Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Inside
Thoughts Out Loud. I am very excited to speak to
someone very special daughter of Bollywood royalty Sunday Dutt.
But even cooler is that she is a practicing therapist who
specializes in anxiety and depression.
And we are going to have such an interesting conversation with
Trisha La Dutt about how she grew up, her childhood, her life
experiences, and how all of this has shaped view of the world,
how she's handled the criticism, the bullies, what she's learned
in her profession as a therapist.
And really just have a conversation that I think we can
all take bits and pieces from in dealing with the world at large.
So thank you all for listening in.
And I'm excited to get started with Trishella Dutt on Inside.
That's out loud. Trishella, thank you so much for
joining us today on Inside. Thought thank you so much for
having me. So I have to admit, I when I
started following you on Instagram, I actually had no
idea who your dad was until I like went back and looked and I
was like, wait, that's Sanjay Dutt.
That's crazy. And I loved following you
because it's just like positive vibes.
And like, you'll put these quotes on there and I'll read
them and all of a sudden I'll like find my piece of Zen in the
day. So how did you become this like
beacon of Zen for the world? You know, I think being born and
raised in New York had a lot to do with it.
Coming from a Bollywood family and then being raised as a
normal girl in New York had a lot to do with me becoming a
therapist just because of battling two different worlds at
the same time. Coming from such a prominent
family and then being raised as a normal girl had its battles in
a way. When I was younger and being
raised in New York, I had faced a lot of hardship and a lot of
taunting from just people around me, a lot of children around me,
because I was a child at the time and I didn't have a safe
space. What did they?
Taunt you for was it being Indian?
Was it what you looked like? Was it?
What was it? The bullying started when I was
about 5 or 6, and it was me being Indian, me having my
eyebrows connected, me having frizzy hair, hair on my face.
I was bullied for that a lot growing up.
When I went to middle school, the bullying kept going because
I had gained a lot of weight during the time.
And when I went to high school, everything just kind of blew up
for me because a lot of people found out who I was.
And of course, one person tells one thing.
They project expectations of what they think that should
mean. And what I should look like,
yeah. Yeah, I hate hearing that.
You know, I, I was bullied mostly for for not being white,
for being a dark, for being dark skinned, for being Indian.
Also had a mustache and a unibrow.
You know which I always, it's funny because my daughter is, is
fairer skin than I am. Jet black hair.
And she was she was teased for it too.
And it's just like, man, nothing's changed in all these
decades. But I was like, you know what,
Ria, they're going to make fun of you now and then they're
going to wish they had the hair on your head when they're older.
They really beautiful, gorgeous Indian hair.
And it's the best that I can do is, you know, find the the
strength and the pride and in what you look like and not worry
about what others say. But it's like easy to say and
it's so different to live when you're a child.
Like what defense mechanisms do you have?
You have none when you're a child.
You just have yourself to rely on.
If you have supportive parents, I think that's a great thing.
Or if you have siblings that can be your support to kind of lean
on and talk to each other about what you're going through is
great. However, for me, I was an only
child at the time and I had nobody to lean on except for
myself and a journal. And a journal.
And a journal and. When did you start?
What age did you start journaling?
I started journaling when I was about 13 years old, so freshman
year of high school is when I started journaling.
OK. Do you have any of those
journals still? I still do, and I still write in
it today. Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, you said you really very much felt alone.
Was there anyone in your life that you could talk to, lean on
or were you was there a concern? You know, I, and I bring this up
because I think Indian culture and the sort of relationship
that a lot of children have with their parents, you don't want to
show them anything as a sign of weakness.
So was there anyone that you could talk to?
No, no. No, it was just me.
I leaned on myself for a lot of things.
Actually. I wish I had somebody to talk to
when I was younger. I see that a lot, whether it's,
you know, over plucking the eyebrows and then they will grow
back or doing certain skin procedures to lighten the skin
and then all of a sudden you have hyper hypo pigmentation
trying to bleach your hair blonde.
Sometimes the hair can't really recover from that and it's it's
hard and it's tragic. I think, you know, then I, I do
feel in general, the universe is bending towards more acceptance,
although right now in this moment, sometimes it doesn't
feel like it with what's going on in the world.
But I think it's one of the things as a mom, I always think
about is I have to really lead by example and I have to show
that I'm really comfortable with who I am so that my daughter
sees it and feels it and she experiences it in practice.
And then? And then she can do that.
You lost your mother. Tell me what?
How old were you when you lost your mother?
My mom passed away in 1996 and I was 8 years old and she passed
away from a brain tumor glioblastoma and she was
diagnosed in 1989 and when they found out it was already grade
4. So that type of brain cancer is
one of the most deadliest and most aggressive in human cancer.
I have heard recently that someone recovered from it.
I believe there was like some viral Instagram article of like
one person who who. Recovered from that and I
remember reading that and I'm like wow, we've come a long way.
