By Jilawatan

Vidya Balan gets restaurant to put her favourite dish back on the menu

So taken in is Vidya Balan by a particular dish at her favourite Bandra restaurant that she compelled the owners of the place to bring it back on the menu after it was dropped.

Says a source close to the Paa actress, “Vidya is very fond of the cracked wheat ragu on the menu at Farhan Azmi’s restaurant in Bandra. When she comes there the staff knows exactly what to get for her.

But in the last six months, she got so busy shooting for her films that she didn’t find the time to visit the place.

When she came back last week she was informed that her favourite dish was taken off the menu. It is a vegetarian dish made of cracked wheat and spinach and is very healthy.

Few people order it as it requires an acquired taste. During Balan’s regular patronage, it was customary in her order. When she heard it wasn’t there she insisted that it be brought back and now the dish is back on the menu.”

Farhan says, “Vidya is a very sweet girl and my wife Ayesha and I are both like her. We had discontinued the cracked wheat ragu but bought it back because of Vidya.

She loves it. For regulars like Vidya, Ranbir Kapoor, Yuvraj Singh, Salman and Sohail Khan we make food as per their liking like we don’t sell pre-decided pasta but the diner gets to choose everything from the dressing to the sauce and vegetables.”

By Jilawatan

We’ve never really seen doctors partying the way they did recently.

The occasion was a national conference on infertility and having a party for the venture were doctors Nandita Palshetkar, Hrishikesh and Rishma Pai and Sanjay Gupte. Gary Richardson was the early bird of the evening. Abha Singh and YP Singh were party hopping and came straight from a wedding. Madhusudan Kumar was partying till the wee hours and so was Umaesh Pherwani. The party also saw others like Viren Shah, Ankur Nayyar and Parag Tyagi, Brinda Parekh and Kavita Rathore. It was the next morning that Vidya Balan and MP Sanjay Patil kickstarted the occasion by speaking about various aspects of medicine. Many international and national experts shared their experiences on different aspects of infertility and human reproduction.

FILMI BAATEIN: Looking ravishing in a black sari was Vidya, who fondly recalled her role as a doctor in Paa and added that more needs to be done for the girl child in India.

By Jilawatan

We last saw Vidya in Ishquiya ushering in a sexual progressiveness without much ado and also in Paa where she begets a child sans wedlock. Portraying a bold image of a woman onscreen certainly demands her opinion on premarital sex.

Her personal views on the same are fairly conventional. “I think kids start too early these days. It’s distressing. Premarital sex is okay between consenting adults who are responsible enough to use protection. Protection is not an option, it’s sensible and non negotiable. And I really, really wish people would start being sexually active at the right time. I am not saying with the right person because you can never be sure of that, but at least grow up first.”
And what she has to say on her on and off link-up with Shahid Kapoor. “I haven’t met Shahid in ages. And if I do meet him I guess we will exchange pleasantries. Recently when I went up to take my award at that function I was too overwhelmed to notice anyone or anything. It was my first best actress award. The people around me were a blur. It wasn’t about Shahid at all. And at the Awards night the only time I saw him was when he was dancing on stage. What am I supposed to do? Run up to the stage and say, ‘Hey Shahid, stop the moonwalk. I want to say Hi because everyone expects me to?’”

By Jilawatan

The latest and most hyped cat fight in the tinsel town is between Rani Mukherji and Vidya Balan. The duo reportedly has been shooting for their next film, No one killed Jessica. With both being together, the two seemed to exchange a lot cold vibes in between them.
The only time the two seemed to speak to each other were in the front of camera. And apart from that, Rani prefers to spend time talking to her mom through phone and Vidya loves being engrossed in one of the books she is interested in. Rumours has it that Vidya and Rani started to exchange unpleasant gestures after Vidya’s favourite designer, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, signed up Rani for his directorial debut instead of herself.

Rani was also seen giving the director of ”No one killed Jessica”, Mr. Rajkumar Gupta, invaluable inputs which were, incidentally (or should be say intentionally?) found to be NOT in favour of Vidya. The shooting of the movie was entirely fixed in Delhi. And once the duo once had given their shots, would run back to their respective vanity vans and would be engrossed in their own activities.

