Ladies of Lune: Namita Dubey’s Diligent Empathy

The most striking thing about Namita is her warmth, which radiated even over the phone during our call. Her small talk sounded sincere and candid and quickly won me over. It didn’t feel at all like I was talking to a stranger, but someone I’d known for a very long time who had called for an overdue catch-up. 

Throughout the interview, the actor spoke with great feeling about her priorities and morals (which she strives to uphold in everything from her career to her Instagram), her life now as well as her childhood in Lucknow, and, of course, her pride and joy: her books. 

With her charmingly considerate choice of words, Namita unpacked small parts of her time on this planet, allowing me to glimpse — briefly — the inner workings.

Photography: Aakruti Sarangdhar | Interview: Rabia Kapoor | Creative Production: Tasneem Nalwala & Mizbah Sheikh

Pictured above: Namita wears the Big Vision Hoops & Puvvu Studs styled along with the Vesper Dual Ball Ring, Lyla Mesh Ring and the Cigar and Wide Tamara Band ring on one hand, paired with the Phases Hand Harness with the Transit Cuff and Nova Opal Oval Ring and the Solstice Ring.

Though an actor by profession, you’ve dedicated a large part of your Instagram to reviewing books you love. Was that a difficult choice to make in this time where actors’ jobs seem to be inextricably linked with ‘content creation’ and perfectly curated online personas? 

If you go to my Instagram and scroll back to 2017, you’ll see I was reviewing books even then. I didn’t expect people to sit through entire book reviews, or engage with it all. But strangers online and friends in real life would want to discuss the books I’d reviewed with me. I didn’t have to work hard for that audience, it flowed inherently from who I am as a person. Back then, I didn’t have any travel or fashion pictures. I would put stacks of books on my page, initiate discussions, make recommendations. My attempt, even now, is not to please the algorithm. I just post what I feel like posting. I find things like photoshoots to be very clinical. I like anecdotes, discussions, stories. 

That sense of community.

Correct. Social media offers the best kind of community. I’ve had a lot of discussions with strangers on topics that are very thought-provoking, profound and rare. I find some solace in that. But obviously it can’t be the centre of my life. It’s a nice thing to be a part of this community but it’s like walking a tightrope between sharing, oversharing, inundating people with everything you do in a day. 

Pictured above: Namita wears the Big Future Hoops paired with the dainty Puvvu Choker with the Intuitive Abstract Heart Necklace styled with the Small Tala Cuff on her wrist and a bunch of Lune Rings.

How did you get into reading? 

I remember vividly the first time I picked up a book. It was The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie. It was a very riveting read for me. I was in the eighth grade and I was feeling feverish that day. All I wanted to do was lie down and be in some kind of peace. I found this book and it made me feel… Fulfilled. 

You know, for me, it was never a laborious task to read books. As a teenager I would read a lot of mysteries, or authors like P.G Wodehouse. They helped me. I was a timid and shy kid. Books were an antidote to my loneliness and isolation, I felt. 

In two years time I started using reading as a vocabulary building exercise. It helped me communicate and dismantle things around me in a better way, now that I had words at my disposal. In an academic way, it made me feel very powerful. I liked consciously working on my language, the genesis of words, how to string a beautiful sentence together. It all came together just from reading. 

Pictured above: Namita wears the Big Vision Hoops & Puvvu Studs styled along with the Amira Single Ball Necklace and Lune Letter 'N' Pendant on her neck, the Vesper Dual Ball Ring, Lyla Mesh Ring and the Cigar and Wide Tamara Band ring on one hand, paired with the Phases Hand Harness with the Transit Cuff and Nova Opal Oval Ring and the Solstice Ring.

It’s funny. Stories like that — about kids who are saved by books in some way — usually come from people who are professional writers now. You never considered that career path? 

Never consciously, but I often toyed with the idea of writing columns and essays, which was my forte in the eleventh and twelfth grade. I would write very nice expository essays. I have that in the back of my head but I’m still equipping myself to make better observations about life. 

You said you’re particularly drawn to memoirs. What is it about the format that draws you to non-fiction told in first person? And what are some of your favourites? 

The memoir is very intimate. For me they are treasure troves of experiences. I feel like it’s actually a friend or an evolved person dispensing advice to me. It has some power to catalyse my thought process, to change it, to make it more streamlined. 

Pictured above: Namita wears the Big Future Hoops paired with the dainty Puvvu Choker with the Intuitive Abstract Heart Necklace styled with the Small Tala Cuff on her wrist and a bunch of Lune Rings.

