Katy Perry has found the cure to jet lag. Last November, in the four days in the lead up to her performance at the OnePlus Music Festival in Mumbai, the singer-songwriter ticked off a meet-and-greet with fans, mingled with Bollywood, glided through interviews with newspapers, television channels and radio, and wrapped up a meeting with her music label—all belying her red-eye flight. From our 12-hour-long cover shoot that started at the crack of dawn, she headed straight to a charity event marking Prince Charles’s 71st birthday. “Transcendental meditation,” she shares, is the secret. “There are so many different forms of meditation I’ve done, but nothing supersedes TM. It changed my life.”

Few would believe that her 2017 disco-pop confections like ‘Swish swish’ or her innuendo-wrapped ode to oral sex, ‘Bon appétit’, came out of a spiritual awakening. But move on to her 2019 discography, and a sense of maturity prevails. As she runs through a gamut of emotions—from obsession (‘365’) to heartbreak (‘Never really over’) to post-breakup (‘Small talk’) to breezy love (‘Harleys in Hawaii’)—she turns from a bionic woman to a leather-clad biker chick.

SECOND LIFE

It’s not to say that Katy Perry 2.0 is any less fun. She may no longer be shooting whipped cream off her cone bra, but she’s comfortable morphing from a chandelier to a cheeseburger at the Met. On other days, she invades public bathrooms with her band for her #pottyjam series. At home, she is the dedicated stepmum who has found the balance between the reality and fantasy that pervades her life and work. “We do a lot with Flynn [Orlando Bloom’s eight-year-old son]. We go to the movies or to amusement parks… We’re constantly doing things that are fun,” she says about this transformation.

At Botticino, the Italian restaurant at Trident, Bandra Kurla, Mumbai, where we sit for a six-course meal, Perry continues to philosophise about love and life. “I’ve done a lot of mental, spiritual and emotional work in the past few years. The biggest lie we’ve ever been told as artistes is that we have to stay in pain to create. I don’t want to be in emotional pain my whole life in order to write songs,” she tells me, as she reaches for the bread and cheese platter.

It’s true, Perry’s bubblegum image doesn’t really spell suffering artiste. “I like to write songs that really move or empower people. If you divided my songs, they would be 50 per cent [about] empowerment, 25 per cent party and 25 per cent romantic. They are heavy on hope and positivity, like going towards the light. I reject the darkness.”

Spend five minutes with her, and you’ll feel her infectious positivity take hold. She exhibits the curiosity of an endearing interviewee—with me (“I want to know everything about you”), the server (“‘Anuugacchati Pravaha’, am I saying it right?” she asks him about her Devanagari tattoo) or the companion goldfish placed on our table (“Hi Roberto, how are you feeling?” she pouts).

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

Capturing Gen-Z, the notorious lot born into technology with the attention span of a goldfish, requires skill. “I think I’m young at heart and they see that. Authenticity is important to me, and young people—Gen-Z, more than anyone—can sniff out frauds.” So, mid-concert, when she admits she’s “sweating in every crack”, fans are in love. Between costume changes, when her band starts playing ‘Part of me’ without her, Perry bounces back on stage in her neon green jumpsuit and sneakers to come clean to her befuddled audience: “I got to tell you the frickin’ truth, guys. I just tried to change my costume and I’m sweating so much, the back of my costume ripped in half!” And there lies her charm—she’s the celebrity who sounds like a human, and not a well-coached robot.

PITCH PERFECT

But the journey has had its share of ups and downs. “I’ve gone to therapy, been through the Hoffman Process, done plant medicine.... And I have a partner who is also all about finding a balance—Orlando, who is on a spiritual journey of his own. He’s an anchor who holds me down, and he’s very real. He’s not the number one fan of Katy Perry, but he’s the number one fan of Katheryn Hudson.”

The couple share a lot in common. Entertainers living in the public eye, they’ve both experienced broken marriages, and this evolution has only strengthened their bond. “Love is different from dating. You date in your twenties. Love is partnership, friendship, truth and being an absolute mirror to someone,” she says, fidgeting with her flower-shaped engagement ring. “Orlando is like a sage. When we first met, he said we would pull the poison out of each other, and we really do. It’s exhausting, but we really hold each other accountable. I’ve never had a partner who was willing to go on an emotional and spiritual journey like Orlando. It’s challenging, because you’re facing all the things you don’t like about yourself. It’s like a never-ending cleanse.”

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

She’s in a good place now, so there’s reason to be thankful. But 2017-18 was her toughest time. “I became depressed and I did not want to get out of bed. In the past, I had been able to overcome it, but this time something happened that made me fall down too many flights of stairs. I had to really go on a mental health journey,” she shares.

Living in the hyper-scrutinised world of celebrities presents its own challenges and vulnerabilities, but Perry has emerged a vocal advocate of mental health. “We talk about all our different organs but never talk about out brain, which keeps us functioning the most,” she notes.

As fearless and unapologetically outspoken as Perry has been to speak her mind, the media has been less than forgiving. “For the press, every few months I turn into ‘Perry, the Piñata’. But thankfully, I don’t get my validation from them anymore,” she says.

She’s often misunderstood; her sartorial quirk has courted controversies like cultural appropriation, while her appearance on Sesame Street was labelled ‘too sexy’ for the show. Not everyone gets her, but she continues to use the voice under her peroxide mane (the real hair colour is a “non-eventful squirrel brown”, she shares) to represent many things to many people—a role model for children, a feminist icon for women and a crusader for the LGBTQI+ community.

Sometimes, she uses her platform for politicking and to steer change. During the 2016 US presidential campaign, Perry established her position as Hillary Clinton’s biggest cheerleader and wrote ‘Chained to the rhythm’ as a wake-up call for fellow Americans to fight the good fight. At the 2017 Grammys, when she performed the song, she wore a suffragette white pantsuit with the word ‘Persist’ emblazoned on an armband. “If you have a big spotlight and you’re sharing it for good, it’s going to be better for everyone,” says the pop star with a purpose, who, as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, has undertaken trips to impoverished parts of Vietnam and Madagascar to advocate for children’s education and clean water resources. “At 35, I’ve checked many boxes off my list and I’m now being challenged to dream new dreams,” she says. “I want to be involved in environmental companies, I want to go back to school [psychology and philosophy will be her subjects of choice] and I want to influence good people to run for office.”

She won’t share details on her wedding yet, but she wants a big family, and dreams of retiring in a commune with her family and friends. She may not have found the cure to everything in life, but she finally understands the meaning of her tattoo—to go with the flow. “I’ve been in the public eye for 12 years and I’ve made many mistakes. I’m human, and I still want to try,” she says. “I don’t want to be defeated or become a recluse. I want to live life. And doing that means you might occasionally trip, but it’s not about how you fall—it’s about how you get up.”

Read the complete interview in Vogue India’s January 2019 issue that hit stands on January 6, 2019. Subscribe here

Photographed by Greg Swales. Styled by Anaita Adajania Shroff

On Katy: Embroidered slip dress, patchwork coat, printed robe; all Sabyasachi. Necklaces, both Sabyasachi Jewelry

Hair: Shon Hyungsun Ju/The Wall Group. Makeup: Michael Anthony/Forward Artists. Photographer’s assistants: Lavoisier Clemente, Casey Franklin, Ryan Martis. Assistant stylists: Priyanka Kapadia, Fabio Immediato, Naheed Driver. Art design: Pradeep Paul Francis. Wardrobe assistant: Tamra Natisin. Production: Divya Jagwani, Prachiti Parakh, Jay Modi, Imran Khatri Productions. Location courtesy: Mukesh Mills, Colaba