Yami Gautam, au naturel...

Radhika Bhirani

rbhirani@gmail.com

~~~ Nature. Natural. Au naturel. Three terms that come naturally to the mind about Yami Gautam. Not just courtesy a close look at her Instagram profile, but also by virtue of multiple chats and conversations with the actor, who is as 'hatke' as some of her film choices.

In her Instagram birthday post, the girl glows. In the light of the love of her family, of her fans and of her religious and spiritual pursuits.

"My family and roots are the two things most dear to me! Taking blessings from Mata Bajreshwari Devi, Kangra, on my birthday made a very special morning before making way to work," wrote the actor, who has turned 32, and is in her native Himachal Pradesh to shoot Bhoot Police.

Tagged along is a beautiful picture in which Yami poses against azure blue skies with the temple's white facade painting a pretty background. She looks simple and sweet, with a tika on the forehead, and a red Mata ki Chunni draped around her neck.

Just a few days ago, she also took some free time off her shooting schedule, visited the Kunal Pathri Temple, trekked to the Pohlani Devi Mandir, and revealed to her Insta family how she makes it a point to visit any holy shrine when she travels. 

"I am more than religious," Yami had told me during a long phone chat in the early days of the nationwide lockdown.

Her spiritual and religious indulgences, she said, are akin to meditation. At her Mumbai home, Yami has what she calls her little puja ghar.

"Ever since we were kids, I used to see my Nanaji do puja when he was alive. It's a very family culture kind of a thing for me. It is also something that makes my mom very happy. Whenever she comes to Mumbai, she says, 'How nicely you've decorated your little puja ghar'. I have this typical wooden Puja ghar, and I sit and do my puja there," Yami had shared with childlike excitement.

The initial 21-day lockdown also gave her a chance to go back to reading the Bhagavad Gita.

"I had started reading it long back actually. But to be very honest, I did not know how to interpret it properly. It must have been around six to seven years back. But I have to say, it was easier for me now," said Yami, throwing in a bit of a philosophy which I found rather deep and interesting.

"When you do something, it also has to accept you. Be it reading a book or anything that you do, there has to be a correlation. When you cook, it's not just about you wanting to cook, but also about how the other things respond to you. Like, it is practically the same vegetables and spices in every household, and yet one tastes different from another. Isn't it?"

Some food for thought there.

What her pictures at temples, and those in which she smiles uninhibitedly in her no make-up looks, are to me are reminders of our conversations.

At the time when newspapers and online media were screaming with the 'who contributed what' headlines, Yami spoke to me about a learning from school.

"I remember a chapter where the lesson was that, 'When your right hand makes charity, your left hand shouldn't know'," she said, and went on to unravel a personal memory.

"I was really young. I must be around 10 or years or so. My family members and I visited the Jwalamukhi Temple in Himachal. We were taking a walk there, and there was a wall where it was painted that so and so had donated so and so to the temple. It was a long list, and had figures against it. It struck me. I asked my parents, "Isn't it odd? Why do people want to give money and then see their name on the wall? Papa, I don't want to see our name on the wall ever.'"

She wonders now how she had made that remark when she was that young. 

"But I really felt it," Yami added, before saying how "when you're growing up, there are always some memories stronger than the rest". Another takeaway there.

Nevertheless, she didn't negate the "to each his own" belief.

"I'm sure that anybody who's announcing and making you know their donation, their intention is nothing but just to encourage other people. Maybe it's trust, faith and encouragement that people get when they see someone they know is a public figure and does something which they also want to do. I think it shows people a comforting factor," said the actor, last seen in Ginny Weds Sunny, which gave a theatrical release a bypass for an OTT window.

Far from the some colourful, some loud looks that she sports in the movie, there's something that sets apart Yami's social media presence from the rest of Bollywood. It feels more real.

She explains: "The whole idea of social media, unless it's a professional shoot or anything else that's part of your work, is to let people see you. It's not just for people to see that's how you are in real life, but just about being yourself at times when you're not working. I can't be in make-up or in a look when I am not working. It's important for me, and it's a breather. The idea is to be myself, and be free about how I look otherwise."

Recounting encounters she called "weird", Yami said, "Whoever I used to meet while travelling, would say, 'You look so different without make-up! You look so much nicer without make-up', and I used to wonder if that's a compliment for how I look or a comment for my make-up artiste (laughs). Initially, I used to wonder, but now I take it as a compliment."

There's a lot of desi nuskhaas she puts at work! At one point, she quipped how while her kitchen experiments haven't yet backfired, she tells her father, "Don't worry, I am not putting cooked dal on my face... It's just haldi and stuff."

But that's not all the experiments she does. She told me about her belief in the power of the homemade, something she made full use of during the lockdown by creating scrubs, gluten-free bread, pahadi cuisine, oil and more.

She has her theory. "Because things are so easily available to us, it never occurs to us or there's never a second thought that should we try and create something out of it, or can something else be done out of it. I've always been like that," Yami said, sharing how out of some spare coconut which she had used in vegetables, was further used to extract oil and the residue as a scrub.

"Everything can be put into use, and that probably also comes from a middle-class thinking. We value things a lot. Not that others don't, but we know that every grain matters till you scrape it out from utensils. I will always value these things that I inculcated during childhood."

Hai na, hatke?