If only. Yeah, so you're an 8 year old
girl, You're in the US, Your mom gets this really like earth
shattering diagnosis. Your dad is in India and the US
splitting his time. Splitting his time back and
forth, which was very difficult. My dad was very back and forth
because he was working and it was hard to stay here for her
entire treatment while also being an actor back home of.
Course, Yeah, yeah. So for for any listener who
doesn't know, Trishella's father is like Bollywood royalty.
I mean very very well known with an illustrious Bollywood career.
Many many many roles. Most recently major Congrats on
Durander and Durander too. Blockbuster global hit.
I can't even wrap my hat around how a child would be able to
bridge their identity when their father is like a global
superstar. How do you did you like?
Is there any part of it? I don't want to say that it
like, did it get to your head? Did it like?
Would you say it was more helpful or a detriment growing
up? I would say it was a detriment
for me growing up, Yeah. Because, you know, when I was
younger and my mom was going through cancer, I developed a
weight problem. I was very overweight because I
turned to food for comfort and it was a detriment growing up
because I guess everybody thinks that, you know, if you are a
celebrity's daughter or son, you have to look a certain way
because they are who they are. And I just didn't fit and I just
didn't look the part of Sanjay, that's daughter.
Sanjay, that's daughter as a child was very overweight with
she just did not look glamorous. She just, she wasn't.
What the what the people decided that you needed to be?
Yeah, yeah. I wasn't what society expected.
Did that make you avoid India? I wouldn't say it made me avoid
India, but it made me kind of curl up in a shell almost,
because when you go to India, you're very exposed, right?
I mean, there's paps everywhere. There's people writing things in
the media. I just, I was already so Raleigh
exposed in New York that I just wanted to keep to myself.
Any time I went to India. I really didn't want it to be
known when I was there because I wanted to hide in the moment.
Anonymity. Yeah.
OK. When you were child, how often
were you going to India? Not that often because I was
going to school here, so I couldn't visit that often.
So my dad would come here to visit.
Yeah. And as an adult now, do you, do
you feel differently when you visit India?
I feel completely differently now.
It's it's I guess because I've grown up and I really don't care
what people, what people think or what people, right?
I can go wherever I want. I can dress however I want and
nothing really affects me. And I think a lot to do with
that was because when I was a child, so many things would be
written about me. So many people would leave all
these mean comments. So, you know, I like to say if
to be in this business you need thick skin, I really don't think
anybody has thicker skin than me because I've been reading it and
I've seen it all at a very tender age.
It's, it's heartbreaking to hear because I, I like, we really
need to do better, right? We really need to do better.
And I think what sucks about it is you're talking about an
experience from a while ago, from decades ago.
Yet I don't know that we've gotten that much better in in
how we treat people, how we treat women, how we treat
children. But what I think is a real
superpower is there a lot of people who could go through even
a fraction of what you went through, and they don't make it
out to the other side with confidence, with the
nonchalance, with the ability to have thick skin.
Talk to me about how you got through all of that.
Like, what did you rely on? Did any of it happen to
influence what you chose as your career path?
What I relied on was just food, actually, because food filled
the void and food filled the comfort, and I did that for
years. Back in the day, we had Xanga.
I don't know if anybody remembers Xanga, but we had
Xanga. We had, it wasn't Facebook, it
was Friendster. I think something like that.
During the high school days, I would write in my journal at
home and I would write on Xanga as well, just kind of expressing
my thoughts and I would make friends through social media.
That's how I got a lot of my friends actually, because when I
was growing up I didn't have many friends.
So relying on others from the Internet really helped.
Although. I I would not recommend that
right now because of the world that we live in, but at that
time it felt safe enough to do so because I had nobody else.
Yeah. Your last, your last question.
So I was saying, so I mean, it's really remarkable that you've
made it to this point of confidence and living like true
to yourself and independently and freely and and so
successfully. It's not everybody gets to that
point. So you relied on food, you made
friends through the Internet, but at some point there had to
be sort of like a frameshift change in how you handled things
to be able to successfully like grow past it.
How? How did you do that?
You know, my Mossy actually told me back in the day that because
she would see me so sad and just very, I guess in a way broken at
the time. And she said, Trishella,
nobody's going to come and save you.
You're going to have to save yourself.
You're going to have to do something for yourself to pull
yourself out of it because I can't save you.
Your father can't save you. This is an internal thing.
So she actually, when she said that, it was kind of like a
light switch that happened in my mind where I was like, if it's
just going to be me, then I'm going to have to do something.
And I did, I made the change. I went back to school, I studied
on why people pick on others versus other people that don't
get picked on. Why do they choose certain
people? And I just became very
fascinated with the way human mind works and how psychology
works, how confidence works. And I just got very enamored by
the whole. I mean, I think that's, that's
such an interesting story to tell, right?
That you're, I don't want to call it a defense mechanism
because I would almost say it's an offense mechanism, right?
Like you're on the offensive now because you understand why
certain people behave this way. And you can then almost predict
the behavior, analyze the behavior And what you and we
were talking offline about this before we started recording how
once you, once you've learned this about certain people, you
can't Unsee it. They pick on other people
because they themselves have crippling insecurity.
