The actress, who has been staying in Abu Dhabi for the past three months, talks about missing home and how she has used this time for self-introspection
Onkar Kulkarni (BOMBAY TIMES; July 8, 2020)

For over three months now, actress Mouni Roy has been staying with her best friend in Abu Dhabi. While she misses her family back home in India, she is happy to spend quality time with her childhood buddy. Mouni tells us, “I am enjoying my stay here, in the company of my friend, who I grew up with, and her family. However, I am missing my mother and brother, who are in Cooch Behar (West Bengal). I am dying to come back to India, but I haven’t finalised a return date yet.”

Though she has been in the UAE for so long, the actress says that she hasn’t ventured out at all. “My friend’s parents stay with her and also, she has two little boys. I don’t want to take any risks as far as their health is concerned, and prefer staying at home. I have stepped out only a couple of times, and that too, to buy groceries,” she shares.

So, how does she spend her time? “I am learning to cook from my mother, and have been asking her for traditional Bengali recipes. There was a time when I hated entering the kitchen, but today, I am an expert cook. I can make Bengali egg curry, begun poshto, phool kopir dalna and Bengali soya bean. I have also taken to baking and made marble cake and banana bread,” she replies.

Mouni is also indulging in food for the soul. “My friend is taking online Bhagavad Gita classes and I have enrolled in it, too. I have read the Gita multiple times as a child, but back then, I couldn’t grasp its meaning. I am glad that I have taken it up again. Spirituality, for me, is travelling inwards and establishing that connection with my real self. There’s so much negativity around us, this is the best time to do some self-introspection. I hope I can continue on this path and not get carried away, once things get back to normal,” she signs off.

Staying in Abu Dhabi since March, Mouni Roy rues being unable to join her family in Cooch Behar
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; May 21, 2020)

What was to be a four-day work trip in Abu Dhabi has turned into a two-month stay for Mouni Roy. The actor had headed to the UAE capital in March for a magazine shoot, only weeks before the Indian government banned international flights due to the Coronavirus outbreak. "After the shoot, I decided to stay back in Abu Dhabi for two weeks, as my next project was scheduled to kick off only on April 15. I was possibly ignorant, but I didn't imagine that the world will shut down. I have been stuck here with four days' clothes," says Roy, who is staying with a childhood friend.

She is also concerned about her family in Cooch Behar. "I have been checking on them every day. I am relieved that my brother is by mom's side at this time. My cousins also live close by, that's an added advantage."

Even as she is grateful to have found a home away from home, Roy is keen to return to the country. "I have been oscillating between anxiety and calmness. Everybody around the world is going through a hard time. So, I sought solace in the fact that I have a roof over my head and a warm family, away from home. That said, I am eager to return to India."

Titas Chowdhury (HINDUSTAN TIMES; April 20, 2020)

“We’re living in the scariest of times, but we’re in it together,” says actor Mouni Roy who believes that the Coronavirus health crisis will give everyone a reality check and teach them to not take the nature for granted. She explains, “We had to slow down as that’s what nature wanted. I hope that we don’t go back to our old ways, and enter the new world as changed individuals.”

Roy is making most of the lockdown and has got back to her hobbies that were a major part of her growing up years. “There’s so much time, so I picked up a brush. I started with doing my seven and four-year-old nephews’ crafts homework. I’m also learning new recipes,” she shares.

Film shoots have been postponed indefinitely but Roy is calm. She urges everyone “to not think too much about the future”. “It’s not the right time to think of our upcoming projects. The world economy is in crisis. I hope we come out stronger,” she says.

The actor says though she has been living away from her family for a while now, the lockdown is making her homesick. “It’s difficult to live without family. I miss them. I’ve my bouts of crying. We speak on phone calls and video calls. Thankfully, Cooch Behar (West Bengal) is still safe,” she says. 

Switching gears from Bengali wife in Gold to a 'Gujarati hottie' for her next, Mouni Roy takes diction classes for the Rajkummar Rao starrer Made In China
Upala KBR (MID-DAY; August 21, 2018)

While her first Bollywood release Gold may be raking in moolah at the box office, Mouni Roy has little time to celebrate. The actor has dived headlong into her next, Made In China — she has started taking Gujarati lessons to perfect her act of a Gujarati wife to Rajkummar Rao's businessman character.

"Rajkummar and I have started taking extensive Gujarati lessons and diction classes," says Roy, who essays a "spunky, feisty Gujarati hottie" who pushes her husband to go to China to expand his business, with hilarious results. The actor hopes that her proclivity toward picking up languages quickly will hold her in good stead for the Dinesh Vijan production that is expected to roll next month. "Learning Gujarati is a completely new zone for me. I should be able to manage it as I can parrot lines easily — if you say something in a language foreign to me, I can usually pick it up and repeat it. We will also have somebody on the set monitoring our diction and dialogue delivery."

Interestingly, Roy points out that though she played a Bengali character in her previous outing opposite Akshay Kumar, she was required to work on her dialect. "I found it difficult to learn the style, because the way I speak Hindi in the movie is not how Bengalis tend to talk. There was a chance of it sounding caricaturish or over-the-top. So I would frequently call up my mother and ask her to speak in Hindi with me, and then emulate her for the cameras." Apart from the Mikhil Musale-directed comedy, the actor has prestigious projects, including Ranbir Kapoor's Brahmastra and John Abraham's spy thriller RAW: Romeo Akbar Walter, in her kitty.