mid-day 44th anniversary special- Inayat Sood: So many times, I felt I’m going to die in my room alone

Sood, who lives in Bandra, says the leafy lanes remind her of Chandigarh. Pic/Shadab Khan

Five years ago, if you asked Inayat Sood what Mumbai represented to her, she would direct you to her playlist - one that comprised romantic songs of Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein (2001), and the young spirit of Wake Up Sid (2009). To the then-21-year-old, Mumbai was Bollywood, a romanticised version of the city. And as she made the two-hour-plus flight journey from Chandigarh to Mumbai in 2018, she was certain that the city would embrace the romantic in her. "I thought I would find true love and sit with him on Marine Drive," smiles the actor, who was recently seen in Scoop.

But romance would have to wait, first came reality - a life-lesson that the city teaches you early on. Sood's parents wanted her to enrol into a course while struggling to make it in the movies. For their satisfaction, she took up a one-year-long Integrated Media course at Sophia College for Women in south Mumbai, while keeping her eyes fixed on the Bollywood dream. She soon bagged her first feature film, Ajay Devgn and Tabu-starrer De De Pyaar De. But as she began living her dream, reality started emerging. "I had fallen in love with the city when I was in college because I was surrounded by friends and we were exploring the city like tourists. But when I started living alone, struggling as an actor, it all became too much. By 2019, after De De Pyaar De had released, I was ready to go home. All the romantic notions of Mumbai had broken. I had got scared of the city," she reflects.

Living in a two-bedroom apartment in Andheri with three women, Sood felt pangs of loneliness. She realised that Mumbai was always running, only she had slowed down in the absence of her loved ones. "While in college, I lived in a hostel. Your world in college is as big as the campus. Right after college, I was working with Ajay Devgn and Tabu. From a tiny world, I was on set with the biggest of stars. It was overwhelming. When the girl I was sharing my room with left, I felt I couldn't live alone in that space. I realised I couldn't live alone in Mumbai," recounts the actor.

The next few months revealed to her what no one does when selling the dream of Maximum City. That it takes a toll on the best of us. Sood says she struggled with her mental health in the city's frenetic yet lonely life. "So many times, I felt I am going to die in this room alone because of my mental health, and no one would even get to know. I felt so anonymous. I became a girl, whose therapist would help her with night routines and how to feel happy with herself without an external stimulus." Her time in the city of dreams was up. The pandemic in 2020 only accelerated her return to Chandigarh.

Over the next year, her mental health improved, and she took up a writing job. It was in 2021 that she got a call for her first web series, Kaali Peeli Tales that was shot in Tadoba, Maharashtra. She shuttled between Chandigarh and Tadoba for the shoot. On the same day that the show dropped online, she bagged Lionsgate's coming-of-age series, Feels Like Home. One thing led to another, and in no time, Sood was signed up for Hansal Mehta's Scoop to play cub reporter Deepa who will stop at nothing to rise through the ranks. Mumbai was once again calling out to her.

But this time around, Sood was more prepared. That overpowering fear of the past had been replaced with hope. That acute loneliness filled with the assurance and love of her family. "It felt like a restart, a second innings. I was happy to be back to the city that I was scared of the first time. Also, having spent a year in the company of love of family and friends assured me that I would be okay being alone."

The Sood we meet during our interaction is an assured 26-year-old, who has found her groove in the city. Seated in her warmly lit one-bedroom apartment in Bandra, she tells us that today, she is not scared of living alone in Mumbai. The confidence comes from acceptance. From knowing that the city, despite its sometimes hard ways, is her home.

Now, even as she looks forward to bag a new project after the acclaimed Netflix series, she spends her days in pursuit of making Mumbai feel a little bit like Chandigarh. In fact, she says the quiet, leafy Bandra lane where she stays, reminds her of the greenery of her hometown. Also, just like her mother read stories to her brother and her in their growing-up years, Sood has taken to reading at night - a practice that reminds her of her home. "I remember what Manav Kaul had told me when I had met him for a play in 2019. He had said, ‘Till you consider Mumbai your workplace, you will feel anxiety. But the day you view it as your home, the anxiety will fade.' I think I am finally reaching that place. Home is not just Chandigarh, but Mumbai too." And sometimes, when it all gets too much, she goes and sits by the sea - the one comfort that her hometown didn't afford her - and listens to that playlist.

Mumbai meri jaan?

Love about Mumbai Independence

Hate about Mumbai Not having my parents here with me.

Expectations from Mumbai: To find Bollywood-style true love.

Has Mumbai lived up to the expectation? Not at all (laughs).

Will Mumbai remain forever home? It's becoming home, and hopefully will remain so.