Something's going on here and that's why they're projecting
onto somebody else. And I think once you see that,
it helps tremendously in dealing with any bullying that you may
you may be going through because you quickly realize it's not a
you problem, it's a them problem.
Yeah, I have recently understood that when people pick on you,
especially on social media, it's because they are lacking
something from within and it makes them feel better.
If I pick on you, you become smaller and I become bigger and
it gives them this confidence boost from God knows where, but
it makes them feel good about themselves to bring you down
because you're already successful, you're already
confident, you already have something going for you.
It makes sense to tear you down versus staying quiet to make
themselves feel better about them.
Yeah. So if you had to, if you were
invited to an elementary school today and you could tell our
kids here in the US three things that would help them with
bullying, what would you tell them?
I would tell them to stick up for themselves in a respectful
way. I would tell them to accept some
accept themselves for who they are without trying to change
anything about themselves. And the third thing that I would
tell them and tell their parents to is to limit social media as
much as possible, especially when you are young.
Because. When you are young, your brain,
as we all know, is like a sponge and anything you read, and
especially if it's about you, you're going to internalize that
and it's going to stick with you forever.
Yeah, I mean, I would even put YouTube in that.
I don't know if people consider YouTube as part of social media
or just like the Internet at large.
But, you know, I watch what my daughter, you know, she has an
iPad and I give her some iPad time and it's YouTube Kids.
But if you look at the girls like the channels that she's
following, these girls, there's nothing childlike about them.
They may be young, but the way they're dressing, the makeup
they have on their face, the aesthetics of, of what they look
like and what they're pushing is actually very adult.
And I was like, turn that off. No more of that block, that
Channel. And I was surprised because it
was YouTube Kids and I thought, man, the, the messaging is so
pervasive. It's tiered.
It's like there's a lot of depth to it and it's insidious.
Is that the word I'm looking for insidious?
I think so. And it, it scared me because I'm
like, man, I maybe you just don't need to be on this thing
at all because I don't know how to control down to that degree,
the messaging that you're getting.
And you're a kinder woman than I am because you know, my, my
daughter will come home and she'll tell me these things.
And I'm always, you should have said this and you should have.
And I don't want to teach her to be like that either.
But I think part of it goes back to, I do think you should stick
up for yourself. But lesson #1 I always say is it
doesn't just mean that you stick up for yourself.
Stick up for anybody. Of course, being targeted,
right? So you see somebody else getting
bullied. I hope that you are #1 right
there telling the bully to back down.
It can't just be you. So like, you got to teach.
We got to teach all our kids to speak out when somebody's doing
something wrong. So I couldn't agree more.
I think, you know, I really believe in you got to like model
what these behaviors look like. And I think a lot of it starts
at home And when I, you know, when I put on makeup, when I
especially because, you know, now that I've been on social
media, my daughter sees what I do, what I, she sees how I, what
I say online. And maybe she doesn't watch my
videos, but she'll see me recording or putting on makeup.
And I, I don't want her to think that like you have to put on
makeup to feel beautiful or that, you know, so I really
started recording a lot more without any makeup on.
Or I've seen, yeah. And just being really
transparent about like what I look like and, and why I do
certain things or silly. But I like stopped dying my
graves recently. And I was like, you know what if
it's like my little way of showing her that like it's OK to
just be who you are. And that doesn't mean you don't
have to change anything about yourself.
I think I'm a plastic surgeon for Christ, right?
Like you have the right to want to change something about
yourself, but just make sure whatever you're doing is like
truly for you and not for anybody else.
Man, that is a hard lesson to teach in 2026 because we're
fighting the elements out here. I mean, there's a lot of people,
there's so much information out there that can really absorb in
a child's mind. So it's, I think it's great that
you're modeling it at home because it does start at home.
The words that you say at home, even when you're talking to your
husband or your friends, they're hearing everything that you're
saying. So it is very important to model
that at home, even if it makes you uncomfortable.
Like I've, I've seen you make your videos and there's no
makeup on and it's so inspiring and refreshing to see because
that's real and it's, it's natural.
It's who you are. There's nothing to be ashamed
about. That, yeah.
And, and that's, and I mean, you're as both of us have social
media presence, there are plenty of people with plenty of things
to say, right? And they are so emboldened to
say it. And so I do my best to, you
know, to combat that and say, you know, I'm I'm proud of who I
am. And I if I change something
about myself, know that it was for me.
And if I don't, that's fine too. But I get worried when I think
about, you know, I'm going to be 40 this year and I feel very
capable of making those statements and having that
stance. But I worry about the teenage
girls because teenage me would have had a hard time with that.
Teenage me already had a hard time with that.
I couldn't talk, I couldn't speak.
I felt afraid to speak during that time.
But now I think that we're in such a different world that it's
almost kind of expected that if somebody's coming for you, stick
up for yourself. Yeah.
What would you say is more toxic Bollywood or growing up in New
York City American culture? That's a great question.
What is more toxic? You know, it's, it's a hard
question to answer because I haven't really been in the
Bollywood industry like that to know what it's like.
