Vidya's life and style

Vidya Balan started work as an actress in the Malayalam film Chakram, paired against Mohanlal. However, the film was abandoned mid-way through production. After making her debut in television advertising as a model for a Surf Excel advertisement in 1998, she proceeded to do over twenty-five television ads, mostly directed by Pradeep Sarkar.

This was then followed with a variety of acting stints in music videos for singers and bands such as Euphoria, Shubha Mudgal and Pankaj Udhas. Vidya also acted in Hindi soap operas like Hum Paanch and also made her cinematic debut in a Bengali movie, Bhaalo Theko, for which she won the Best Actress Anand Lok Puraskar award in Kolkata. She was also in a Raza.com commercial played all over the world, featuring Shaan's song "Tanha Dil".

In 2005, Balan debuted in her first feature film Parineeta, a Vidhu Vinod Chopra production in Hindi, directed by Pradeep Sarkar. The film met with widespread critical and commercial success. The film also led to a spate of movies being offered to the actress, most notably movies by leading directors including Mani Ratnam.

In 2006 she teamed up once again with Chopra and Sanjay Dutt for the film Lage Raho Munna Bhai. The movie was a major hit within India and was ranked #1 on the box office for eight weeks after its release.

Vidya will next be seen in Mani Ratnam's Guru where she will be seen essaying the role of a handicap. She will also be playing a trained dancer suffering from personality disorder in Priyadarshan's Chandramukhi, a remake of Malayalam blockbuster, Manichitrathazhu.

Vidya's next release after Guru will be Nikhil Advani's Salaam E Ishq opposite John Abraham which is a story of the trials and tribulations of six couples from various backdrops followed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Eklavya in which she is paired opposite Saif Ali Khan. She also has Rajkumar Santoshi's Halla Bol opposite Ajay Devgan and Sajid Khan's Hey Baby with Riteish Deshmukh and Akshay Kumar.

Vidya Balan has an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. About cleanliness. So I'm informed. Quick, get your duster out, grime makes her hysterical. So I wipe my feet very carefully on the mat as I enter John Abraham's van. Because that's where Vidya is. Looking very happy, reclining on the couch. On the sets of Salaam-e-Ishq. Ok people, calm down. There's a perfectly convincing explanation for the above scenario in Vidya's own words. "John's not required on the set today so we have been allotted his van. So don't you dare go around thinking anything else," she good-naturedly admonishes me.

Pointing to the various models of motorbikes on the shelves she laughs. "You know, once I asked John who his favourite heroine was. With a wicked grin, he said, 'Hayabusa'. I spent the entire day racking my brains as to who she was. I wondered if she was some oriental actress he had taken a liking to. Only towards the end of the day did he tell me it was his favourite bike. I felt a complete fool," she trills.

Watching her talk about John Abraham so freely makes me wonder. Especially in the wake o fall those rumours. How Bipasha Basu was reportedly insecure of their growing friendship and how it was slowly catching on as the rumour of the year. How the fact that the two got along famously on the sets of Salaam-e-Ishq raised eyebrows. Again with disconcerting calmness she counters, "All this is thoroughly fabricated. I don't know Bipasha at all, but she comes across as a secure person.

As for the brilliant chemistry that John and I share in the film, maybe we are just damn good actors. Ha! It's ridiculous to say, 'Oh they have great chemistry on screen, so they must be seeing each other. 'Didn't Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi have great chemistry in Lage Raho Munna Bhai? Clearly, nothing is going on there," she goes off into pearls of laughter at her own joke. And continues in a slightly more serious tone, "Just because John is a guy and I'm a girl we get talked about. It's unfair." Perhaps it's also because John is the first actor she ever worked with outside the Vidhu Vidno Chopra camp. She has worked with only Sanjay Dutt and Saif Ali Khan so far. She natters on about how it felt like stepping out of school and into college when she first began working with Nikhil (Advani) and Co. "Nikhil and his team are a bunch of mad hatters," she reveals.