Priyanka Chopra-Jonas on business, Bumble and not caring for online trolls

By now we have some experience in the art of celebrity lunches. Having starved our way through a few earlier interactions, we know that the best thing to do is go well stuffed. So we eat earlier, a big sandwich and a juice at Bombay Baking Company, a bakery cum café at the Marriott Hotel where we are to meet with Priyanka Chopra-Jonas. 

The meeting has been through a fair amount of shuffle and tweak. In the weeks leading up to it, the time and venue have seen a few changes and on the appointed day, despite some frantic readjustments to our schedule by Chopra-Jonas’s efficient schedule assistants, we end up waiting over an hour before we are squeezed into a tight 20-minute engagement. And the only thing on the table is bottled water.

Chopra-Jonas fills the large room that we have been ushered into; in a bright yellow outfit with a delicate mangalsutra (the traditional mark of a married woman in many parts of the country) around her neck, she puts everything and everyone else in the shade. She is wearing the brand colours of Bumble, the dating cum networking app that she is promoting in India and in the manner of a practiced brand ambassador, she admires the Bumble merchandise strewn across the room, gasping at the sheer loveliness of it all. 

She points to the Bumble branded pens and notebooks and asks, “Why don’t I ever get these?” Her team is indulgent, they tell her she is sure to find some, when she goes back in to her room. Assuaged, she turns her gaze firmly upon us and apologises about how her insane schedule has kept this meeting on hold for so long. So sincere is her contrition that we end up feeling sorry for our imposition. 

“I hope I have an understanding to give you an explanation into the business side of my life,” Chopra-Jonas says as she leans back into her chair. Her aides stand by, looming over our shoulders. A few sit quietly at the back of the room. This is the most crowded table ever for a lunch with BS, also one where there is no food and all business. But then there is little that one can do — our time is subject to the punishing schedule that Chopra-Jonas has to live with and the army of minders. Well that is the price of global celebrity-hood. 

Chopra-Jonas’s journey from Miss World to Bollywood to a singer and then American television and finally investor in tech businesses and marriage with Nick Jonas has been remarkable. It is close to eight years since she turned her gaze to the West and she seems to move seamlessly between her many worlds. She is in India promoting Bumble and wrapping up her next film (now ready for release) The Sky is Pink. Chopra-Jonas is an investor in Bumble (apart from a few other consumer-facing tech companies) and has become its face in India since bringing it here in December 2018. She also has a production company in India called Purple Pebble Pictures and has said in several interviews that she is minutely involved with the running of all her businesses, from the interns they hire to the look of the final product.

How did a girl from the East find her groove in the West, or perhaps more appropriately, manage to keep her feet in both? 

“There is no precedent to what has happened with me,” says Chopra-Jonas. Her American expedition started with a song, In my city, that she recorded with producer Jimmy Iovine (Interscope Records), which featured rapper will.i.am. She had another one featuring Pitbull soon after. She was also the brand ambassador for Guess (besides representing India at the Cannes festival for several years) before finally making it to prime time US TV with Quantico. And then it was Hollywood calling with the latest edition of Baywatch and a romantic comedy, Isn’t it Romantic.

“I am a very intuitive person,” she says. Her business decisions are always in the moment. She follows her gut and of course, the wisdom of her manager-cum-close friend Anjula Acharia. Acharia is a venture capitalist who lives and works in the US and manages Chopra-Jonas.

Business is not trapped in a silo for Chopra-Jonas, the investments are more than just business decisions, they are an extension of her personality. She explains: “I have this extremely unique position where I can collide my worlds together. I am all about cross pollination. It’s my life’s dream. Like my movie with Mindy (Kaling) that I am doing with Universal. That’s exactly what it is.” 

She has walked on a bridge that links the US with India and lived to tell the tale, and her businesses and movies must do the same. An honourable idea, but really? Chopra-Jonas is not one to let scepticism get in the way of her words and her confidence stems from the manner in which people have been reacting to her, to her wedding with pop icon, Nick Jonas and the movies she makes. Her wedding she says is an example of how the two cultures can come together in a beautiful amalgam. 

Her role is to bring down the boundaries between India and the world (read America). “When Nick and his family, they came down to India, they saw the India that I know. It changed them. And I want to show the world the India that I know. The beauty of it. The culture, the inclusiveness, the richness of our history.”

She is also moved by the thought of women in positions of power, the power to control their own lives and be independent entities. Bumble, she says fulfils that role. “I was at an event for Bumble with founder Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2017. We were sitting at dinner and I was listening to Whitney talk about what Bumble means to her and why she started the company. The reason was to put women first, to put them in the driver’s seat. I just love the fact that it empowers women.” She has been hands-on in customising the app for India. And the result is 1.5 million subscriptions in four months. For India, the app has built-in special safety features and has handed over more power to its women users, she adds.

Technology fascinates her too, she tells us and given its scope to bring people on to a common platform, that is where she is keen to put her money in. “I was an engineering aspirant and I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer when I was in school,” she says, adding she is a science geek and loves social media.  

What about the hate spewing trolls on social media driving people apart, even as she wants to bring them together? “I feel like we pay attention to the wrong things. I’m sorry but I put a lot of the blame on the media for this (for giving trolls undue importance). The fact that we can sit here and send a message to someone in America and they get it instantly in exactly the format you sent it — pictures, videos, FaceTime — that is technology. Why are we giving importance to people creating negativity? I don’t.”

We are running close to the end of our time and there is also a movie to talk about. (Her minders are reluctant to let the conversation stray and one stands fiercely beside her, swatting out unwanted questions). The new movie with Shonali Bose that she has just finished working on is about death, something she has spent a lot of time thinking about, she says. “This film says instead of mourning someone’s death, celebrate their life. And I love that perspective.” Being tragic and morose about death can diminish a person’s life, she says. “We celebrated my dad (when he passed away). We celebrated his life, we played his favourite music, laughed and talked about him. And this movie, when Shonali — who has also had a very close sort of encounter with death — narrated it to me we really bonded on that.” 

She also gets to play a woman from the ages 26 to about 55-60, which excited the actor in her, says Chopra-Jonas. She is on the clock and it is time for us to leave. As we pick our way out of the room full of people and merchandise, there is a hushed scramble behind us as her team gets ready to usher her into her next appointment. Chopra-Jonas’s calendar is buzzing, but her time, unfortunately, is running out.