Bolly’s star of the moment Vidya Balan had told t2 that her Krishna in Ishqiya was an Indianised femme fatale, one who could seduce without showing too much or trying too hard. A list of some irresistible desi femme fatales…

She managed to seduce us softly with her come-hither Lolita in Parineeta. She kissed Madhavan passionately in the rain in Guru. She was all desire in those scenes with Abhishek in Paa. In Ishqiya she was the woman in heat waiting to erupt, not melt, as she kissed Arshad Warsi with an intensity never seen before in Bollywood. Give us Vidya over the Mallikas and Malaikas any day, any night.

She certainly has no issues about it. While the promos are already looking steamy enough, Vidya Balan is sitting back and enjoying the turn of events. The lady has locked lips with Arshad Warsi in Abhishek Chaubey’s Ishqiya, and rubbishes the rumours of refusing the kissing scene. The actress who earlier had her screen moments with Saif Ali Khan and Madhavan says, “If I was not convinced to do the kissing scene I wouldn’t have done it. I am not at all ashamed of it as an actor. I have done it with all honesty.” However the Parineeta girl confesses that she was a bit hesitant while shooting it. “How can you be comfortable shooting a kissing scene when there is hundred pair of eyes watching you!” I had told Abhishek to have very few people on the sets on the day we shot the kissing scene. There was just Arshad, the director, the cameraman and a sound guy present on the sets at the time of the scene.” That’s smart! In the meantime, Arshad Warsi is quite kicked about his role in the film. Ask him if Babban will be as memorable as Circuit and he says, “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that about Circuit too. It was a role that I did. It’s a nice character. I loved the story and more than that I loved the film’s and Abhishek Chaubey’s sensibility.” The cuts are great, and he sure had fun, “There is a bullet shot and freeze and next cut dono kabar main bethe huye hain. I like those kinds of films. This is good filmmaking. The guy says tumhari aakhri khwahish kya hai so the other one says ‘mujhe ek chutkula sunana hai,” he snatches moments from the film. As for the director, “Abhishek is so young and so good….but the sad part is that post this film he’ll risk being typecast.” We’ll see that. the film releases on January 29.

Although the audience would love to watch Madhavan and Vidya Balan create the same kind of magic that they did in Guru and the ads they did together, the actor says he wouldn’t want to work with Vidya again. Now don’t get him wrong, it’s not like Madhavan had a problem working with the beautiful actress.

On the contrary, Maddy says he wouldn’t want to work with Vidya until they get a script that truly justifies their pairing. “People are expecting too much from our jodi after the ads and that hasn’t helped us. It’s better to retain that kind of magic than ruin it. Unless we get a script that takes that magic ten times higher, I wouldn’t want to do a film with her,” he says. Incidentally, the two were supposed to appear in a Sanjay Gupta film but it got shelved. “I’m not so sure what’s happening about it,” adds Madhavan.

She stepped in as a girl-next-door in a family comedy serial ‘Hum Paanch’. Then she slowly started taking the Bollywood steps. With each movie, we saw a different Vidya emerging every time on-screen. Try how much ever; she is not able to shed her homely looks and coy image. She tried her hand at glamour roles but was met with fashion goof-ups and that proved that sexy tag is not her cuppa. Now she is back in de-glam role with Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Ishqiya’.

‘Ishqiya’ is a directorial debut of Abhishek Chaubey and produced by Raman Maroo and Vishal Bharadwaj. The movie has Vidya Balan, Arshad Warsi and Naseeruddin Shah. Going by the trailers, Vidya is playing a simple village belle but has tried some ‘bold’ scenes in the movie. She is featured to be doing steamy scenes with Arshad Warsi and also rumoured to play darker shades in this one.

Now this is something scorchy for Vidya fans! She had surprised us before with a hot lip-lock scene in ‘Guru’ with Madhavan. Now here, a kissy scene with Arshad is really an unexpected one!

Vidya Balan is back in news, this time it’s neither for her outrageous dressing sense nor for her newly gained slim-trim avatar. Guess what? The south siren who has shot for some really intimate scenes in Vishal Bharadwaj’s upcoming film ISHQIYA with co-star Arshad Warsi with great ease, apparently now has expressed her reservations over a luscious smooch. Producer Vishal Bharadwaj too was all praises for the actress who carried on with the scenes exhibiting aesthetics. But looks like no kiss for this Miss!

After her much talked about lip lock with Madhavan in Mani Ratnam’s GURU, Balan seems to have developed cold feet to the idea of pucker up to another co-star. Reportedly ISHQIYA was being shot on Wednesday at the Borivili National Park where one smooch scene between Vidya and Arshad was to be canned. But the actress surprisingly threw tantrums in the work, refusing to do a lip lock with Arshad. Director Abhishek Chaubey was taken aback as he had informed Vidya about the kissing scene beforehand.

It is learnt that now Producer Vishal Bharadwaj will be meeting Vidya to discuss her reservations for not enacting the scene. It was astonishing, as Balan has explored onscreen intimacy ever since her debut film PARINEETA to other films like EKLAVYA, HEYY BABYY, we wonder what makes her put her foot down?

Bollywood actress Vidya Balan is quite upset. She refused to kiss her Ishqiya co-star while shooting.

Vidya and Arshad were shooting in Mumbai and the moment of kissing scene came, Vidya refused to do it. She just left the set.

Ishqiya is being produced by Vishal Bhardwaj. According to the reports, Bhardwaj was quite surprised about the sequence on the set.

Vidya has previously kissed Madhavan for Mani Ratnam’s Guru.

Bollywood actress Vidya Balan reportedly refused to kiss co-star Arshad Warsi on the sets of her upcoming film.