I can only imagine of what issues come with that.
But I can say that it's not easy.
It's competitive, but when it comes down to what's more toxic,
I think, I think each culture has its own pros and pros and
cons. Yeah.
Was there ever a time point in your life where you like, where
you wanted to be a part of Bollywood, Where you're like,
maybe I'll leave New York, maybe I'll be an actress, maybe I'll
follow on my father's footsteps? You know, I did think about that
when I was younger. I think I was about 16 or 17 and
I have no idea what I was thinking because I wasn't
thinking that I want to be an actor because acting is my
passion. I just wanted to be closer to my
dad. It had nothing to do with
acting. I just wanted to be closer to
him. And then my dad had a talk with
me and he's like, if this is what you really want, we can
talk about it. But is this what you want?
Do you feel like this is your calling?
I mean, I feel like obviously he's seasoned.
And if there's anyone who can really speak to the high highs
and the low lows of the industry, your dad's been
through it all. He's been through hell and back.
He's been through hell and back and he said, if is this your
calling? Like do you feel a pull to it or
is it just, you just want to spend more time with me?
And I said, I, I think I, I just want to spend more time with
you. Then he's like, then let's talk
about what you're passionate about and let's get you on that
track versus coming into an industry where you may make it,
you may not make it. Just because you are so and so's
daughter doesn't mean that you're going to be an A list
actress and all these offers are going to be coming to you.
Absolutely not. My daughter is enamored with
Bollywood. Oh yeah.
And she says all the time that she wants to be a Bollywood
actress. And of course, I chose like a
very like prototypic field of science.
I'm a doctor. And so I've no idea what that
world is like, but I, I worry for her for the same reason that
I, I worry about what YouTube videos she watches.
I just want her to be happy. And I think when you expose
yourself to your happiness potentially being metered by
others, I worry about what that what that is like and what
success looks like in that paradigm.
I think when she's older, I think it would be a great
question to ask her what does, what does happiness look like
for you? When you When I ask you
happiness, what do you see? And if she says, oh, I see you
and daddy and you know, my family, what else?
What else do you see? Yeah, would be a great question
for her when she's older so she can actually see what really
makes her happy. Well, what I told her is it's
not all fun and games. If you think that you just get
to go to glamorous parties and do some dances, that's I mean,
call time can be early in the morning, middle of the night,
days, days, hours through shooting with no days off.
You could be in inclement weather.
You could be in parts of the country that you're or parts of
the world you're not familiar with away from mom and dad.
And I was like, so if you really want to hone in on the skill
set, then you you know, she's in bar than Optium and she wants to
learn music. And I'm like, do all of those
things, learn to dance, learn about your culture.
You're an American kid, born and raised, you know, in, in.
Well, she was born in Michigan, but raised in California.
She's an American kid. I was like, you wanna be in
Bollywood? Learn Hindi.
You can't even speak Tamil. That's what I speak, kiddo.
So it's like she you have to learn the language, you have to
learn the culture. You have to, you should learn to
dance. You should, if this is what you
want to do, it doesn't mean it's easy.
You have to study and practice just like anything, you know,
just like what I had to do for surgery.
It's a, it's a craft and you have to hone in on your craft.
So we're working on it. She's only 9, but she does love
her Bardhanatyam class. And so we'll see.
I told her if she keeps her grades up and continues to do
well in school, we'll talk about theater and, and acting and
things like that. But it's a, it's a scary thing
because no one in my family has been in, in that industry.
And I can imagine that it's incredibly rewarding when you
make like, culture changing pieces like the one your father
was just in, like dude under. But I think it can also be
crushing if you don't do it the right way.
If you don't do it the right way and also if they're comparing
you against somebody, like if there's somebody.
Else always do, though that's the hard part to speak to what
you said, building the defense mechanisms, understanding the
psychology of why people behave a certain way, what the industry
is going to put you through, right.
Drama sells. Controversy sells.
Come pitting women against each other, it sells.
That's the biggest one, Yeah, that's the biggest one, pitting
women against each other, which is the most toxic thing anybody
can can do. Yeah, but they they continue to
do it. I mean, even what I Love
Actually, it's like my guilty pleasure is, you know, all these
old Bollywood interview clips will resurface.
And they were totally kosher back in the day.
But you listen to them now and they're super cringe.
Like you could never get away with asking questions like that,
like asking actresses to like talk shit on each other and
directly compare themselves. And like, you know, they would
say these things. And it's cool because now I see
clips of like Priyanka Chopra, like sticking it to the reporter
and being like, why are you asking me such a dumb question?
Or, you know, women being able to say, I do think that I'm the
best in the industry or complimenting each other saying,
hey, I really like that film that this other person made.
It was really great. She did a great job.
So that's really different than the Bollywood that I grew up
with, which those were not the kind of interviews when I was a
little girl. I mean, the cinema was fabulous,
but that's not, that's not how the interviews went and that's
not how I think the interpersonal relationships that
were pushed were very different than what we're seeing from
actresses today. I think in a large part that I
think in a large part why that is, is because we're tired.
