Revision as of 03:43, 21 June 2015

Alia Bhatt

A profile

Family

The Times of India

April 25, 2014

Suhani Singh

Alia's father, the irrepressible Mahesh, is a writer, director and producer; mother Soni Razdan is an actor and step sister Pooja is an actor and director. Actor Emraan Hashmi and directors Mohit Suri and Vishesh Bhatt are her cousins. But despite being in a film family, Mahesh kept Alia and Shaheen away from filmdom for long. "She is in the driving seat of her life," he says. "Alia is a gift of life to us. We marvel at her. Whatever she is, she's on her own." The admiration is mutual. "I'm proud of the person my father is. He's honest and upfront," Alia says. She often visits her stepmother Kiran to enjoy her biryani. "We have a good and healthy atmosphere at home."

In her family, Alia is closest to Shaheen, her confidante and travel companion on annual getaways to London. "We are inseparable. I may not discuss everything with her but what she knows about me is more than anybody else," Alia says. Shaheen's task is to ensure Alia's feet remain planted on the ground. It was Shaheen who persuaded her to feature in All India Bakchod's "AIB Trolls Bollywood" video, in which stand-up comedians Rohan Joshi and Tanmay Bhatt follow and pester her to the tune of the song 'Ishq Wala Love' from Student of the Year. "A lot of this industry is just a facade. It is easy to change into a different person. I keep telling her to remember who she is and not stray from it," Shaheen says.

Alia shows glimpses of her real self every now and then on Instagram, where she posts selfies with her friends as well as cats Pika and Sheeba.

Sometimes though, the spotlight of fame and success could be harsh, as Alia found out when she appeared, twice, on Koffee with Karan and made headlines for her gaffes. So much so that Johar coined "You had an Alia moment" for his guests who erred on general knowledge questions. But Alia takes the jibes in good spirit. "I pulled a Harmonica," she says, referring to a gaffe-prone character in her favourite TV show, Friends. So long as she continues to impress and entertain audiences with her onscreen exploits, she doesn't have much to worry about.

Alia Bhatt had just started to speak when she declared: "I want to be a star!" Nobody in the family doubted the resolve of the child who loved putting on a show at their Juhu home, recalls her older sister Shaheen, 26. It also did not surprise them when six-year-old Alia described her first acting assignment, playing the younger Preity Zinta in Sangharsh (1999), as a "piece of cake". Four years later, father Mahesh Bhatt recalls, philosopher U.G. Krishnamurti observed Alia and proclaimed that she would become "a star who will light up the silver screen".

Filmography

Alia, 21, is basking in the success of Highway and 2 States, which have made audiences as well as critics take notice of the sometimes bubbly, sometimes demure girl who had made her debut in Student of the Year two years ago. Having collected Rs 37 crore over the first weekend, 2 States is on course to becoming the biggest hit of Alia's short career. But it's not box office collections that mark her out as a star, it's her "indefinable star quality" as Bollywood describes it. Karan Johar, on his show Koffee with Karan, said of her, "She can make love to the camera like no one else." Adds 2 States director Abhishek Varman, "She knows exactly what she wants. She wants to break the notion people have of her after Student of the Year, and she is taking up challenging roles to prove her range.

In her debut movie, Alia was inside her comfort zone as a glamorous college student strutting about in short dresses and carrying designer bags. But in her breakthrough performance in Imtiaz Ali's Highway, she pushed herself to demonstrate a gamut of emotions as the naive and sheltered Veera who embarks on a coming-of-age trip with her kidnappers. In an almost wordless scene, which both she and Ali agree is their favourite, Alia breaks into peals of laughter which seamlessly yield to tears as a river gushes by. The film, she says, was a "life-changing experience" and, though it made only Rs 28.11 crore at the box office, established her as the one to watch out for. "It showed me a new side to my personality," Alia adds. "I felt I was very shallow as a person. Until this film, I felt I didn't have the experience of having faced the problems that give your performance depth." Shaheen, a writer and budding director, says Veera is perhaps the closest to who Alia is at home. "The experience of shooting in the middle of nowhere, sleeping on trains and often at places with no hot water transformed her life immensely," she says. "She realised how much more she loves the acting process than its glamorous aspect. There are moments when she is crying in the film. I know when my sister's tears are real."

Varman though didn't need to watch Highway to be persuaded about Alia's talent and range. Watching her on the sets of Student of the Year, of which he was an assistant director, he was convinced Alia was Ananya, the Tamil protagonist of Chetan Bhagat's novel 2 States: The Story of My Marriage, an IIM graduate juggling modern love and family values. Alia more than repaid his trust with her performance.

Now, seated in the office of Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, Alia exudes calm confidence. Apart from her own instinct, Alia relies on Johar's opinion while choosing projects. Her next, Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, is a Dharma film in which she will again be paired with her Student of the Year co-star Varun Dhawan.

Like Kareena Kapoor Khan, whom she is often compared with, Alia is an alumnus of Mumbai's Jamnabai Narsee School. She has had no formal training as an actor, is just three films old and younger than her closest rivals Parineeti Chopra, 25, and Shraddha Kapoor, 26. Alia is demonstrating through her performances that she is here to stay. And three successes have given her the confidence to talk about her future with the same spunk she had as a child. "I don't think anybody says it out loud but I really feel I was meant to do something special and be someone special."

That's a bold assertion to make for someone whose family is brimming with talent.