Reports say that Vidya and Arshad were shooting in Mumbai for Ishqiya and the scene where the two are supposed to kiss was underway. However, as soon as moment came, Vidya refused and walked off the sets.

While a lot of Indian actresses have a problem with lip-locks on screen, Vidya was not considered to be one of them because she has previously kissed Madhavan for Mani Ratnam’s Guru.

Ishqiya is being produced by Vishal Bhardwaj, who was less than pleased at Vidya calling off the shoot because of a kiss.

That’s my main peeve actually. I don’t see my ethos in mainstream television. South Indians are rarely featured in mainstream media. All the ads have this good looking punjabee family with little bunty who has a little beanie on his head. Little bunty infact comes across as a perfect pest but does that matter? He’s punjabee, he represents the entire nation. Infact a couple of years back when Chevloret came out with a Karva Chauth Ad, all my, ahem, North Indian friends really lurrved the AD. I ofcourse, didn’t get (still don’t get) Karva Chauth, because in South India, women don’t starve for their husband’s longevity, but infact beat them up if they (the men) even so much as moot such an idea. I hated that Ad actually, more for the fact that Chevolet ostensibly chose to advertize to a North Indian Mileu. What about the rest of us who don’t get/care about Karva Chauth? There is no South Indian-ess portrayed anywhere on TV. If a paint company talks about celebrations, they show a North Indian wedding. I hate the fact that when I see TV, I can’t relate to anything. And no Vidya Balan and Madhavan on Airtel’s Ad don’t qualify because although they both are south indian, they don’t act South Indian. I mean which South Indian woman massages her husband’s shoulders?? She would more likely whack him on the head and tell him to massage his own goddamn shoulders. The only south indian person on TV that I can clearly recall, is Mohinder Suresh on Heroes, and he’s on American TV!! Although, that too is a bit of a farce, because which southie would be caught dead with a name like Mohinder?? I personally thinks that the producers of Heroes should be given points for understanding the great north-south divide in India, even better than us Indians.

There are two reasons for this methinks. One – is that south indian culture is not attuned to spreading propoganda and the second – we don’t control the media. Lets tackle number one. South Indians are assimilators not propagaters. We don’t make an effort to propogate our culture to people. So when the immigrant population in Bangalore rises, the auto drivers, start speaking in Hindi and everybody talks about what a great melting pot the city is. We are melting pot while the brits rock to bhangra at the London underground. Point number two, is self explanatory considering most south indians are loathe to do an arts degree, so it is no wonder that we have no presence in the media. As there is (almost) no presence, it isn’t surprising that our stories, our ethos is never portrayed. I’m yet to come across a book in recent times on South Indian life. There are tons on the Mehras, the Aroras and the Chatterjees but none on poor Kuppuswamy and family. Anita Rau Badami’s Tamarind Mem and R K Narayan’s stories come to mind but there’s still a great void.

That my wonderful traditions are never portrayed anywhere is what peevs me today. That I feel like an alien sometimes in my own country. That I sometimes feel itsn’t even my country to begin with. That I love my rasam-sambhar and have to search high and low for a specialty South Indian restaurant to serve it here in Pune, when almost any nondescript food joint can cook up Butter Chicken in a trice. That people chortle when I speak in Kannada and call it a jalebi language. That I have to feel apologetic when I eat rice with my hands.

You can’t imagine the amount of jibes I’ve had to take because of my South Indianess. Be it listening to a guy making fun of south indian women and their tendency to oil their hair or listening to people make fun of our devotion to Rajnikanth. I hate reacting to negative stereotypes and worse, explaining our ethos to people. Why aren’t we ever portrayed in a decent manner on TV for instance? Either we have a terrible accent or too dark or whatever.

I was having an argument once with this Guy who was majorly dissing Bangalore and was waxing eloquence about his Dilli. He then veered the conversation to how Bangalore’s crumbling infrastructure reflected the lackadaisical nature of South Indians, while the awesome Infra in Delhi showed how sprightly his brethren were. He almost said, “Mere pass Delhi Metro hain, Night life hain, 6 lane road hain….tumhare pass kya hain?”

Well, he knows the answer now!

Madhavan says in an interview, “There is no secret relationship between us. She is my close friend… thats all… Our onscreen chemistry is working out well in all our films. Now also we are working together in a Hindi film…”

Replying to a question about his next release in Tamil, he told, “Guru En Aalu is my next release. Actually the film was planned for Deepavali but after reviewing the situation, the producer has postponed it for another two weeks.”

Earlier, Vidya Balan and Madhavan sizzled in the Airtel ad with their onscreen chemistry and now our ‘Chote Nawab’ and ‘Bebo’ will be seen sharing sweet-nothings onscreen.

According to a source, “Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor are the hottest couple when it comes to brand endorsements. They’ve been paid a whopping amount to come together for these two brands. They will shoot for the Head & Shoulders ad soon.”

In the Head & Shoulders ad, Kareena is seen just for a split-second, but any brand that has them both on board will eventually use them together. That’s the reason why brands are going for couples, for eg, Bips-John, Ajay-Kajol.

Rumour has it that Saif has 12 brands, while Kareena has seven in her kitty. Soon, the lady will be seen endorsing leading jewellery and lifestyle brands. Bebo was reportedly paid Rs 5 crores for the Vivel soap ad that marked the foray of the ITC group into soap brands.

Kareena is now touted as the highest paid endorser and commands a price given only to male models. The power couple is now, clearly at the top in brand endorsement market. Seems that flaunting love, tattoos and fights have done the wonder. Bravo, Saifeena!