If there's anyone who can be honest to the point it hurts, and that too in Bollywood, it's Vidya Balan. Few in tinsel town, where big money is spent to carefully cultivate.
An image both on and off screen, this Aiyar bared her soul to a packed house during the second edition of the India Today Woman Summit in Mumbai.
She recounted her journey of having lost her way in the big bad world of films and only to rediscover herself. And need we add, her rediscovery has sent the cash registers ringing with Paa and Ishquiya.
Till now the Balan girl has earned herself many detractors with her honesty but this time on the firing line was none other than her self.
At the dinner keynote address titled "New Beginnings, New Frontiers," Balan in her trademark style spoke candidly about her stellar beginning in films only to lose the plot later.
Recounting her journey from being losing herself to finding herself again she said: "Little achievements in my life are the product of choices I have made.
New beginnings and new frontiers for me was about losing perspective, then gaining it and then becoming self assured. Every moment gives us a new beginning to conquer new frontiers."
Social pressure often puts women (and their clothes) under a microscope, but it's the choices that we make that define who we are. This comes from a woman who started her career with a dream debut in Parineeta, but became only a shade of the real her when she started attempting to ape some of the glamorous bimbettes in Bollywood.
She did her best to fight the behenji image, but clearly that's what is raking in the moolah. "People used to tell me don't go to book readings as it will seem pseudo-intellectual. And I said to myself, but I love reading." It's taken her a lot to break the mould and come out tops.
But then she's never had it easy as she never had a sugar daddy in the industry. Recounting the start of her journey, she recalls: "The first opportunity I got allowed me to be my self in television as it was all simple. That's when I realised what is to be a woman. I enjoyed playing the mother of a 5-year-old kid in an ad film."
The first challenge in her journey on to the big screen came when she turned down Anurag Basu's offer of a lead role in a serial. "When I refused saying I really wanted in the movies he said 'Roz, Roz Shah Rukh paida nahi hota'." Well Basu may now eat humble pie because roz roz Vidya Balan bhi nahin paida hoti.
It was the first motivation that came in the form of a rebuke or a challenge. "I wanted to disprove him. Now I am glad that he did as it motivated me to pursue what I really wanted. When my detractors kept saying things about me I was only strengthened to disprove them and the only thing I had was my faith."
From hindsight, she's glad about all the projects in the South that did not materialize even though she was termed as jinxed. "I am happy now that those films never took off as they portrayed women as 'floozies' and made them look like apologies. I was inspired by yesteryear actors and wanted to be like them," she adds.
With Parineeta, her life changed overnight as her thirst as an actor got quenched, but then complacency set in and along with it confusion. "I lost perspective and everything from clothes to what I stood for reflected my state of mind. I was almost giving up. Balki said that actors take a lifetime to figure out their needs," she says.
And that's everything started going wrong because she was trying very hard to be something she was not. That's when she decided to take step back and words of wisdom came from her sister, who told her: "It's a constant struggle to be someone else, it's easiest to be yourself."
Having tried to toe the line, Balan has come a full circle. "All the bad press I got as people were rejecting my attempt at being who I was not. Then I got new opportunities, which helped me conquer new frontiers," she says with pride.
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