Spanish pop sensation Enrique Iglesias has been to India twice before in 2004 and 2012 but has performed in Mumbai only during his first visit to the country. So, the Latino sensation will be returning to the maximum city on October 29 and 30 after 21 years.

Interestingly, not many know that Vidya Balan, who is also a diehard Enrique fan, shares a heartfelt connection with his return to Mumbai after two decades. In an exclusive interaction with Bombay Times, the noted actress went down the memory lane and shared some precious trivia and why she’s looking forward to his Mumbai show on Wednesday.

Beaming with excitement, Vidya recalled, “My friend and I, we were at Enrique’s concert in Mumbai in 2004, when Pradeep Sarkar called me to offer Parineeta. We were trying to inch closer to the stage, my phone was off and Enrique had gone off the stage between the songs. We were hoping to get to the front by the time he comes back to perform. I was hoping he waves at me and pulls me on stage (smiles)… all these were young girl fantasies. Around this time, Pradeep dada (Sarkar) must have called me but he couldn’t get through so he called Pavitra my friend, the two of us had gone to the concert. He asked her ‘Vidya kaha hai’? Pavitra said she is right here and handed the phone to me. Dada told me Vidhu Vinod Chopra wants to talk to you. I told him I am at a concert and can talk to him once I get out. By then Mr Chopra came on the line. I wondered if he wanted to say, you are really good but it’s not going to work out because I had gone through a series of tests and auditions before that. I didn’t know what to expect. VVC told me, “Vidya Balan you need to get out of that venue and reach a quieter place where you can speak.” Grudgingly I dragged Pavitra along and we reached the gate. VVC told me then that, ‘you are my Parineeta’ and by then Enrique had come back on stage and sang Hero. While the song was always special to me, this moment sealed the deal for me. For me to receive this news when that song played, I couldn’t stop crying. I don’t remember what happened after that. My hands and legs were trembling. It is undoubtedly one of the most special moments in my life and it was quite cinematic.”

The actress confesses to crushing on the singer like every girl her age did. She expressed, “Enrique embodied what every young girl my age wanted and hoped for in their boyfriend. There was something raw about him. He was cool and effortlessly sexy. He seemed like a passionate lover. He embodied the pain that love brings along, one romanticizes this feeling at that age. You see glimpses of the feeling when someone is madly in love with you in ‘Addicted’ and ‘love to see you cry’. He’s just too sexy. I was definitely crushing on him. I won’t say obsession but he was a rage… bad boy played to the hilt. I remember back then everyone wanted to be at his concert.”

Vidya believes nostalgia plays a huge role in making the singer relevant even today. “MMRDA is going to be filled with people my age who are nostalgic about him. People who have grown up dreaming of him and fantasizing about him. He’s so unapologetically private about his life which I deeply admire. He is true to who he is. His voice resonates the pain of youthful love, where you feel everything intensely.”

On a parting note, the actress shared, “I got my big movie break at Enrique’s concert and that was my first concert experience as a young girl. Not many concerts happened in those days. Michael Jackson happened but I was younger then. So when people ask me are you going to his concert, which I am, I joke around and say, I complete 20 years in the movies. No wonder he’s come back to celebrate that. It almost felt like the birth of me as a heroine happened at his show while he sang Hero. You feel these moments happen only in the movies but it happened to me in real life. I am looking forward to reliving that moment and time hence watching him live again will be special. I am so grateful to what has happened since. If I were to dedicate one of my songs to Enrique, it would be Piyu Bole from Parineeta. That would be poetic justice.”

Our last brush with Vidya Balan was the joyful Shakuntala Devi (2020), where she played the gregarious math genius with aplomb. Almost a year on, the exuberance has been replaced with an air of reticence, the teasing tone, by measured words, as Balan transforms into Vidya Vincent, the quiet forest officer in Sherni. For the actor, the world of the Amit Masurkar-directed film comes as a breath of fresh air.  

“Playing a forest officer was refreshing because it’s a world I am not familiar with. My interaction with this world [was through] a few safaris, and watching Animal Planet and NatGeo,” she shares.

The more she read up on forest officers, the more she understood the demanding nature of the job. “I met a few forest officers to understand what their job entails. It was an eye-opener. They have to undergo an intense three-year course before they make the cut. When one gets a wildlife posting, they are cut off from civilization, living in a parallel reality and are most probably away from their families. The job can be physically arduous and dangerous at times, so [the field] was traditionally male-dominated. But the women officers shared how they negotiated their way around the patriarchal mindset.”

While the Amazon Prime Video offering puts the focus squarely on the man-animal conflict, it also studies how a woman has to fight harder to survive in what is considered a male domain. “I like that Vidya Vincent is a woman of few words and yet has the courage to stand up for what she believes in. You don’t have to be aggressive or be a man in a man’s world; you can be a woman and still find your way.”