Yeah. We're very, very tired of going
against each other. And again, it goes back to
sticking up for yourself, right? If somebody's asking you an
inappropriate question, ask them why are you asking me this
question? What does this have to do with
anything else? Yeah, what I have come to see is
that people will always try you once.
People will always try you to see what you can, what they can
get away with. So if you're not liking what
somebody is saying, politely correct them.
Or you can be blunt, or you can be very direct, whichever works
for you, but kind of let them know that I see you, that's not
going to slide, so let's try this again.
Yeah, I love that. I love that people will try you
once. What do you think is the biggest
misconception about you? That I was born with a silver
spoon in my mouth. Yeah, you've been through a lot.
Yeah, I've been through many, many storms, a lot of dark
clouds. Am I?
Was I born with a silver spoon in my mouth?
Yes and no. I just, I did not have
everything handed to me like everybody thinks.
I had to work a lot to get to where I was today.
I have internal struggles just like everybody else.
I'm not perfect and I became a therapist to let people know
that it's OK to struggle. You don't always have to have it
together and you're not alone in this journey.
And I think that also coming from a Bollywood family, I
haven't seen anybody in the industry really speak on mental
health too much. If if people are speaking about
it, I just, I haven't seen it maybe because I'm so engrossed
in my own work. But I just wanted to be
relatable to people to let them know that whether you're in the
industry or you're not, it's not all roses and sunshine.
We're humans just like you that go through a lot of hardship,
and I'm here to tell you that first hand.
Yeah, yeah, I think being transparent about the industry
is interesting. You know, Deepika Padukone has
spoken out about mental health and she's very much platformed
it. But I think it's it is so hard
when people don't know who you are, but everybody assumes they
know who you are, right. So when you take a superstar
celebrity like her and she's speaking about this thing and we
know what we know from tabloids and random articles that have
been written, but like, she has no obligation that to let all of
us know who she is. Exactly.
She's an actress. It's a job.
You know, it would be like my patients demanding to know
everything about me personally because I'm their surgeon.
That's not how this works. And so I think it makes it so
challenging and layered when people do speak out about mental
health because everyone then contextualizes it with what
little they know about that person and what they read in
tabloids. And I just don't, I don't think
they need to be related, but I find that everybody relates
them. I agree on that.
I feel like everybody does relate them in some way, shape
or form. When Deepika did speak out about
that, she, I believe she had talked about depression.
I found that to be so brave of her to do.
I feel like if she talked about that 20 years ago, I don't know
how that would have been. I don't think, I don't think it
could have happened. I think that she was she was the
example for our generation because it was the right time,
it was right for the taking. It needed to be talked about and
it was still brave, right? Like she still really took a
risk. But it was the right time to do
that. And I even look at like a lot of
Priyanka Chopras very feminist interviews.
I love them. I love her witty retorts.
But I think had a female actress responded in that way back in
the day, I think they would have been called all sorts of names.
And and I don't know that it would have landed in the way
that it has landed now. And that's also to say that both
of these women still get a ton of criticism no matter what they
do, right. And I think that's that's the
hard part. And I, I feel very lucky because
I, social media is still relatively new for me.
I've only been doing it for a couple of years, but I have, I'm
like a fully formed person. You know, I'm like, I always
say, like I love to, I've lived through surgical training like
nothing you say is going to hurt my feelings.
I had to deal with surgeons for, you know, a decade of training,
you know, and I have kids and I'm married.
And so it's, it's, I feel very fully formed in that way.
And so the criticism doesn't really affect me.
But if my career depended on it, if public perception was an
integral part of of my career or my or, you know, my ability to
survive in an industry, I think that would be really hard.
I think that would be hard for anybody because you're
constantly in the public eye and anything that you do, anything
that you say will always be taken out of context, right?
It could be anything that you're doing will always be taken out
of context. So when it is being taken out of
context, I think that the most, the safest thing to do is just
take it with a grain of salt and you can't make everybody happy,
right? So that I think the most, the
safest thing to do is just to be authentic to who you are and to
live your life on your terms and not what society or what anybody
else thinks how you should live. Yeah.
And it's one of those things that's easy to say, but it's
hard to to live. And I think when people ask me
for advice or they'll say you're so confident, how did you get
this way? And I wanted to ask you that
question. You're so confident.
You know, how did, how did you get here?
I think we have very similar philosophies.
You know, I, it's not that I'm not open to criticism.
I take feedback all the time, but I only accept that feedback
from certain people, right? Close friends, family, certain
colleagues at work, when they say, hey, you know, X and XY and
Z, you know, I'm like, OK, let me stop.
See if there's a way to improve that.
If there was something I said or did or what not.
But that doesn't mean that it's, I open the floodgates for
criticism from everybody. I I don't, and I say this often,
if I wouldn't trade lives with you, I don't know that I really
care what you think. You know, I just don't.
And I think it's because I do understand or I've come to
understand in life that it's exactly what you said.