By Jilawatan

Vidya is indeed looking forward to the offer coming her way, especially after just signing NO ONE KILLED JESSICA where she has an author backed role. In this film which would be directed by Raj Kumar Gupta (of AAMIR fame), Vidya would be enacting the role of Sabrina Lal, sister of Jessica Lal. There is also a buzz in the town that Rani Mukherjee has also been signed for the film.

Meanwhile Vidya denies signing any other new film though she reassures that her long-in-news CHENAB GANDHI is pretty much on. “Sanjay (Leela Bhansali) is currently busy with GUZAARISH which he is directing as well as producing. Once he is through with it, we should get started on CHENAB GANDHI. It should certainly begin sometime this year”, she confirms before signing off.

By Jilawatan

In her most recent outing in front of the Indian public, Vidya takes a slight risk that works rather well for her. The bright colours and old fashioned hair (wig, right?) is quite fetching on the student. The examiners appreciate her minimal jewellery and the courage it must take her to steer clear of the net and velvet creations that are such a rage these days. They would like to take this opportunity to give a nod of approval to the student and move on to her assignment.

By Jilawatan

Vidya has won rave reviews for her splendid performance in Paa and people are excited about her bold and wicked turn in Ishqiya. She has signed on to play Sabrina Lal, Jessica Lal’s sister in the film, No One Killed Jessica.

The film is directed by Aamir director Rajkumar Gupta. He saw her in Paa and zeroed in on her for the role. The casting of Sabrina Lal was preventing the movie from taking off. It is a very substantial and intense role as the character of Sabrina Lal fights against the system to avenge her sister’s murder which happened in 1999. She was shot by Manu Sharma, a politician’s son.

Director Rajkumar Gupta said that he chose Vidya after he saw Paa. He felt she was the right choice and will now cast the rest of the actors as she was the main character. The film will go on the floors in February next year.

Vidya Balan said that the minute she heard the narration for the role, she knew she had to do it. She will be meeting Sabrina Lal shortly to prepare for her first inspired-from-real-life role. She said she was happy to do something completely different from Paa and Ishqiya.

Kareena Kapoor was approached to play Jessica Lal but she refused to do the film.

Vidya has portrayed strong characters in Parineeta, her debut film where she played Lolita and in Halla Bol, where she fought against injustice. Halla Bol had a sequence inspired from the Jessica Lal murder case.

By Jilawatan

Talking about my role in the film there are a couple of things, one I play a gynaecologist in the film so I actually and met up with a gynaecologist, and found out what are the routine questions that patients usually ask, the problems that people usually have and what are your responses. The best part was that she was sweet enough to help me and let me sit in on her appointments and the patients too were sweet enough to let me sit in. Besides that they also allowed me to check their BP and I actually tried it out on them. Then I also used the heart beat machine just to hear the heart beat of the kids, so it was thrilling experience and thankfully the patients didn’t mind it. So that was part of the gynaecologist.

But as a mother who has a child suffering from Progeria I needed to know the disease because I have raised the child, so I went through documentaries, I went through reading matter on it, I surfed the net on whatever information I could get because I needed that complete knowledge of what my kid has been through.

It was mindset change to play a mother because, yes, I have had the experience of my mother but I have never had to really call upon my maternal instincts so far. Especially if it’s a small child you can kiss and you can hug and you can cuddle, smother and express love and affection, but how do you do that with a 13-year-old? And that too a boy and boys that age don’t want to be hugged, smothered or cuddled or even kissed. Also the moments in the film didn’t allow you those kinds of expressions, so I had to in my head completely feel like the mother for it to reflect in the body language and the tone of voice.

Like I said all this happened two days before the shoot and it just kept getting stronger through the filming.

Coming to my co-star in the film I have shot with Abhishek earlier in Guru and he happens to be one of my favourite co-actors. I think there is a certain intensity in his eyes which is really very exciting because, one, he does not rehearse, so when you’re in a scene, he’s spontaneous and that brings forth something unplanned even in you. So as an actor I really enjoy working with him.

Talking about our relationship, initially we are lovers and then we play parents to Auro, he is our child.

About the music, personally speaking I love Ilaiyaraja’s music, it’s an identifiable sound you will always be able to tell an Ilaiyaraja song, but there’s always a freshness to it. And I think that’s true for the Paa tracks as well.

The film has been shot at different locales, a bit in Bombay, a bit in Delhi, the school portions in Malaysia and the love story in Oxford and Cambridge I think that lends it a nice fresh look and it’s very conducive to falling in love!

- Vidya