Body-shaming, learning nothing on the sets; ideas that shaped Vidya

Theres Sahirs Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai kinda quality to the last time actor Vidya Balan felt her thoughts on her professional life totally turn around On the Sunday after the release of her film Hamari Adhuri Kahani 2015 directed by Mohit Suri mdash who she says she couldnt gel with in an actordirector relationship mdash producer Mahesh Bhatt called to say that the film had pretty much tanked in theatres This after a series of backtoback commercial duds mdash Bobby Jasoos 2014 the outcome of which had disappointed her the most Shaadi Ke Side Effects 2014 Ghanchakkar 2013 Unsure of what to do Balans husband producer Siddharth Roy Kapur mdash a nonbeliever himself mdash simply drove her down to the Sai Baba temple in Chembur Where she just wailed nonstop totally out of breath She knew something needed to change about her lifeWatch the entire Sit with Hitlist interview hereThe penny dropped I realised Id begun to focus too much on numbers That stress had taken the joy away from what I do mdash that I like and enjoy so much I didnt ask the exact lane the said Sai Baba temple is in Which Balan says she used to visit every day of her growing up in Mumbais eastern suburbGlad she brought up Chembur though For thats where Im chatting with her on video from Shes at her husbands office in Khar which is also the neighbourhood her parents moved to while she lives in Juhu These are heartwarming coordinates for Bombayites among whom she remains still the Chembur girlMayank Shekhar connects with the actor over a video callThe now popular term outsider refers to firstgeneration professionals in the film industry And theyre in huge numbers mdash lead actors arent all there is to the movies Still there are in fact far fewer insiders of Bombay who are but outsiders to Bollywood than youd imagine Despite the unmatchable geographicalrealestate headstartEspecially among heroes if you may Even Govinda the Virar ka chokra is a producers son Offhand one mainstream Bollywood hero from Bombay but with no family connections to films I can think of is Balans superhit Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2007 costar Akshay Kumar who grew up in Sion quite close to Chembur Shilpa Shetty was three years my senior in school St Anthonys although I didnt know her personally then Balan points out But its such a valid observation I wonder why she asks as an answer There are various levels of being an insideroutsider in any case This debate has left me confused Its different for different people right Also familyfinancial support makes it easier if you are not operating from a space of survival Think its about how hard youre willing to work once you get that break And even how much youre willing to wait out for that breakSpeaking of which one of the instant inspirationsreasons to invite Balan over for this edition of Sit with Hitlist was in fact music composer Shantanu Moitra who recently spoke at length on the reality show Times of Music about how Balan had auditioned 75 times for her debut film Parineeta 2005 It was while she was in the front row of a Bryan Adams concert that producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra finally called to say she was onHearing it from the horses mouth Bryan Adams has turned into Enrique Iglesias The number 75 Balan feels is way off the mark But yes Iglesias was playing her favourite track Hero Chopra insisted she step out of the venue to take her call She heard the sweetest music to her ears Youre my Parineeta Up until then Chopra had wanted Aishwarya Rai for the part He was putting in a lot of money I was a newcomer and the film was called Parineeta after the female protagonist for Gods sakeShe only has to thank first the persistence of her ad filmmakermentor Pradeep Sarkar Dada who had written the role based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyays novel keeping Balan in mind Shed performed in a series of Sarkars ad films plus music videos starting with Euphorias Kabhi aana tu meri gullyShe had even assisted him on a Fanta commercial with Rani Mukerji in it and where she learnt nothing on the set Because the crew knowing that she was Sarkars future leadinglady was too busy taking care of her insteadBefore my last test for Parineeta I went to Dada and said whatever happens this is also your first feature film mdashjust make it with or without me His wife was there He looked at her and said Tell her something tu kya keh rahi hai He had more belief in me than I had in myself Evidently beyond talent you need somebody to appreciate it and offer you a job basically mdashjust as it takes a village to make both a film and a starHaving not formally