Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi feels women that are keen to empower themselves and be successful should take inspiration from actor Vidya Balan, who has set an example for others with her journey.
Vidya’s career graph has been interesting — after making an impressive Bollywood debut with a period love story Parineeta in 2005, she made an unsuccessful transition to glamorous roles with Heyy Babyy and Kismat Konnection. She was declared down and out.
However, Vidya bounced back with the 2009 film Paa and, after that, there was no looking back for her as she etched out a variety of roles on the big screen in Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica, The Dirty Picture (2011) and Kahaani (2012). All these films were commercially successful and critically acclaimed.
“Have you heard of Vidya Balan? She is such a phenomenon. She chose that path and that’s why I admire her,” Vivek told reporters at an event that aimed at creating awareness amongst women about equality, dogmas and outdated urban attitudes.
“She decided that I don’t want to be everybody else, I want to be me and I want to do it my way,” he added.
The Yuva and Saathiya fame actor feels that Vidya has achieved such a stature with successes that she could be easily tagged as “Vidya Balan Khan.”
“People were like — will she [Vidya] be able to do well or not? But she has, she has proved it,” said the 36-year-old.
“Now you should call her Vidya Balan Khan because she is creating the numbers that people have never seen before. Hats off to her,” he added.
“If a woman wants to do something, she can do anything,” Vivek said.
Meanwhile, the actor is happy that the attitude towards women and girls is now changing, even in rural areas.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.
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