share something through that journey which has impacted, you personally?
MTV Roadies impacts me every day. If you’ve seen the show, I don’t know how you know Roadies and you don’t know Seven Nation Army first. How can he know Roadies and not know Seven Nation Army? Anyway, I think what MTV did was, it was the first company to kind of sign me up when I was 17, when it was my first job.
I used to be on a stipend then, I used to make ₹30,000 a month, and I thought I was the richest person on earth. And when I was ostracised by society, they were the first people to come back and say, Hey, you started with us, why don’t you restart with us again?
So they’re like family. And I think just knowing that in any industry, when you have a long-term relationship with someone that you’ve maintained, it kind of pays off. It’s not just work at the end of the day, there’s a human connection. I saw that with MTV, and I really value and cherish them. In turn, I’ll do anything for them, even for free.
Hi Rhea, thank you. I commend you on your courage and resilience, having gone through what you’ve gone through. You made a comment that you felt 70 to 80% of the women in jail were innocent. Having been cleared, do you feel there’s something overreaching about the legal system that incarcerates innocent people? And do you feel it’s a gross injustice that was done to you that cannot be repaired?
Hard question. Yes, of course. Justice delayed is justice denied. Because you lose that time, and when you lose that time, it never comes back.
Having said that, yes, the legal system is problematic. Are they trying their best? Also yes. I think the judges in India, especially in the Bombay High Court, are really commendable, really good, really honourable. The problem, however, is just the number of people. So either we work towards reform together, which will require a lot of laws to change, because a lot of agencies have a lot of power, and the laws are very draconian. They were written back in the 1940s, 50s, 80s, and they’ve not been updated.
I think these things need to change. I hope that I get to a place one day where I can be part of this change. But currently, I’m wearing my own oxygen mask first. Having said that, the solution to the legal problem is to stop having children, because the more people, the harder it is for the judges, right? So many cases!
Hi Rhea, firstly, you look beautiful. And your life is truly inspiring. So my question for you is, if you had a chance to rewrite your Chapter One, what would you do differently?
I’ve thought of this many times. You know that poem The Road Not Taken? That was in your school also, Robert Frost, yes. I don’t think I would rewrite anything. Despite what I’ve been through, I think about it sometimes, because the gift of trauma, and I keep saying it, takes a lot.
If you survive the trauma, you’ll get the gift. Most people don’t survive it. But if you do, the learning, the liberation, the freedom, the enlightenment, the growth, the evolution, the human evolution is magnificent.
No amount of money or anything can buy you that in life, and I got it really early on. So, in turn, I do feel like a seventy-year-old in a thirty-three-year-old’s body, which is why I’m connecting with you guys so much.
Like, you see, he even knows my thing, Onwards and Upwards! Without me saying it, you guys are getting it. So that happens. But I don’t think I would rewrite anything, because I mean, I got something from this. And maybe this had to happen to me, because maybe I could come out of it and joke about it, like I did today.