As Women, We Need to Accept Ourselves : Sukirti Kandpal from Story 9 Months Ki

Majority of the times, Indian daily soaps portray the "good woman" as shy and soft spoken. She is someone who wears Eastern clothes and her only aim in life to get married. Then begins her journey as a homemaker who is always at the beck and call of the other family members. However, now we find more independent and opinionated female characters as protagonists of such dramas who are breaking stereotypes on screen.

Sukirti Kandpal is an actor best known for her roles as Piya in Pyaar Ki Ye Ek Kahaani, Dr. Riddhima in Dill Mill Gayye and Debjani Thakur in Dilli Wali Thakur Gurls. She also participated in the reality show Bigg Boss Season 8 in 2014. The actor is now breaking stereotypes on screen with the role of Alia Shroff in Story 9 Months Ki.

1. How did you shape the character you are playing in Story 9 Months Ki?

Story 9 Months Ki is a progressive story about Alia Shroff who is an entrepreneur. She is the daughter of a business tycoon but she goes ahead and makes her own company. She works hard for it and it becomes a fortune 5oo company. But at the same time, Alia is really about breaking stereotypes, so she is not going to take her dad's money to make a business. She does it on her own. Then she realises that the partner she has is cheating on her so she divorces him and beyond that, because she always wanted to be a mother, she actually does an IVF as a single mother from a donor.

Her story is about her pregnancy. It's about a successful woman who dreamt of being a mother because she didn't have a very good childhood. She wants to live her childhood through her child. She really does something out of her own choice. So Alia is about vocalising nd doing your own thing, your own choice. Its about choices. I think Alia represents the choice in women which I think is present in all of us and that's why I think she is not very stereotypical.

2. Do you think the story about a single mom would have worked as well if it was done 5-6 years earlier. What do you think has changed now?

I don't think if it would have been done 5-6 years earlier, it would have worked. Firstly because, I don't think, in the Indian context, people are still open to seeing women in a certain form or way. It's still very closed that way. I feel there are a lot of people, especially in the urban areas who accept this sort of an image or if a girl is living that kind of a lifestyle.

As Women, We Need to Accept Ourselves : Sukirti Kandpal from Story 9 Months Ki

But I don't think it would have worked 6-8 years back because I think there has been a transformation from 2010-21 where people have evolved a lot especially when it comes to women. Not just about women but women's rights and the kind of problems we go through. I think today's time is so much better to open up and I think we are in a day and age where women can actually say and do things.

3. What characters did you grow up watching and were you inspired by any character in particular?

I grew up with a very Western image. I remember watching Shanti when I was small but Shanti wasn't a damsel in distress. I did have a lot of Western influences when I was being brought up, simply because of the fact that I have been brought up in a convent and they were all about the Western society. I remember watching a lot of cartoons because we were not allowed to watch television.

But most of whatever content I watched was Western. In that, women are portrayed pretty differently. I remember watching Mother India but she wasn't a weak woman. She actually shot her own son. Mother India was not a weak character. She loses everything and still brings up her children.

4. Now that you are the one on screen, what would you want women to take away from the characters that you play?

I would want all the girls to firstly accept themselves, however they are, physically, whatever state you are in mentally and just be yourself, have your own personality and shine through it because all my characters have done that. Valuing your own self would be my basic point to all the women because a lot of time, we are such givers and just want to do things for others, that's how we are told, which is nice, even I do it at home but I don't forget myself. Neither do my characters forget that.

You don't need a stamp from society saying this is right and this is wrong. I personally I don't believe in living up to standards set by others because if you are going to judge yourself from the eyes of someone else, you are always going to be a little lesser. Unfortunately, for the female sex in India, it's always been like that. Whatever we do is going to be lesser. So just be yourself, be confident.

Try to live up to your own dreams and then when you are fully satisfied, you are happy, that's the time you can go and give that love and acceptance to someone else.

5. Today's women are independent. Most of them are working, especially the ones living in urban areas. Do you think the television space is providing that representation to women?

I think there is a lag for sure in 80 per cent of the shows and 20 per cent try to live up to it because television as a medium has a lot of audience. We just don't cater to urban. We are also catering to three-tiers, villages where people might not be that educated or they have not opened up to that kind of mentality.

So there is a lag but again change takes a lot of time and I think we are on the dawn of that change. All of us have to just push it. Five years down the line we will be having a very different conversation. So there is that change and representation but it is pretty less, for sure.

6. What do people (producers, directors, actors etc) who are representing women on screen need to understand about it?

All audio-visual mediums are a medium of change and that is why whenever we have a social message or we are talking about AIDS, Coronavirus or Polio, audio-visual aid has always reinforced a positive or a negative message and it is up to us as performers, as producers, as people who put in money to be responsible for the fact that whatever we are showing should benefit women because there's a lot of women watching it and it does affect us. Social responsibility has to be a part of it.

Watch the full interview here:

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