If you have that much of a problem with me and you don't
even know me, the problem is not me.
How can you attack me or how can somebody attack you if they
they've never interacted with you in real life, they've never
had a conversation, They're judging you based on one video
that they see or a question, and all of a sudden they are forming
thousands and thousands of opinion.
This has absolutely. Not as what I think the pandemic
actually is in the moment is just these, the unreasonable
number of people that are so comfortable making sweeping
statements. Yeah.
And judgments about people with very little data.
Have you noticed that any time when somebody will make a
comment, it is always about what you look like?
Yeah, always. Always about what you well.
I always say I'm like, it's because you can't call me
stupid. You can't actually criticize
something. So it's like your teeth are
crooked, your nose is too big, dire grace this set and the next
thing. And it's like, if that's all you
have to say, I'm good. Yeah, I'm.
Good with that I have. I have plenty more to sit on
that I'm not worried about. It it amazes me how people
attack what you look like first because it's the only thing that
they can see. Yeah.
So it's like, OK, you. Haven't allowed them to see
anything else. And I and I do that very
intentionally. Everybody doesn't need to know
everything about me. That's reserved for my family
and close friends. Yeah.
And my kids. Do you feel free?
Right now, yeah, I feel very free, Yeah, I feel free to be
who I am. I feel free to say whatever I
want. I feel free to live my life.
How long have you felt this freedom?
I would say for about 10 years now, yeah, I felt good where I
can just be who I am and I don't have to worry about anything.
Do you feel like your dad noticed the difference on the,
on this side of things? Did he, does he ever sit with
you and look back and go, wow, you really are a different
person now? Or, you know, was it rough?
And I, I didn't, I didn't see it.
Did did he perceive the difference in who you are?
I definitely can say that my dad sees a difference in me.
He he's not as commutative like where he's like, you know, I can
see the difference. But he does say I'm really proud
of you. I'm really proud of how far
you've come. Just make sure that you're
concentrating on your work and don't lose your focus.
And I'm here if you need me for anything.
What's what? What has your dad shared with
you as like one of his greatest lessons in life?
That's a good question. I'm trying to put that I'll.
Tell you, what I learned from my dad is actually humility.
And my dad is, he'll sit all the time.
And he's like, it was a simple boy.
I grew up in a village in India, no shoes.
Sometimes we didn't have food, you know, And he's done very
well for himself and raised a beautiful family.
And to this day, I am telling you that man will not drive a
new car. He will only drive like our old,
old secondhand cars or the car my mom doesn't want, you know,
anymore. He's such a simple guy.
He hates it if we ever buy him new clothes or new shoes.
And it's, you know, he lives in this beautiful home and his
daughters are all surgeons. His son is a doctor.
You know, he has no reason to be this humble, but he is.
And he's so grounded. And I think that is his one
criticism of me or something. He's always reminding me is he's
like, don't get too carried away, bring it back, bring it
back. Remember your roots, remember
where you came from, remember what's actually important.
And I do think I, I do a pretty good job of that, but probably
something I could use a reminder in.
And it's one of those things like some lessons you learn best
from your parents. You know what I mean?
And and that is what I I think is my greatest lesson from him.
I think for him, for even him to say don't get too carried away.
I think that's such a great statement to make to your kids
by saying don't get too carried away because you could be here
one day and in a matter of hours you can be here.
So it's so important to have humility.
I think while you were talking about your dad, I was thinking
about mine. I think one of the greatest
lessons I've learned from him is to probably this also shaped me
too, is to help people, is to help people in need.
If somebody's having an issue with it, could be anything,
always offer to help them and never look down on anybody.
Never think that you're above anybody else.
I guess that ties into humility as well.
Because I imagine your dad is someone who's also had high
highs and low lows, right? I mean, Bollywood is a crazy
crazy. World struggling through
addiction at such a young age, going through that, coming out
of it, then going to jail, coming out of jail, then going
back to jail and staying three years over there and then coming
back out I mean, it's I can't imagine what that must have felt
how? Was that for you as a child?
Because watching the world make assumptions about your parent,
Yeah. Well, you know more than anybody
else who this person is. I imagine that was hard.
It was hard because I had, I couldn't talk to him in a moment
because he's going through something.
And even if I was calling him, you know, there's, there's
people all around him. It's hard to kind of talk to him
about at that point. But when the world is watching
your family fall apart, basically.
Some people are celebrating it. Oh, yeah.
And I've, I've seen, I've, I've, I've seen it all.
I've read it all. There was a lot of celebration
that he was going back there. Because people, you know, I
mean, they have their opinions, right?
So some people. People, people think they know
everything about you, right? And yeah, and they're always the
loudest, the ones who know the least.
So they say, you know, there's some people that are happy, some
people that are sad. And when your whole family is
falling apart in front of the world, it's not easy.
But I think a lot of people actually looked at me also
during that moment to see what would my reaction be.
And my reaction was that I have to be strong for him.
Were you, were you ever mad at him?
Like on the inside. No.
