‘My approach has been very schoolish, student-like’

• But what’s it being like Aishwarya Rai?

I’m just busy being myself. I’m a professional to the sincerest best that I can be, and I chose to be, and that’s about it. If you are trying to create this persona and you are being a person out of yourself apart from who you really are…then it, kind of, would be an effort. But if you are just yourself…

• And here you will do a 40 second-50 second advert and you will say buy this soap, right? Or buy this shampoo or whatever and crores of people will buy it. Right?

That’s the attempt by the agency. That’s the way this world works. Right?

• Does that bring pressure? Does that bring stress that so much is riding on me, I have to deliver?

I have to deliver my job as a professional…as in the person who has employed me to deliver the job that I’m supposed to do and that’s to the best of my ability. The way you would need to do in various fields you are involved in as the editor of your newspaper, as the chief anchor of this show, as the multi-faceted life that you lead. I mean the pressures are the same as for any professional. That’s just the way it goes. I think these are the peripherals that kind of go with this world of make-believe, I think, all these ideas that people have about us. But we are just working professionals, just like you. That’s my approach.

• What transition have you seen in your own life, your own approach, attitude?

It’s my life-time you are asking me to put down to an answer, which really is a lot.

• 40 seconds.

No, I can’t do that. You know because I’m not trying to sell my life story here. I can’t bring it down to 40 seconds. And…

• Take your own time.

A lot of film personalities used to ask, somehow, whether I will join the movies and I used to keep saying no because I was also a student and…I never thought of joining movies.

• Student of architecture?

Yeah, yeah, that’s what I was doing. And God, that’s another story…

• You and Tendulkar keep on calling yourself dropouts. All our children will drop out of school and college.

Oh please no, no way. I probably made a very conscious decision after I won the Miss World pageant, when I came back here. I realised I was not going to be a normal student any more. And I didn’t want to be a celebrity student. So it would have meant going away abroad and completing my education or choosing an alternative career. And of course films, I was being asked about plenty, even prior to joining…

• What is tougher? The world of modelling and beauty contests or cinema?

It’s not the question of tougher, but I’d say films are definitely an ocean and cinema is just very, very fascinating. Modelling is fun, it’s exciting. Even the beauty title holder…it’s a good thing that they give you a year for that because a year is wonderful. I had a very, very fulfilling experience. For me it was about being a representative of India.

• But you were stuck on Mother Teresa and India and…

You know… sometimes… I will have to jog my memory…because it’s such a cliche. And you know there are these people so attached to you. I mean invariably you would mention her name as the woman you admired. And…

• So, who would you admire now? There’s no crown at stake now.

There was no crown…It was not for the crown even then. That’s the sad part. Sometimes I think Mother Teresa was deservedly accorded what she has but that there’s an entire cliche that goes with it and today you never know some people would be embarrassed to give her her due just because of, you know, the tongue-in-cheek jargon that goes with it…

• Do you have a positive spirit or do you have your highs and lows?

I’m as human. I ride the wave just as you would but I believe in positivity completely. Yes I do. B (Be) Positive is not just a blood group. My approach has always been very, very schoolish. It has been very basic, very student-like. So when you’re given an assignment, or when you’ve taken a decision to take a job on, or take an assignment on, then it’s a very, very schoolish approach.

• Which are your favourite performances in cinema?

Iruvar…is very, very special. That was my first film, with Mani Ratnam. It was my first film. Jeans next, because it was a technically new film for me to work in. For Devdas, I must have been the only person on that team making that film who hadn’t seen the earlier Devdases. And I maintained that because I said okay, if I hadn’t, I really have no reference point, which is wonderful because I wanted to be Paro the way Sanjay (Leela Bhansali) had conceived her, and so I maintained that. Two days before, we reworked the entire wardrobe of Paro. We saw the wardrobe but didn’t feel anything. We are very ‘feel’ kind of people. Both Sanjay and me, didn’t feel it, didn’t feel like Paro. It felt a little synthetic. So out. We worked it literally the night before.

• Did anyone get into a giggling fit while doing Devdas? Such a serious…

Oh, it would happen. Oh, Sanjay too. He’s really got a mad, mad sense of humour. He’s not all so morbid and serious or any such thing.

• You seem to be charmed by the east. You know Devdas, and now you are working with Rituparno Ghosh. A girl from west…

It’s just really, really…well, you can say in the beginning I was fascinated with the south, being a south Indian. I hope with every experience you would say that you see a growth, because that’s what I’m aspiring to do as an actor, as a person first. Also, for me for my own sake, apart from what the opinions you guys will hold.
PART II