Theirs isn’t a story of love at first sight. Instead, it’s a story of two parties taking an initial dislike to each other, looking past it to patiently learn about one another’s strengths and frailties, and coming together to form a lasting friendship. “I had eyes like Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s. I believed that Mumbai was waiting to give me a red-carpet welcome, that every filmmaker would be eager to cast me. A lot of my delusions were broken by this city. My parents gave birth to me and took care of me, but Mumbai made me an adult,” smiles Wamiqa Gabbi.
Mumbai figured in Gabbi’s plans for as long as she could remember. From a tender age, she had only one goal—to be an actor. Even as she was raised in Chandigarh, she tried her luck in Hindi films. At 14, she made a blink-and-miss appearance in Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met (2007) as Kareena Kapoor Khan’s cousin. After two years, she had a walk-on role in Love Aaj Kal (2009).
In 2013, at the age of 19, she was emotionally ready to leave Chandigarh to actively pursue her dream of seeing herself on the big screen. When she packed her suitcase to try her luck in Mumbai, her father, Govardhan Gabbi, had only one piece of advice for her: “Aise rehna ki raat nu neend aa jaye, aur jab sheeshe vich dekho, toh khud ke saath nazre mila sako. [Live life in such a way that you can sleep peacefully at night and face yourself in the mirror.]”
But Mumbai and she weren’t quite ready for each other. What followed was a string of auditions, some bit roles, and staying in rented apartments. Like any new girl in the city, Gabbi was initially shocked to see matchbox-sized flats that often housed more than one person. “I remember seeing a room [online] and finalising the deal. When I got here, I saw they were matchbox-sized, which was a stark difference from my Chandigarh house. The room adjacent to mine had two girls living in one room. Even when you opened the windows, you couldn’t feel the fresh air. I went to a friend’s place, called my dad and told him that I could not stay here,” recounts the actor.
The multiple rejections also took a toll on the actor. “I used to feel special in Chandigarh—at home, in school, in college—but Mumbai made me feel ordinary. That is when you understand that you need to become extraordinary on this ordinary ground. I can’t call my experiences a struggle, when there are so many people who don’t have the same privileges that I was born with. I never had to worry about where my next meal will come from. But I came to do one thing, act, and I was unable to do that. I was under-confident and started disliking myself. But that was also part of my personal journey.”
Gabbi then trained her focus on Punjabi and south films, largely shuttling between Chandigarh and Hyderabad, and flying to Mumbai only if a project came her way. Yet, something told her that Hindi films would happen eventually. Sure enough, Kabir Khan’s 83 (2020) came her way, and by the end of 2019, the actor shifted base to Mumbai, renting a bungalow in Madh Island, where she lived with her six dogs and help.
This time around, Gabbi had wised up and knew that the city rewarded only those who persevered. And persevere she did. Between 2020 and 2022, the actor landed three big projects—Disney+ Hotstar’s Grahan, Netflix’s Mai, and Amazon Prime Video’s Modern Love Mumbai. Finally, it felt like the island city was beginning to accept her. “In my initial years, I never felt Mumbai was my city because I never considered it as such. Once I changed my views on it, [things got better]. The city taught me to be independent. [During my first stint], my electricity supply would often get cut because I would forget to pay the bill. How could I accept a city that made me feel so lonely? But the most beautiful thing was that Mumbai made me accept my loneliness. That’s why I fell in love with this city,” she smiles.
This year, she broke through with her performance in Vikramaditya Motwane’s Jubilee, in which she played a ’50s aspiring actor who rises to the top. She followed it up with Modern Love Chennai, and Vishal Bhardwaj’s short film Fursat, and the recent Charlie Chopra. There is a lot happening on the personal front too. The actor has bought a house in Andheri, and is in the process of shifting there. “It is way smaller and way more expensive than my Madh house,” she laughs, left helpless by the city’s unreasonable real-estate market.
She has grown up a lot in the past three years. Now, when she loses a film, she doesn’t lose sleep over it, instead simply moving on to her next. “My dad always says, ‘Jo hota hai, achche ke liye hota hai. Jo nahin hota hai, woh aur bhi achche ke liye hota hai.’” And is there anything that hasn’t changed in these years? Her awestruck reaction to Gateway of India, she says. “Every time I go to Gateway, I cannot take my eyes off it. When I go to south Mumbai, or in the nooks and corners of Bandra, it feels like I’m in the city of dreams.”
Mumbai meri jaan?
Love about Mumbai That it has a mixture of good and bad people. But once you find your tribe, especially in the art scene, it’s beautiful.
Hate about Mumbai The waterlogging, but I do love the rains.
Expectations from Mumbai I have no grand expectations. I believe it has been extremely kind to me.
Did Mumbai live up to it? Growing up, I always saw myself [playing a role]in Devdas. Jubilee [came close to] that for me. So, in a way, yes, it did.
Will it remain forever home? I love being in Mumbai. But for me, home is where there is a lot of space and where I can see the sky without skyscrapers.
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