Actor Kalki Koechlin is unfiltered and honest as ever at in an interview published in a recently launched book, Feminist Rani, penned by Shaili Chopra and Meghna Pant. The actor opens up about why she might stay away from marriage all her life.

Kalki, who divorced director Anurag Kashyap in the year 2015, in the book shares that she believes society has built the institution of marriage in a way where women are still looked at as the weaker sex. The actor, as per PTI, says the biggest problem with marriage, especially for a woman, is the idea of ownership.

Sharing instances from her marriage, she says, “Once I got married, I was only invited to the things that Anurag was invited to. People would say, ‘Call Anurag’s wife’. They wouldn’t say, ‘call Kalki’ or ‘call Kalki’s husband’.”

She adds that in marriage, a woman becomes the weaker sex, even if her husband doesn’t want her to be. Kalki mentions that this happens because of the way society has built the institution. Kalki also states that the two most important pillars in a relationship are honesty and independence.

In the book, the actor also shares the difficult period of coming out of her marriage. “I found myself alone after a very long time. I had to fill up that empty space somehow. I didn’t want to fill it up by going crazy and getting drunk, or by surrounding myself with the people,” she shares.

She adds that she chose the “introverted version of filling up herself” by “spending more time at home, with the family.” Kalki shares, “I’m happy I went through that journey.”

On the career front, Kalki is still maintaining her freedom to choose roles that match with her sensibility and are experimental. “I have retained my freedom and my ability to pick and choose. Of course, people have tried to stereotype me… But it’s very short-lived if you realise that you’re only as new as your newest film… You have to look beyond the period of initial reactions and recognise that there’s a bigger body of work and an effort to do something bigger,” she adds.

Published by Penguin Books, Feminist Rani is a collection of interviews with path-breaking people – from Kalki Koechlin to Gul Panag to Aditi Mittal, who have advocated gender equality and women’s rights through their work.

H/T: The Quint