Yeah. I was I was never mad at my
father for for anything. He did the best that he could
given who he is and the circumstances.
I I was, yeah, I was never mad at him for anything.
There was nothing and. Do you credit yourself for the
degree of maturity that takes? Because it's easy for kids to
blame their parents. A lot of kids blame their
parents. Yeah.
For everything. For things that they don't need
to be blaming their parents for. I think I give the credit to
myself for that because, you know, for how long, even if I
were to blame anybody, for how long am I going to blame
somebody for? I need to take accountability
for the things that I have caused you're.
Just such a wise soul. That's why I keep asking like
how is she this wise? I don't even have these defense
mechanisms as a grown adult. I mean, was my dad the one that
told me to shove cheesecake in your mouth and to eat this and
to eat that? No, right.
I did those things to myself. So how much can I keep blaming
other people for things that have nothing to do with them?
I have to take accountability for myself.
And that's what I did. And I think that's why today I
feel confident enough to be who I am because I I accepted my
flaws. I accepted my mistakes and I
worked on them to be a better person for myself.
Yeah, switching gears a little bit, because you are a
practicing therapist in New York City, Yeah, and you specialize
in anxiety and depression and you yourself have gone through
sort of a weight journey. What do you think about GLP One
culture? You know what?
That's the GLP one culture. If it works for you, amazing.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't be doing it.
Look, I'm for whatever makes you happy and whatever works for
you. I'm a no judgement zone.
As long as you're happy and healthy and you're going to your
doctor. Again, I'm I'm I'm not a doctor,
but if you're going to your doctor and you're discussing it
with him, you could do GLP. Do you think, and I'm not saying
that I feel this way, I'm not lending my own opinion to it.
I'm asking because you are on the mental health side of
things. Do you think that there are
people that are sort of putting a Band-Aid on the problem by
using AGLP? One where in fact the root
problem might be mental health related, as it was for you.
It could be mental health related, but a lot of people
suffer from other issues that they're going through health
wise, which we don't know about, right?
We don't know why they're on GLP.
One, no totally. And we know that the medical
benefits are are profound. Yeah.
I just wonder, you know, are we missing an opportunity to, to
treat holistically 360° everything that contributes to,
to to a weight issue and definitely there are medical
problems that are handled and managed by being on AGLP one,
but are we missing an opportunity to introduce mental
health services as well? I believe there could be.
I believe there could be, because me going through a
weight problem, somebody else could be going through a similar
problem and not really understanding where it's coming
from, right? Because for you to fix the
problem, you need to get to the root cause of the problem.
So where is this coming from? We don't really know.
So I think that there could be an opportunity to learn from
there. But then again, a lot of times,
especially these days, people want a quick fix, right?
They want a quick fix for everything and anything, and
that's not always the best because if you're putting a
Band-Aid on something and that quick fix, it's not there
anymore, you're just going to go back to whatever was going on in
the 1st place. So if it works for you and you
want to do it, I have no problem, but I would welcome the
opportunity to try to really find the root cause of it first.
Which is often multifactorial as well, right?
Yeah, absolutely. Durand there has been wildly
successful. Has that changed anything for
you guys, for the family or you guys have always been in the
public eye? So it's just sort of keep on
keeping on. It's keep on keeping on.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's it's really just the movie did well.
That's amazing. All right.
What's next? What's next?
Yeah, I haven't seen the film yet.
Literally the film. Yet I was literally about to ask
it. You haven't seen either one?
No. OK, that's so funny.
I'm really using this as a clip. I haven't seen it.
I have not seen it. So I'll tell you, I watched the
first one, but I like watched it like this because I am like
very, I can't watch violent things, but the storyline and
the storytelling was so incredible that I was like, OK,
I have to watch it. So I like kind of watched it,
but I haven't watched the second one again because I just violent
things. I it sits with me.
I'll have nightmares. I don't want that.
But I've the storyline is incredible.
So that's hilarious that you haven't seen it.
Do you ever feel that roles affect your dad's, whether it's
his mental health or personality?
Because a lot of actors have spoken about this.
And Ranveer Singh has even spoken about how, like, playing
Killji was like, they put him in a dark place.
And you know, there's obviously method actors and whatnot.
Has your dad ever experienced that, where he played a
character and it like took him a minute to kind of snap out of
it? I've never asked him that
question. I'm curious.
I've never asked him that question, but now that you're
asking me, that is a question that I am going to ask him
because I'm also curious now. Yeah, I've never asked him that
question. I mean, it was an intense role
that he played, that he played with excellence.
But it I wonder if, like, when you're immersed in that world
and that's the character you're playing, how does one, like,
snap in and bounce back? Bounce back, yeah.
I will, I'll ask him and I'll keep you posted on that one.
Sometimes I like seeing him on screen because it just kind of,
it reminds me to reminds me. So I'll see some clips and then
I'll just be like, OK, you. Know I'm done.
He's a gangster in the movie. It's awesome.
You know, it's interesting. I recently came across a lot of
online chatter about how Deepika has not like, been vocal enough
in support of her husband in this film.
