8216;I146;m Very Driven8217;

Your debut Qayamat has you emerging from the sea in a bikini.It8217;s not like I haven8217;t been on national television in a bathing suit...

Your debut Qayamat has you emerging from the sea in a bikini.
It8217;s not like I haven8217;t been on national television in a bathing suit, so wearing one for the camera was nothing new. We shot the sequence on a white beach in Mauritius and the entire unit was working in swimming costumes8212;everybody was enjoying themselves and it felt cool.

Did the glitz of being Miss India change you?
After I won, I rewrote my priority list and entered a new world. Yet, more than me, people around changed. Overnight, when I spoke everybody gave me their attention. Yet my parents kept me grounded8212;when I8217;m at home in Delhi my mother still insists I serve guests tea.

Your childhood was spent on Navy bases around the country.
Yeah, I mostly grew up in Cochin, which was great. As kids we went sailing, rowed through the backwaters, and played lots of table tennis. We had never heard of Gap or Levi8217;s, and we were so naive. Yet I8217;m glad my family moved out of Cochin because it was too small; my mother wouldn8217;t let me leave home without oiling my hair. Smiling Vizag, where we moved to next, was even smaller, so let8217;s not get into that.

A few months ago there was some talk about your rising weight. Did that hurt?
Not really. But how trivial can people get? In India it becomes news if your body is off by a millimetre. I don8217;t look like I have an eating disorder, but I do watch my calories and I8217;m healthy. I admit that after I came back from Miss Universe last year I ate what I wanted8212;but that was because I had starved myself for a whole year.

And now?
Now I8217;m back to my normal lifestyle and I8217;ve lost everything I put on. I jog about six kilometres every day and I try to do it when it8217;s sunny and the roads are full of dirt. I always want to succeed in the hardest conditions. I8217;m extremely driven.

Will you dance around trees?
Absolutely. More than having beat, rhythm and skill, I8217;m persistent. My Kathak teacher recently asked me to do 45 pirouettes and I did 151 just because I had collapsed after doing eight the first time. I pick up steps fast, which is critical in this profession; you can8217;t afford to make a choreographer wait six days before you pick up a sequence.

So what does the crystal ball say?
I8217;m still afraid to look at myself on screen and when I do watch I keep one eye closed even that eye is only searching for good. As I said, I don8217;t mind dancing around trees but don8217;t expect to see me prancing around in a wet sari8212;some things are non-negotiable.