The actor talks about her latest film Calorie, which premieres at IFFI on Friday, inherited grief, being honest and true to the craft, and how costume designing will always be her first love
With a career spanning more than 30 years, one would assume the novelty — and the accompanying butterflies — of a film premiere would have worn off for Dolly Ahluwalia, especially since Calorie, which premieres at the 56th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa on November 28, is her third major project this year. She already has big-banner films like Sitaare Zameen Par and Son of Sardaar 2 on her slate. But the veteran actor is anything but blasé.
Excitement still simmers in the National School of Drama graduate, evident in her eagerness to sit in the audience and watch the film for the very first time. We catch her just before she leaves for the airport in Chandigarh. Clad in a dark navy kurta, her signature chunky silver jewellery and kohl-rimmed eyes, Dolly Ahluwalia is sitting in a sunlit room. The conversation naturally steers to the movie of the moment — Calorie, directed by Eisha Marjara — which will have its theatrical release in Canada this Friday.
Partition and inherited grief
The film is a coming-of-age drama centred on three generations of women whose values undergo a deep churning over a summer in Amritsar. The narrative invokes the tragic bombing of Air India Flight 182 — flying from Toronto to Mumbai — in 1985, and the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, events that still ripple through the lives of the characters like an ever-present spectre, looming large yet remaining unspoken.
Ahluwalia plays Gurdeep, a woman in her sixties hosting her NRI family at their ancestral home. “I got a call from Joe Balass (the producer), followed by a Zoom conversation with Eisha. The moment she saw me, she declared, ‘Yes, you are Gurdeep.’ It took just that one narration for me to say yes to the film. What moved me was the truth and honesty that Eisha — having suffered the loss of her mother in that tragedy — brought to the story. It needed to be shared,” says Ahluwalia.
Also read: Dharmendra obit: Hindi cinema’s first-generation superstar, icon of Indian masculinity
Grief is a recurring theme in the film, as are loss and regret. “To live with that pain and loss for more than 30 years takes immense courage. Personal grief toh phir bhi ho janda hai (personal grief is still manageable), but the scale of this tragedy… this was the pain of the community. And nobody has talked about it, though an entire plane full of people died. Eisha decided to share this so that other people could heal and have their stories heard,” adds Ahluwalia. “For me, the film is about the calories of emotions, not the calories we count in food — as the title might imply. It’s about how we digest those emotions. If you have a robust digestive system, you can handle them — or at least work through what life throws at you.”
It is surprising to encounter a film with such political undertones in today’s censorship-laden climate; Honey Trehan’s Punjab 95 comes to mind. One wonders if Ahluwalia was, at any point, apprehensive about being part of such a sensitive project. She replies with an emphatic, “No.” “How long can one remain silent? There has to be a voice,” she says, adding that the story needed to be grounded in lived reality. “When I reached the set in Amritsar, I was reminded of my own naanka (maternal grandparents’ home). The same furniture, the same flooring; two elderly folks living with one domestic help. And when the new generation comes in, the space gets divided — and so do the emotions.”
Having grown up listening to stories of the Partition — her father migrated from Pakistan —Ahluwalia channelled that inherited grief into her character. “The pain and the emotions I heard from my family, I evoked as my own survival mechanism as Gurdeep,” she explains. “It was about understanding the weight of it all while looking after my husband, but also looking ahead to bridge the divide and welcome the new generation.”
A stitch in her heart
The pursuit of bringing ‘lived reality’ to the screen is what differentiates Calorie in an industry where Sikhs have often been reduced to loud caricatures, their stories lacking nuance and layers. They are frequently cast as either token comic relief or hyper-masculine warriors, with films rarely exploring what lies between these two extremes. Through Gurdeep, the film showcases a quiet, domestic normalcy and emotional interiority that Ahluwalia portrays with striking grace.
A still from Calorie
Looking at Ahluwalia’s filmography, there seems to be a healthy mix of mainstream big-banner productions juxtaposed with niche, independent offerings. She has perfected the balancing act — switching effortlessly between the lived realism of films like Calorie and the commercial demands of mainstream hits such as Sitaare Zameen Par. “I need to get a stitch in my heart whenever I hear a narration or read a script. It doesn’t matter if it’s a two-minute role as long as I am able to share the story, share myself, that’s enough. I could even do Son of Sardaar 2 because the mother’s hidden pain for her son really spoke to me.”
Ahluwalia goes on to reflect on her recent career choices. Vicky Donor (2012) has been career-defining for her, introducing her to a much younger demographic. “Vicky Donor was a surprise as well. I got a call from Shoojit Sircar while I was doing costumes for a Deepa Mehta film in Sri Lanka. I met Juhi Chaturvedi, and everything just clicked.”
‘Costume design my first love’
She also mentions Thank You For Coming (2023), a film she initially turned down. “I was hesitant about Thank You For Coming. When Karan (Boolani, producer) was narrating it, I told him I wasn’t feeling it, but he asked me to just read the script. That’s when I realised that while the film spoke about women’s orgasms, it wasn’t about sex — it was about an orgasm of emotions. And to deliver that sentiment through my character, that became the driving force for me.”
Also read: 120 Bahadur review: Farhan Akhtar’s India-China war drama finds its footing in parts
She circles back to Vicky Donor. “The same thing had happened with Vicky Donor, given the subject matter. If not handled well, it could have ended up as a C-grade film. But Shoojit’s brilliance — and how he balanced it — made all the difference. There was magic on the set. It was such a young team; they had all come from the ad world, thorough professionals.”
It is poetic that Ahluwalia refers to a “stitch in the heart” when choosing roles, for she remains a designer at her core — even though she hasn’t helmed a costume department since Rangoon (2017). Films like Bandit Queen, Omkara, Rockstar, and Haider owe their authenticity in no small measure to her eye for detail and her execution. Her transition into full-time acting —though a gain for the screen — has been a loss for the world of design, a choice she made out of necessity.
“I am a cancer survivor, I will not hesitate in sharing that,” she says. “My health doesn’t allow me to design for a film anymore. Costuming is a deeply immersive process; I am thinking about it 24/7. Whereas as an actor, we shoot on a schedule, a few days at a time. It gives me more flexibility, and the breaks are good for my health. But costumes remain my first love,” she adds.