It offers you a vocabulary for things you already know. 

Yeah! The dormant feelings inside you have their antenna pushed up. There are feelings that will never see the light of day until someone pushes them out of you, pushes you in that direction. 

I recently read Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb. This book offers a generous interpretation of therapy, an educational and insightful read that helped me develop a few mental and emotional skills. And Yashica Dutt’s Coming Out as Dalit, a book that made me aware of things so ingrained in our society that we don’t even see them, or we turn a blind eye to it. Another one was Hunger by Roxanne Gay. Gay describes herself as ‘morbidly obese’. It’s a memoir of her body. 

I have a whole list of memoirs, actually. I’m putting together a collection. For me, books like this helped inculcate a sense of empathy for people who have experiences I don’t – I’ll never – have myself.

Pictured above: Namita wears the Big Vision Hoops & Puvvu Studs styled along with the Amira Single Ball Necklace and Lune Letter 'N' Pendant on her neck, the Vesper Dual Ball Ring, Lyla Mesh Ring and the Cigar and Wide Tamara Band ring on one hand, paired with the Phases Hand Harness with the Transit Cuff and Nova Opal Oval Ring and the Solstice Ring.

You have a degree in social work and have worked with street children. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

I have a master’s from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Bombay. The format of our education was interesting because we would work for two days with an agency and study for the other four days. There was practice and theory. In my first year I worked in an adoption agency, and the second year was in education — education and family welfare was my specialisation. 

That was the most people-honing course that one could do in life. We had to do a bit of all the subjects: psychology, sociology, economics, human resources, but then we would go out and meet people too, and see those theories in action. It was, that way, the most rewarding and the most exhilarating experience of my life. 

I didn’t pursue it professionally. It involves a lot of relentless work. My sister does social work, she was my senior in college. She gives her heart and soul to this. It’s not easy. But it gave me a lot of perspective on people, on social context, and all the little nuggets on human behaviour. I had to work with two very aggressive children as part of my case study. They were orphans and were getting adopted by a couple in Holland. When you’re dealing with people in this way, it changes you.

I’m sad I couldn’t pursue it, but I did a role recently where my character is a social worker. She works with kids and substance abuse.

Pictured above: Namita wears the Small Tala Cuff on her wrist with the Macro City Ring, Soma Double V Ring and the Signet Ring.



Everything you’ve talked about has these ‘exercises in empathy’ in common. Is that what drew you to acting as well, the opportunity to put yourself in other people’s shoes? 

Everything I’ve done in real life has an outlet in reel life. For me, I did social work, then ended up playing a character who is a social worker, and also this character prepares for UPSC and both my father and grandfather were IAS officers. I’ve drawn on life experiences. 

The common thread between all my interests and career pursuits and impulses are about digging deep into people, experiences, social contexts, characters, backstory. For me there’s a very clear connection between all my work. Even my graduation was in literature which is, again, about stories and people. There’s a thread between everything I’ve pursued professionally and  personally. It’s all related to knowing life deeply. That also applies to how your life is peopled, how people function in correlation to your life. It’s just been an attempt to demystify the way people live, function, behave.

Pictured above: Namita wears the Wandering Cat Dress with the Big Future Hoops paired with the dainty Puvvu Choker with the Intuitive Abstract Heart Necklace styled with the Small Tala Cuff on her wrist and a bunch of Lune Rings.



You’ve said you’re an excessive daydreamer. What does that look like? 

For me, excessive daydreaming, or any flight of fantasy, as I would like to call it, is my way of self-reflecting, ruminating on things, taking a step back from anything tangible and just being bored with my thoughts. I like doing things that give me a way to anchor myself. It means, for example, I’ll listen to music, connect to something, reflect on it. It’ll soften me a bit from what is happening in my day-to-day life. I like uneventful days where I can have my cup of tea, sit back, do nothing that involves stimulation. Unfortunately there are lots of micro-stimulations with social media now. 

The daydreams are all about acting and portraying people and characters to the best of my abilities. It’s always been this way, ever since I can remember. One exercise to work on myself is to talk aloud to myself alone. I’ve sat in front of mirrors and had long monologues with myself, articulated thoughts that have cluttered my mind.

Pictured above: Namita wears the Vesper Dual Ball Ring, Lyla Mesh Ring and the Cigar and Wide Tamara Band ring on one hand, paired with the Phases Hand Harness with the Transit Cuff and Nova Opal Oval Ring and the Solstice Ring.