trained in acting per se Balan credits Naseeruddin Shah for instance for texting her during the shoot of Milan Luthrias The Dirty Picture 2011 that she learn to leave behind her character on set before heading home The film remains still her most iconic and that took everything out of her Kahaani 2012 in comparison she suggests was a breeze because she had all along been part of the writing process as a soundingboard for director Sujoy GhoshThe Dirty Picture inspired by the life of south siren Silk Smitha is also iconic because of the line Filmein sirf teen cheezon ki wajah se chalti hainEntertainment entertainment entertainment Aur main entertainment hoon Its an obvious take on hotelier Conrad Hiltons famous quote about three things you need to run a successful hotel Location location locationNow it is my introduction at every event I go to I had no idea it would become so popular There were other lines that I thought would Its all in Rajat Aroras dialogue writing The one I love from one of her films the most though while not her dialogue is the tagline Tumhara ishq ishq aur hamara ishq sexApparently actor Shiney Ahuja had responded with these words after being narrated Ishqiyas script by director Abhishek Chaubey It stuck Arshad Warsi finally played the part mdash vying with uncle Naseer for Balans attention I was just amazed by how Arshad mouths a lot of throwaway lines like it just came out of his head Thats the beauty of his deliveryYet so far as shock value of a film is concerned towering over The Dirty Picture might well be Paa 2009 with Balan playing Amitabh Bachchans mom Before shoot I kept chewing director Balkis brains to set up a reading with Mr Bachchan Mother and son have a very physically comfortable relationship I just cant hit him on the head or instinctively pull his cheeks You normally do that with a child He is Amitabh Bachchan We were shooting from Monday Balki called me to Mr Bachchans house for a looktest on Friday mdash to be finally followed by a reading Abhishek Bachchan who plays the husband and I were ready with our costumes waiting for Mr Bachchan to emerge from the makeup room When he came out I told Balki I dont need a reading I saw a 13yearold Auro Something happened Im getting that same feeling recalling the momentAnd these are generally the instinctiveimmersive moments that Balan has managed to create movie after movie The last time we saw her on screen was as the math wiz Shakuntala Devi The film had to drop online mdash instead of releasing in theatres mdash due to the pandemic Her film before that Mission Mangal 2019 with a female ensemble cast plus Akshay Kumar had her headlining the act mdash surpassing Rs 200 crore touching Rs 300 crore at the boxoffice By all accounts Shakuntala Devi was equally wellreceived on Amazon Prime although nobody knows its viewership figure Personally whats the difference that shes discovered between success online and in theatresShe says The reactions come staggered mdash well after the date the film drops With movies in theatres after the first weekend all conversations are centred on numbers Also unlike with Mission Mangal where my character was fictionalised Shakuntala Devi was a real person And so people read more and more about her and kept getting back with responsesTo pick a few I cite mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik who argued in his midday column that Shakuntala Devis husband actually being gay was convenientlyunfortunately touted as hoax in the film Balan gently counters Shakuntala Devis daughter from whose perspective the film has been written and who partnered on the project has been very transparent talking about her mother Why wouldnt she do the same with her fatherSome people whod actually met Shakuntala Devi had found her to be reserved even if witty rather than boisterous as Balan played the part in the picture Maybe they met her at a time when she was not very boisterous for whatever reasons Maybe she was going through something I dont knowAlso there was a phony element of contestable astrologynumerology mixed with her skill with numbers that the film hardly touched upon mdash let alone debated mdash from Shakuntala Devis life It is a twohour film We wanted to definitely focus on the maths which is what got her worldwide recognition The politics astrology and all of that came much later in her lifeTo be fair to Balan whos not the films writer but as she puts it People will have various opinions especially because it is a real person that were talking about And I respect that But then it would have been a different film This is the film we chose to make Point taken Possibly applies to a lot of arguments around biopics actuallyWhere Shakuntala Devi does follow a seamless narrative