Exclusive: Konkona Sen Sharma dissects love and lust in life and films

This writer has had a girl crush on Konkona Sen Sharma since she played Sona Mishra in Zoya Akhtarrsquos Luck by Chance 2009 Her earthy portrayal of an aspiring actor who chooses selflove over a toxic boyfriend had us rooting for her She has since done so much moremdashplaying the girlnextdoor journalist in Wake Up Sid and feisty woman in Lipstick Under my Burkha and Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare In 2021 she blew the audience away with her portrayal of Bharti Mandal in Geeli Pucchi a short in the Ajeeb Dastaans anthology Bharti was the queer woman navigating her way around a factory of men and both men and women take her for grantedMirror is her second shot at direction the story of two women separated by class but identical in their desireWe caught up with the actordirector as she tucked into a postyoga snack and looked amused at us wanting to talk love and lust with her ldquoI canrsquot speak for anyone else I will only speak for merdquo she clarifiedOf courseEdited excerpts from the interviewIs there a definition of love or do we figure out versions of it as we fall in and out of itThere is no easy answer to this I think it depends on what kind of relationship a person has basis that they must find their own definition One has to keep evolving we get an idea of what it could be through these experiences But you donrsquot have to maintain that positionmdashit keeps changing Itrsquos an individual journey We tend to stick to notions of what we are supposed to feelKonkona Sen Sharma directs Amruta Subhash and Tillotama Shome in Mirror which is a part of Lust Stories 2How much has your understanding of what love means changed as you have grown olderI never thought about love or what it is as I was growing up Now I am generally more aware in all my relationships especially in my relationship with myself The idea of ldquobe kind to yourselfrdquo has really worked for me How we treat ourselves is very important Each of us must work on ourselves And our partners have to be working on themselves too I donrsquot have the time to work on someone else I sense that younger people love drama I donrsquot Give me a peaceful boring relationship And we will work on interesting things togetherLust has been maligned as a deadly sin but is itFor different people itrsquos different things For asexual people sex means nothing Love and lust is not inherently good or bad Itrsquos just a way to know yourself and your boundaries and how you want to balance it out I can barely manage to figure it out for myselfBoth the shorts yoursquove been associated withmdashMirror and Geeli Pucchi speak about caste and class differences Once someone is madly in love do you think these matterCasteism has always been prevalent we may have been blind to it I think we are more aware now and thatrsquos a wonderful thing Now we are learning more every day and trying to figure things out Should it matter No But in reality we rarely step out of our bubblesHow different is a samesex relationship from one between heterosexualIn Geeli Pucchi I was Konkona playing Bharti So I couldnrsquot forget who I have become where she was coming from I was hyper aware I think if you are like Bharti you canrsquot forget it your background at all If you are Priya Aditi Rao Hydarirsquos character who is more privileged maybe you can not let it affect youWhy are we curious about the sex lives of others and often ignore our own desiresIn Mirror Ishita Tillotame Shome and Seema Amruta Subhash are thieves stealing pleasure from each other A voyeur has met an exhibitionist so it works out very well for them Not as much for the husband Kamal though who is embarrassed when Ishita walks in on him and Seema We deny our desires to ourselves like Ishita has been maybe doing I think she is not even aware of these feelings She is that regular person not more or less lonely than anyone else we know They just happen to find themselves in an extraordinary circumstance I wanted to have fun withthat thoughtWhen we tell stories of love and lust using fiction must we be careful about what the message isNo I am not interested in any message People know what they want to take from it a film These are circumstances that I find interesting and I am holding them up through a short filmEveryone is on dating apps How do you see the future of relationshipsYou are asking very hard questions I have not personally been on a dating app but my friends have I have heard many happy stories and many horror stories too But thatrsquos life Even if you try and meet a partner organically there will be happiness and horror