What was your childhood like, growing up in Lucknow in an all girl’s school?

I had a very pure childhood. My only aim in life was to ace my academics and then move out of the city to pursue more academics. I was very interested in learning hip hop and ballet but there was a dearth of opportunities. Now the city is on the verge of being a metropolitan but-at the time-we had a very simple childhood, very academics-oriented. Just to make the best of ourselves was our goal.

Though the schooling there is very good, I knew I had to get out of the city to discover life. I was very shy and timid, I now make up for all the lost opportunities of my childhood. 

I was very repressed, couldn’t go up on stage. You know how some kids are encouraged, pushed to participate in events and things, and they never go? That was me. I was that back-bencher, a non-entity. My entire living being now is a compensation for that lost time and I’m very aware that that’s happened to me. I have a sense of objectivity; I know that till I was eighteen I was repressed and then through my youth I tried to change my life to what I wanted it to be. I was taking the time to think about how I wanted to build a life that I like.

I think my backbone has been my education. My parents' mandate was to do a master’s. It was only after that that I started experimenting with my career, with other options. The master’s was the minimum requirement, then we were allowed to do anything — get married, get a job, experiment. I chose to experiment. 

Pictured above: Namita wears the Big Future Hoops paired with the dainty Puvvu Choker with the Intuitive Abstract Heart Necklace styled with the Small Tala Cuff on her wrist and a bunch of Lune Rings.

You just talked about things you’ve strived to change, correct in some ways, to compensate for your childhood. Is there anything you’ve made sure to retain? 

This habit of reading. There’s no imposition to read right now but I think it’s a deeply ingrained habit that I’ve honed, tried to retain, tried to make better as time has progressed. It’s very dear to me and part of my DNA now. 

Even when I decided to become an actor, I didn’t want to give up this academic side of me. Like I said, it’s the backbone of this little glimmer of confidence I had. I was very clear this is something I would not give up for the rest of my life. It’s been my only sanctuary, helped me become a well-rounded person. 

I meet people, actors, who are very good at their jobs, adept at the technicalities of their craft but holistically there’s also something very bland… Insipid. They don’t talk about things beyond their art. I find that one dimensional. There’s so much to life! For me, conversations have to be a little stirring. Books are such a big part of my personality. I’m so happy that people — who know me through Instagram and even in real life — like my acting but like me more for the books I recommend. It’s something I won’t give up as long as I’m alive. 

Pictured above: Namita's Bookshelf.

There is an Avni Doshi passage that you seem to have really resonated with.

‘I believed that this want to be older meant that age would answer all my questions, that my desires would be fulfilled at a later date, but as the years pass and I wish for youth once more, the habit of waiting has already been instilled. It’s deeply ingrained, something I can’t seem to unlearn. I wonder if, when I’m old and frail and can see the shape of my end in front of me, I will still be waiting for the future to roll in.’

Pictured above: Namita wears the Big Vision Hoops & Puvvu Studs styled along with the Amira Single Ball Necklace and Lune Letter 'N' Pendant on her neck, the Vesper Dual Ball Ring, Lyla Mesh Ring and the Cigar and Wide Tamara Band ring on one hand, paired with the Phases Hand Harness with the Transit Cuff and Nova Opal Oval Ring and the Solstice Ring.

So our question is: do you have any such questions, ones that you have carried with you all your life and not found answers to? How have you gone about trying to find answers?

My time is limited on this earth. It’s strange, but I have a clear timeline of my life and how it’s played out. It helps me live my life better, remembering that we have finite time here.

Everyday I want to look forward to something, every day I want to make sure it’s a good day. How do I go about doing that? People, relationships, books. It’s something I’m trying — taking it day by day. 

So my only big question is, ‘How was today? Aaj ka din kaisa gaya?’

I’ve had loved ones who got in a freak accident, family members were lost, and it broke my heart… We keep saying in theory that ‘life is unpredictable, it can happen to any of us,’ but it’s so important to keep mortality in perspective.

I’m very possessive of my time here on this planet. I want to make sure each day is as good as it can get. I know it can’t always go as I planned, but overall I should be able to look back and have a good sense that there was integrity.

Even in the Avni Doshi passage, she says that you keep waiting for your future for happiness, but that’s not going to happen. Slowly you’ll find your whole life is behind you. 

Of course, sometimes I do find life to be very meaningless but I try to find happiness in these small things. I’m not always successful, sometimes I wake up alarmed or anxious for no reason but I just want to diffuse these feelings. I’m trying. I have awareness, so half the battle is won.