Following Uorfi Javed

Who wants to do okay?” she asks, rhetorically, when I tell her she was doing well as an actor in several television series. “I want to do great. I am not okay with doing okay. I have always had great ambition. Doing okay won’t get you anywhere. Maybe you can just about get through your life.”

That is Uorfi Javed, a 26-year-old human soundbite machine, a designer whose body is her muse and mannequin, and a woman who has picked herself up from her imaginary bootstraps and risen to the very top of the influencer universe with 5.1 million followers on Instagram. Her clothes have been an ode to the unique, made from flowers to garbage bags, from chains to pins, from screws to watches.

Only, that is not enough.

For Uorfi, you can never be rich enough, famous enough or diva enough. And though she now has her own nine-episode reality show on Prime Video, called Follow Kar Lo Yaar, even that is not enough. It is a show where she stars in all episodes, with the camera following her every move, from the beauty parlour to the bedroom, from the terrace of her Lucknow home to the middle of a Mumbai street which she turned into a ramp with her chutzpah, wearing a dress made of 450 metres of fabric. Darling of the paparazzi, favourite of the tabloids, and a go-to for brands looking for quick, clothing collaborations, Uorfi has become a monosyllabic boldface name that is nationally recognisable.

One could argue that she is famous for being famous, but that would negate the years she has put into crafting a new version of herself, shedding the layers of the girl who ran away from home in Lucknow, leaving behind a feckless mother, an abusive father, four siblings and a world which judged her for how she dressed and spoke in a conservative world. Growing up in Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar, she attended City Montessori School, which she did not particularly like. “The teachers and students did not really know what I was going through. My relatives were judgemental, my father was abusive. The teachers were toxic, forever commenting on the character of some girls, not me, because I was quiet, but they would talk s**t about others,” she says. Her form of rebellion? She didn’t open a single textbook from Class 9 to Class 12.

A semester at Amity University, Lucknow, followed, before she had to drop out because of lack of money. Delhi and then Mumbai beckoned as did the life of a newcomer in the entertainment business and an endless round of auditions. “I was travelling in buses, giving 10 to 15 auditions a day, not knowing where my next meal would come from. Not that I was scared. I had a good number of friends,” she recalls. “I knew I would not die hungry, but my concern was my rent, sending money back home. Now at least I can go to Paris whenever I want and take a few days off. I like this kind of stress.”

he got some parts in a few television series, learning spoken English by watching English shows and speaking to people. “When I first came to Mumbai I couldn’t understand what people were saying. I had to tell them to slow down, so I could follow them,” she says.

She reads a lot, from Elif Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love, her favourite book, to The Simulation Hypothesis by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Rizwan Virk; from American hypnotherapist Dr Brian Weiss’ books to James Clear’s Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results (when she wants to motivate herself).

She did a lot of television series, she says, but always had side roles. “I was never the lead,” she says. “Television was just to pay the rent.” she adds. She starred in several series, from Bade Bhaiyya ki Dulhaniya to Aye Mere Humsafar.

That was until she entered Voot’s Bigg Boss house in 2021 as a contestant by making controversy her MO. It didn’t help. She was the first contestant to be eliminated. “After Bigg Boss, the media noticed me and gave me some attention. That is when I started doing what I do to grab eyeballs,” she says. Which was fashion, I ask? “You are too kind to call it fashion,” she says. “People have called it weird. I was not trying to become a fashion icon. When I was returning from the show, I wore a cropped jacket, bra and jeans at the airport. The look went viral. So, I thought let’s move in the direction of shock value,” she says.

Thus was born Uorfi the pap’s favourite, the homegrown designer, and the woman who made news for what she wore and how she wore it.

Since then, she has acquired prominent friends, from designer Sandeep Khosla to influencer and man about town Orhan Awatramani aka Orry.

She has helped develop her show, landing the same produc­ers who made the first six seasons of Koffee with Karan. And she has continued to make news for her unique fashion sensibility.