mdash a natural extension of sorts mdash is actually in Balans own current filmography mdash if you also consider Tumhari Sulu 2017 right before Mission Mangal Whats common to these films mdash besides feminist subjects mdash are the roles of almost impossibly secure and sweet men by her side Whether its Shakuntalas husband Paritosh Jisshu Sengupta Taras Sunil Sanjay Kapoor or Sulus Ashok Manav Kaul There seems to be a feminist film in the Balan mould developing into a subgenre of its own Or too soon to tell I think that is my world view The men in my life have been the same They have just accepted me and the women around for who they are I feel thats where it comes fromReally No jerk boyfriends ever Yeah well its literally a rite of passage Unless you go throughhellip Im trying not to use harsh rude words here But you know you have to sift through life to get the real dealMaybe Im just trying to locateshame some douches of Chembur she grew up with Or lets go back to my current Aurolike obsession Why arent there so many Bombaybornbred superstars from outside Bollywood families Could it be that Bambaiya Hindi is no good Compare say Cyrus Broacha to Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a Hindi picture if you may no knock just kidding CyrusBalan laughs In her case because she was clear she wanted to be an actor from a young age she made sure her Hindi was perfect My parents have an accent I dont Besides she can speak fluent Tamil Malayalam Telugu Urdu Bengali Englishhellip What language does she think in In English But on the set at work its weird mdash only Hindi I recently did a Telugu film the NTR biopic and I had to keep translating Telugu into Hindi in my head firstIf it wasnt for a string of bad luck which ironically led her thereafter to be considered jinxed mdash having debuted opposite Mohanlal and with around multiple Malayalam films signed up on that account alone Balan was once all set to kick off her career between 200003 as a South Indian star The Mohanlal movie after being extensively shot got shelved All other producers backed offIn the Tamil industry Balan had been signed up by veteran K Balachander for two films Subsequently dropped from both There were two other films that she got replaced from after having shot for their first schedules She also walked out of another realising on the set that it was a sexcomedy I got sued at 22It reached a point that her parents landed up in Chennai at the office of one of the producers who had fired her He simply remarked Just look at her does she look like a heroine For six months I didnt look into the mirror Broken I once walked in the scorching heat from Nariman Point to Bandra like a revelatory scene in a film mdash just to clear my head Thats 18 kilometres straightShe did travel a much further distance only few years later though After Rajkumar Hiranis Lage Raho Munnabhai 2006 she bumped into the same look at her face producer at the airport who right away offered her a film opposite Kamal Haasan I said sure speak to my manager Kamal Haasan called later She couldnt do the film My father felt a great sense of vindication Theyve brought us up to feel the worlds fairIt rarely is It also depends on how you look at it Behind all the Miss Congeniality exterior if you observe her 15 years as a movie star Balan comes across as one of the ballsiest in Bollywood And yet never making a lamenting event of herself mdash almost disarmingly turning on its head the simplistic grammarbinary of victim and oppressorShes had a fair share of trolling mdash mainly bodyshaming stylepolicing online and in the mainline press mdash a reason Im told she rarely reads anything about herself Whether any of this targeting has to do with groupismfavouritism its essential that this bullying aspect of the profession is being brought to light As it has been latelyThats one of the reasons an old videoclip of her at a filmaward show being called out by hosts Shah Rukh Khan Saif Ali Khan for her tacky costume in the film Heyy Babyy 2007 started doing the rounds online She looks visibly pissed in that moment Such shows are typically scripted with celebs in the audience told in advance about what to expect for an impromptu engagementact Not the caseIm a sport and I was fine with it actually But when I went there I realised there were a couple of other contenders for the worst dressed award as well They said they couldnt give it to them because soandso and the people around them will get upset I felt cheated and angry I thought now that is a clear case of mdash and it didnt occur to me then because I dont look at the world through that prismhellip I dont know what is it called nepotism Balan laughsKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news