You seem to be on this path of lifelong self-discovery…

Oh wow

… so how far along do you think you’ve come?

Fuck! I’ve come nowhere close to where I wanna be. I don’t know actually, in India I think the struggle is real.

I feel everyday I have to keep myself consciously angry. I do that on purpose. If I am not angry then I just get too relaxed and when I get too relaxed, nothing is gonna get done.

I don’t think I can ever move out of this city, because this city keeps me angry and that’s exactly where I wanna be. So I’m here, ready. And today is a great day because today is Nirbhaya’s judgment so the anger is very evident. Sorry you’ve caught me on a day where I’ve been on edge since I woke up in the morning. Because it’s been 5 fucking years, this is fast track and we still really have no idea what’s really gonna happen.

You have always been a mystery to a lot of people but some now say they understand you; they get a bit more of you.

I don’t know. If they are saying that, maybe there must be some truth to it.

But what I see is that this life long struggle that I have had since I was thirteen of being able to express myself the way I want to, without judgment, the judgment hasn’t gone away.

But there was never any fear of the judgment either. And I see that people now have come to a point where you see loads of men and women expressing themselves without the fear of judgment, so I feel maybe in that way they understand where I was coming from all these years. I see that a lot and I think that definitely is progress. The inside of me is I think so intense that even I don’t understand myself, so I don’t know. My counselor, I saw a counselor for the first time few days ago and the first thing I told her I was, ‘listen, I don’t like to talk so can you counsel me without me talking?’ Because as humans we are constantly judging people, whether it’s good or bad, we have this filing system. Whatever I am telling you right now you are filing – oh good – bad – good – bad – oh swear word – okay she’s bad – okay she’s good, that’s what happens. So I told the same thing to my counselor, I’m like, ‘listen you’re a counselor but you’re still judging me because you are a human’, so she started laughing and we have managed to come up with a way of counseling without speaking. Yea it’s very fascinating it’s happening. So this is what I feel,

I feel like this judgment that is all around us, a lot of us cave and a lot of us don’t care but even when you say you don’t care, you do care.

Do you think you sometimes try and outwit people like I am going to do something grander with gestures, experiments, I am going to baffle you even more and you can judge me as much as you like, you can think what you like.

You know maybe ten years ago I would say I would do that. I think that as time passes and I am becoming more of a cat and I am understanding the beauty of being a cat.

I also realize that because I am a cat, I cannot run in a rat race 

so why should I?

Being a cat, how?

I’ll give you a great example of cat and dog. I’ve realized that when a dog takes a shit they do this shit dance, right? They are constantly calling the whole world because they are fucking excited to take a dump, like look mom I took a dump I am so excited. But a cat takes a dump, covers it up, moves on. Nobody needs to know. And this is the biggest lesson I have learned in life,

‘cover your shit, move on’ 

There’s no need to throw a party around your shit folks, move on.

What makes you so courageous?

Shit. I don’t know. My counselor asked me the same fucking question. I don’t think I am courageous. I think it’s your perception of me.

I think that sometime when people build you up to become a certain person, somewhere you think, oh fuck now I have to live up to this shit. 

So even if I am not courageous, maybe I’m not showing you I am not courageous because that’s what happens right? Because if you look at every famous person, do you really think that they are that fucking happy? No, but that’s the face they want to show you right? Because they don’t want to show you the kind of shit that happens behind closed doors. So everyone tries to be famous, whatever that is, but I think for me, since I have been put on this pedestal of role model I am a bit tired of it, because I am not a role model and I want to break this shit. That’s why even for my book my biggest thing is I want to write my book drunk. I am tired of being this good shit. You know fuck that shit. Too good is also not good. I am thinking I’m going to New York City, I wanna drink everyday. I wanna write my book drunk, I wanna see some naked chicks, I wanna see some naked men, I wanna experience life, I wanna experience shit that I haven’t in a long time in this country atleast. The minute you talk about, oh I’d like to see some titties, they’re like what? I wanna be in a country where I could say the word titties and it’s fuckin’ okay. I wanna go to a bar and just see it and it’s done with and so yea. I am telling you this, I don’t know if I am courageous. I don’t know this about myself. Everyday I find out new things about myself. But I do know one thing, that I don’t give a fuck.

A lot of people consider you really brave bold free in a lot of ways, and people want to be you. They look up to you and they want to be like that. But they do nothing about it, what do you think about that or have to say to them?

Hey no judgments, to be honest. Everyone has their own story, everyone has their own life. Everyone wakes up with things they fucking have to do. So if they are not doing something that they really wanna do, there must be circumstances that are stopping them. Just like if a woman is beat up by her husband but she’s not walking out, there’s no judgment there either. No one likes to get beat up do they, but why is she taking it? Must be something, yea?

So I have full respect for people who are sometimes trapped in circumstances and they are trying to find their way out and I have nothing but hope for them and I think that they will and that takes time.

I mean it took me twenty years to even come to terms with my own story. Does that make me weak? Fuck no! I think that to even hold something you have to be strong in order to even hold it and still push on through right? People have aspirations and that’s why people look at other people sometimes because they are not role models enough for themselves. And I feel that there is a time for everyone where they are gonna break free. Sometimes that time can take lots of time and sometimes it just happens. Everyone’s journey is their own journey.

Wow, it seems like a busy year

See this year has been a very big year for me because I am simply working on myself. I am going now to do theatre in Sydney, which I am very excited about, which is a play called Jatinga. This wonderful woman called Suzanne, she has been coming for years and going to Kamathipura and working with the sex workers there and it was her dream to kind of come up with a play that would kind of do some justice to them. So Jatinga is this place in Assam where these birds are rumoured to go to commit suicide. A lot of speculation is there that are these birds really coming to commit suicide or are the villagers doing this to attract tourism? It’s a great metaphor for Kamathipura and the girls of Kamathipura if you really go to see. I am playing a character that I have created myself. I am playing this 500 year old woman. I love it. Yea so with the play in Sydney and coming back to my documentary and coming back to this nasty book that I am going to be writing. It’s a nasty year, it’s jam-packed.

How do you manage so many things, Sapna?

Because  this is the act of a magician. If you want magic you have to become a magician. What does a magician do? They throw things up in the air and magically make it happen. That’s how you do it, magic.

And we asked Sapna to tell us how she met MS Dhoni, watch her response