The drama was largely shot in Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh. Filming in the dense jungles was an experience of a lifetime for Balan. “I have been on safaris in the past, but the wild would always intimidate me. But this time around, I stayed in a tent, which was fun. I would go for long walks in the summer when it was safe. It was heartening to see how the unit was conscious not to litter around as we were shooting in a forest.”

In a candid chat with mid-day, Vidya Balan discusses how her long-lasting battle with a stubborn bulge almost became part of her identity as a Bollywood actor
Uma Ramasubramanian (MID-DAY; September 16, 2020)

Cinephiles who look beneath the superficial can perhaps find common ground between Vidya Balan's off-screen demeanour, and the strong-headed characters portrayed by her in films. But Balan's ebullience can be deceptive, egging one on to believe that she can't be fazed by opinions in an industry that's always willing to provide one. How hard could it be for an actor like her to survive in an industry that's defined by lithe frames and picture-perfect figures? Balan's calibre is established in the fact that she delivers successes, successively, and is among the female actors who have the maximum number of films that have been headlined by them. And yet, even this powerhouse of talent is rendered as vulnerable as every other woman who does not, quite literally, fit into a mould. "For the longest time, I hated my body, because I have always been a 'fat girl'. When I was a child, people called me cute, and I enjoyed the attention. As I grew older, people started asking me why I wasn't losing weight when I had a pretty face," says Balan, who attributed her string of flops from 2012 to 2017, to her figure. "I felt, if my films weren't working, it had [something] to do with my body. At one point, it seemed like my body was my life's biggest problem."

Not all efforts pay off?
Have you come across fitness professionals who criticise the celebration of voluptuous figures in magazines and on social media, accusing them of 'promoting obesity', and alluding that the women in question could shed the excessive weight, if they 'tried'. For those professionals, Balan can be a case in point. "I would work out like a beast, and deprive myself of the food I loved. I did that for several years, and yet, continued to gain weight. If and when I did lose weight, I would feel it was alright to be fat. But, then, the weight would come back on, and it was always a nightmare, again. When I was 17, somebody told me that if I would drink 10 litres of water a day, I would lose weight. I started to do so, and, almost each night, I would puke. My family worried for me, and when I told them what I was doing, they took me to a doctor, who fired me. When I stopped doing that, I gained the weight back. I have a body type that I couldn't change. My hormonal issues had [escalated] because I was rejecting my body."

At first sight, Balan's aptly flamboyant act in The Dirty Picture almost seemed like her answer to cinephiles who would carp about a figure she fought hard to tweak. But for the actor, it was the film that served as a catharsis of sorts, enabling her to realise that "even if I was big, I could be sexy". But it wasn't until eight years later in 2019, when she began to work with a healer, that true change was brought about. "The phase between 2012 and 2019 was very difficult. Before each film, the director would tell me to lose weight. I was desperately trying to do so, giving a shot at everything in the [health-care] books — diets, sleeping patterns, everything. Finally, I started telling them that it won't happen. I began to work with a healer, who made me realise that I was blaming my body for everything. We communicate over phone calls. The sessions have made me realise that I can heal myself, and that, in turn, made me realise the power of the self. I practice finger-holds, which is a Japanese healing technique. I have realised that my body is the best machine; one that has answers to all my problems."

Appeasing the heart
The experience had a tremendous effect on Balan, who began to reintroduce those meals into her diet that she had unwillingly eliminated. "In 2019, I realised that I was still living the dream of being an actor; nothing else mattered. The body that is keeping me alive is the subject of my conscience. I stopped exercising like a beast, and I started eating whatever I wanted to. Guess what, my hormones began to balance. I began to eat gajar ka halwa whenever I desired, [and] for the first time in a long time, I dropped two kilos."

Directors approaching her with films on the condition that she work on pleasing the scale are now politely turned down. Balan is certain that "if the role requires a different physicality, it requires a different actor". With a renewed faith in her body's intelligence, she says she is "now happier in my body than I have ever been".

Balan On Her Current Regimen
Balan's willingness to accept her body shouldn't be mistaken for indiscipline. The actor, who took to yoga in 2012, continued to practice it until the lockdown hindered her routine. Not one to find meaning in virtual classes, she turned to taking long walks instead. "I walk for an hour each day. On the days that I don't feel like walking, I don't exert myself. This way, I find exercising more enjoyable. I pay heed to my body." She has also learnt that not every piece of information from the barrage of health-related content available, is likely to benefit everyone. Case in point being the nutritionist who would cater to both, her and husband Siddharth Roy Kapur. "Siddharth would lose weight with the nutritionist's advice, but I would not."