Monica Dogra: Delhi is the place that I could endlessly explore

Her songs get her critical acclaim on-screen and off screen her music makes auditoriums full of people groove. “I realise, after a year of hiatus, one thing that I’ve missed the most is setting the dance floor on fire! I think I’ve spend a decade exploring how to do that in India,” says singer-actor Monica Dogra, who is back in India after pursuing a DJ course in London Sound Academy.

It’s been more that a year since the artist had performed in the Capital. “I was so excited to perform in Delhi, it’s been a long time,” exclaims Dogra, who played some of her new creations from an EP (extended play) at a gig recently.

I was swinging on one of the iron gates, fell and bashed my head open and went to the hospital. My relationship with Delhi, as a child, has been of a place, where I ate too much food and explored endlessly

Remembering her first trip to Delhi, Dogra says, “I was really young, probably five, when I’d visited my family in Ramesh Nagar. I remember going to Chandni Chowk... Also, that I was swinging on one of the iron gates, fell and bashed my head open and went to the hospital. But my relationship with Delhi, as a child, has been of a place, where I ate too much food and explored endlessly.”

Dogra who last acted in the films, Rock On!! (2008) and Dhobi Ghat (2010), had a fair share of good and bad memories in the city. She explains, “One of the most beautiful things about India is that it has this ability to give you the most beautiful and the ugliest at the same time. From all around the world, there’s no place that can match the energy of India. You will come across the most luxurious of experiences coupled with the most extreme poverty. You can have the highest spiritual realisation, or at the same time become the worst version of yourself in this country. You are always meeting your edges in India!”