Have you ever held your head in your hands? Uff, it’s a really weird feeling. You see yourself with new eyes, and have an ah-is-that-really-me feeling. And a fake hint of immortality, even if it is only a latexy model of your head. It reminded me of the model of Rajinikanth’s head that director S Shankar had once shown me in his Chennai office, while making Enthiran (Robot, 2010)—an all-white, expressionless head. All this was during a prosthetics session, after I got cast for a role in a web series earlier this year. I can’t reveal much, and even though it’s a bit part, I’m already richer for the experience.

After a casting agent contacted me to cast for a gutsy woman with short hair, I met the director saab over a coffee on Yari Road. Soon after, I did a prosthetics session. When will they do the auditions, I asked naively. Arre madam, you are already confirmed, an assistant giggled. It turns out the coffee session was the audition. “Give me an Arundhati Roy look,” director saab said at the photo shoot. How does one look effortlessly intellectual? “Read this book with your knees crossed,” he explained. I see, OK.