And I think it's so stupid. So I'm like, why?
Of course she supports him. She's his wife.
Like, you don't have to put everything out there, you know?
It's like I don't have to sing my husband's praise every day
just because I'm a public figure.
He's my husband. Like, of course I support him
and he supports me. I don't see any requirement of
that. Do you think that's stupid?
I mean I. I want to ask everybody why?
Why do you care? Why?
Why does everybody care? If anybody is showing the
support publicly, why does it have to be public, right?
Why can't we show support in private?
Why does everything have to be? For public consumption.
Exactly, I'm I don't really understand the need for that.
So when I. Just reminded me when you were
like, I haven't even seen it. That doesn't mean you don't
support your father and every real you know, like obviously
you do. But it it just doesn't matter.
Like why? Why do not care?
It's interesting when people think that because I am his
daughter, that I have seen every single movie of his and I follow
up every single interview of his.
That's not that's not the case. But also that's like not real
life most kids. Like if your parent is a PhD,
have you read all their manuscripts?
You know what I mean? Like if you're, I don't know
every single engineering project my dad did when he, you know,
worked for some of the companies he worked for, I, I don't know.
And that's OK, Doesn't mean I don't support him.
No, but everybody has something to say, right?
Everybody thinks that they know better, that you should do this.
And you know, why haven't you done that?
I think it has a lot to do with culture too, you know, like you
should be doing something. You should be doing it like
this. And I think going back to what I
said, that people like we're tired.
We're tired of listening to that.
We just want to be who we are and we just want to live our
lives on our terms now. Yeah, well, I sometimes feel
like you're damned if you do, You're damned if you don't.
Like, I can imagine a lot of people don't say things publicly
just because they don't want every single word of theirs
dissected. I think I I think that you
should absolutely have the right to be like that.
And who are we to judge? I don't think anybody has a
right to judge anybody. I mean, I judge a lot of maggot
Republicans have you on the judgement here sometimes that
OK, go ahead. Live and let live, live and let
live. Whatever.
If that that works for you, I'm so happy for you.
If it doesn't work for you, it has nothing to do with me and
I'm just gonna carry on. Yeah.
So what do you feel like your legacy is gonna be?
Well, I would hope that people Remember Me as being a very kind
human being who loves helping others and who doesn't mind
joining others in the trenches to help pull you out.
Yeah, it's really beautiful. I really one of the best parts
of my job is seeing my clients complete a goal and seeing them
whether it's in person or on telehealth and they have
accomplished their goal. Seeing that light in their eyes.
There's a spark that comes when they say I completed my goal, I
did this, I did that. It's the most gratifying
feeling. So for me, my legacy, I just
want people to remember that I, I loved helping you in your
journey and you have helped me so much more than you'll ever
know. Just you being my client, you
have helped me in my journey. Are you accepting new patients?
I currently work in a private practice.
It's not mine yet, but one day, one day I will open up my own
private practice and I am accepting new patients and it's
a group private practice. So I work with a bunch of
amazing therapists and we all work together and we see
different clients. If someone want to get a hold of
your office to make an appointment, how would they do
that? Psychologytoday.com you can
search my name, my name up there, send me an e-mail and I
will reply back to you as soon as possible, as soon as I get it
and then you can schedule an appointment with me.
We have about a 1520 minute consultation where you'll get to
kind of feel me out and you'll tell me what's going on and then
you will decide if you vibe with me because it's very important
that you feel a connection with me because part of your success
in therapy is going to be your relationship with your
therapist. So you have a consultation with
me and then if you choose to move forward, we start our
journey. And if not, I refer you to
somebody else who may can possibly help you.
And talk me through a couple of scenarios where you feel like
someone could use your services. How they can?
How do you know that you that you need a therapist?
How do you know that they need to come see if you if I'm
listening to this episode and I'm I've been contemplating it,
Do I need to see a therapist? Do I not talk me through how
somebody knows or or should know to then go seek help?
I think that. My answer is like, if you can,
you should. Like all of us, all of us,
everybody needs a therapist. That's my answer, But you go
ahead. I think that once you feel like
you are stuck in your life and you feel like you have utilized
every single tool out there to kind of push you forward and
you're still feeling stuck and you don't know where it's coming
from. And you kind of want to explore
and you want to talk about what happened in your past or your
present and you kind of want to unravel it and make sense out of
it. Then you would contact me or any
type of therapist and tell them what is going on and to see if
we can help you if you've utilized every single thing and
you're still feeling like you can't.
Move forward. You don't have the right defense
mechanisms or coping mechanisms. OK, I love that.
Well, I will tell you, I'm sure that your mother up in the
heavens is very, very, very proud of you.
I have no trouble seeing exactly why your dad is so proud of you.
I think you are a breath of fresh air.
I am I will continue to be very impressed and still puzzled how
you became this like wise, peaceful Zen sage and with I
mean, just with how where life took you and the crazy world
that we live in. But my gosh, are we grateful for
you. Thank you.
Thank you so much for joining me on Inside Thoughts Out Loud.