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COVER STORY

excellence
Actress par

The talented and versatile Vidya
Balan has come up the hard way in
her career. The actress, who had to go
through several rejections before she
made her place in Bollywood, has
never followed the conventional path
to success. Today with the National
Award and a Padmashri to her credit,
the actress stands tall and is ready to
take on the world.

The Early Days
Born on January 1, 1978 in Ottapalam, Kerala to P. R.
Balan (Vice President of ETC Channel) and Saraswathy
Balan, a housewife, Vidya did her schooling at St.
Anthony Girls’ High School, Mumbai and later attended
St. Xavier’s College where she majored in sociology. She
always aspired to become an actress since her school
days. At the age of 16, the actress got a chance to star
in Ekta Kapoor’s sitcom Hum Paanch. Following the success
of the show Vidya was flooded with television offers but
the actress was keen on making a career in films.
Her acting debut
While pursuing her master’s degree, Vidya was cast
as the female lead in the Malayalam film Chakram,
opposite Mohanlal and was subsequently signed for 17
other ventures in the south. However the film got shelved,
leading to her ouster from other films as well. She was
labelled as a jinx and her career came to a halt.
Taking failure as the first step to success, Vidya went on
to do television commercials and three musical videos
for director Pradeep Sarkar. In 2003, she was signed
on for a Bengali film, Bhalo Theko for which she won the
Anandalok Puraskar Best Actress award in Kolkata.

Her foray in Hindi films and the story thereafter
It was director Pradeep Sarkar, who had worked with
I clearly told Vidya in several commercials and musical videos, who
the media not signed her for her first Hindi film, Parineeta in 2005.
Vidya got critical and commercial acclaim for her
to discuss my
performance in the musical drama. She also won the
marriage
Best Debut (Female) award for her role in the film. The
following year she appeared opposite Sanjay Dutt in

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