Subtitle: Priyanka Chopra is changing the game in Bollywood on her own terms with her brave moves
Photograph Caption: Krissh 3
Late last month, the 12th floor of the Time Warner building near Central Park in New York was buzzing at 8 am on a Saturday morning. The bi-annual gathering of SAMMA (South Asian Media and Marketing Association) had personalities of South Asian origin who have made a mark in this industry. It was business-like, with men in their suits and women in boardroom attire.
About 45 minutes into the hour, in true Bollywood standard time, Priyanka Chopra sashayed in, elegantly dressed in a sleeveless black number. She had just landed 12 hours ago from Mumbai but there were no signs of jetlag. “Are you going to be an interesting audience or a serious audience?” she asked at the beginning of her speech breaking the ice with a smile.
She didn’t have to. By the time she had finished with her speech and an interview, the audience was enthralled as she narrated her journey from her high school days in USA to superstardom in India but more importantly underlining her determination and will power to succeed in trying times.
That a Bollywood actress would actually be called to speak on such a platform was an eye opener. But Priyanka Chopra is not your average Bollywood star. A little over a decade in the male dominated industry, PC, as she is known, is re-writing the rules with her unconventional roles. Whether it’s playing a seductress in Aitraaz, a serial killer in Saat Khoon Maaf or playing 12 characters depicting the signs of the Zodiac in What’s your Rashee to the autistic girl in Barfi, she has stood out with her jaw-dropping performances.
And if that were not enough she has had the time to launch her singing career in the USA earlier this year cutting tracks with the likes of Pitbull and Will.i.am.
Also, the work she’s done for UNICEF, speaking often on women’s issues, and her catwalk to raise funds for cancer victims makes you wonder how she manages to pack it all in.
And yet she is an interesting conundrum. While her contemporaries like Kareena and Katrina have always been touted as the number one or number two actresses in the industry, Priyanka has always been in the race but never at the finishing line. She was even written off a year ago after a string of flops.
But that could have been her detractors working overtime. Controversies have dogged her life ever since she won the Miss World in 2000 and decided to make her foray into movies. Priyanka has been linked to almost all her co-stars from Harman, to Akshay to Shahid. But since the rumours about her alleged affair with Shah Rukh Khan hit the news, PC has hardly found the going smooth. There were those “rival camps” that refused to sign her while Bollywood wives close to Gauri Khan wanted nothing to do with her. Even SRK’s close friends started giving her a hard time.
But PC stood her ground. She refused to accept or deny SRK. In a car park in the wee hours of the morning in Mumbai, the two seemed equally comfortable in each other’s company. And even now, if sources are to be believed, she still gets his final nod when it comes to performing at award functions or signing an endorsement deal.
While KRISH 3 will once again remind her critics that she is very much in the thick of the action, Mary Kom, a biopic of the world-boxing champion, where she went to four months of boxing training, may just about be her ticket to the top. In between there’s Yash Raj’s Gunday and an item number in the most talked about Ram Leela.
However, her cup always seems full. She has already received rave reviews for her singles ‘In My City’ and ‘Exotic’. Although she still has a long way to go, she is making all the right moves in this her alternate career.
In her speech at SAMMA she confessed that she once punched a boy in school and was suspended. It’s the same fearlessness that she takes on the world. She is determined to be India’s first global artist in two different disciplines, take on roles in Bollywood that her contemporaries fear and continue to push the envelope.
More power to PC!
— Kevin Rego