Yet she wants more. Fazila Allana, the producer of Follow Kar Lo Yaar says, “What she yearns for at some level is izzat (respect), something denied to her mother, to her and to her sisters.” Though she is extremely emotional. There is also a core belief in her that happiness is an illusion. “She’s scared to show her feelings,” Allana adds.

Orry, a fellow influencer, and friend, says he first met Uorfi outside Olive, waiting to get in. “I, of course, was inside, but it took me a minute to recognise her from Instagram. I found her so normal. She was not loud, not stealing attention, not screaming, not barking, just a regular girl in a crop top and sweatpants, nothing inappropriate about her. Inside, after a couple of drinks, I pakdoed [caught] her, and I attacked her, saying, ‘I’ve been following and unfollowing you every day, waiting for you to add me.’ It became like a laughing matter between us. We really hit it off.”

That is when he realised how cool Uorfi is, he says. “What she has manifested on Instagram is her creation, today her outfits are looking phenomenal. She’s got the team, the material and the finances together. But earlier people did not like Uorfi’s fashion because of the fabric, perhaps. She has built a social media person­ality which is an extension of her. Like I too have a social media personality which is absolutely me, an extended version of me. She’s not merely pleasant and nice, which is the basic require­ment, but she is fun. She comes with opinions, she adds to the conversation. There is a reason there is a whole show dedicated to her, I love her,” he says.

He adds that whenever he has needed help, she has been there for him, something that digital creator Viral Bhayani attests to. “When a photographer died of cancer recently, she was one of the first people to reach out to the family. Uska dil bahut saaf hai (her heart is pure), and the social media audience senses that. They understand she is genuine, authentic,” he says. There is a certain charm and cheekiness to her, he says, like she will turn around and signal to the photographers, “Peeche dekho (look back)”. She also understands her relationship with the paparazzi, and how symbiotic it is. There is a moment in the show when she is disinvited from an event, and she stages her own event on the street, with the help of invited photographers. There is a touch of aggression in her, when she says: “They call me ‘sadak chap (born on the streets).’ I will show them I own the streets.”

She has been able to convert the engagement on social media, even if it is negative. Bhayani points out that she has channelled all the pain and trauma she has experienced into something hopeful and substantive.

She has also, over the years, understood the line between sexy and vulgar and educated herself on obscenity laws. Bhayani says over the years she has understood the rules and regula­tions of the Metaverse and tailored her content accordingly. “A lot of people now tell me they look forward to Uorfi’s new designs,” he says. What she needs to do now is to put her finances in order and develop her entrepreneurial work, something she returns to repeatedly in the series, as she explores various business options, among them shapewear.

She also has a large family to support, something she is mindful of, given that they are estranged from her father. She is not religious, but says she celebrates Eid and does havans at home for positivity. “But if you insult any religion, I do not like it,” she says. A typical day for Uorfi begins at 6:30 am with the gym, weight training, MMA exercises and Pilates, and then her fittings, brand shoots, meetings with her PR team, or public appearances. This is a life of hustle, where she is constantly pushing herself, her team, and her sisters.

There is something piquant about Uorfi. Meghana Badola, the executive producer on the show, says one of the most arresting moments was when she says to her reflection in the mirror, “Tu single hi maregi (You will die single).” “She is as real and raw in real life as in her social persona,” says Badola. The producers were pleasantly surprised by the level 0f access she provided them. “We shot her in her home clothes, without make-up, even when she broke her tooth,” says Allana.

She still has sleepless nights about her next rent. “I have my next rent, but I still do not know what I will do in six months. That is an endless struggle, and I am trying to balance that with my thirst for fame and money. But I have realised if you work from a place of fear, you tend to make decisions which are not good. When you work from a place of abundance and fearless­ness, you tend to make decisions that work in your favour.”

My vision is very clear, she says. “I want to be very rich and very famous. Everything else is just noise.” Is she lonely? “No. But I am a loner. I enjoy my time with myself, my books, my family, with my friends.” People’s validation does not matter to her. “Only money and an increase in my number of followers does.”

That’s Uorfi. Follow her?

entertainmentFollow Kar Lo Yaargirl from LucknowPop culturetelevisionUorfi Javed