Okay, I’ve done Rani and Anushka and Dips, it’s time to attempt Vidya. There is A LOT that happened to her, but really when I look at her career, it is more of a straight line than I realized.

Usual Disclaimer: I don’t know these people, I have no special knowledge, this is just how it looks to me based on publicly available sources.

“Late bloomer” is an idea my mother uses a lot. It’s a nice gentle way of indicating “this young person took a while to find their place”. It could be used for me, for instance, since I am still trying to figure out where I fit in the world (I love blogging, but it really feels like there should be SOMETHING else I can do with my passion). And it could be used for Vidya. She took a long long time to find her place in the world. The nice thing about Vidya’s story is that, eventually, she ended up just where she was meant to be. Hope for all of us Late Bloomers out there!

Vidya started out seeming like an early bloomer. When she was still in high school, she was cast in what turned into India’s first hit sitcom of the satellite era, produced by another teenager Ekta Kapoor. Ekta was 19 when her father Jeetendra decided to try to get into TV production. They had a little office in the garage, and started looking for low budget series ideas that they could throw out cheap and sell to a network. Ekta was a bit of a TV savant, and hit big with one of her first ideas, “Hum Paanch”. A family with 5 daughters, each with a simple distinctive trait, and wacky events occur. This wasn’t one of those “sitcoms with a deeper meaning” shows, this was a cheap quick fun show. Think Disney Channel, not Norman Lear. Although still not uninteresting (again, like Disney Channel shows), the simple character types definitely still had a feminist message. All the girls have distinctive personalities and life goals, and their young stepmother becomes their ally rather than their enemy. To fit the cheap quick fun spirit of the show (and because they were lower price actresses), Ekta hunted down teen girls to play her leads. Including suburban high school student Vidya Balan.

Vidya came from an East Bombay suburb. That’s a whole different thing. West Bombay, the seaside part, that’s where Juhu and Bandra are, that’s where the rich people and the film people hang out. Chambur, where Vidya is from, that’s a very nice suburb but it isn’t a Famous People suburb. Her dad was an executive at a cable television company, her Mom was a homemaker. It was probably her father’s job that gave her the in for the audition for Ekta, TV auditions in those days were more a matter of casual word of mouth than formal professional processes. And Vidya was part of changing all of that, the success of “Hum Paanch” helped prove that this new satellite TV thing could actually take off and make money. “Hum Paanch” was such a hit that it was rebooted twice already.

Vidya was in “Hum Paanch” through high school and college, from 1995 to 1999. One “season” in Indian TV speak, meaning an episode every week that whole time. They weren’t all great of course, but Vidya was steadily working and in front of a camera in costume and make-up for 4 years before she was 20. Once the show ended, she was immediately given offers for more TV shows, but confidently turned them down, ready for a serious film career instead.

Only thing is, that serious film career just didn’t seem to happen somehow. In 2000, right after “Hum Paanch” ended and while Vidya was still in school getting her Masters in Sociology at the University of Bombay, she was offered the lead heroine role in a Malayalam Mammootty movie. Vidya’s mother tongue is Malayalam, her parents are Malayalam/Tamilian. This should have been the perfect film for her, she could make a big splash and get noticed and then decide if she wanted to keep going in Kerala or try to leverage that experience into a Bombay career. With word of this film spreading, and the exciting news that one of the “Hum Paanch” girls was Malayali and looking for a career, the Malayalam industry lept on her and she had a dozen offers for her follow up picture, life was set and perfect. And then the Mammootty film lost funding, the first time one of his films had done that in, like, EVER. Obviously it couldn’t be Mammootty’s fault, it must be that new girl! Vidya was declared a “jinx”, and exiled from the Malayalam industry, every offer dried up.

She moved over to Tamil, cast in a opposite Madhavan in a big budget release. And halfway through filming, she was fired and replaced. She was next signed for a film sold to her as a comedy, but released once shooting started that it was an explicit sex comedy and quit. A third Tamil film saw her replaced by Trisha halfway through the shoot. And finally she returned to Malayalam cinema and completed a low budget film, only to find it unable to get a release. Meanwhile her 5 years younger cousin Priyamani was already well-launched in Telugu and Tamil industries, her co-stars in Hum Paanch were headlining their own TV shows now, and the Bombay industry was swamped with teenage models being handed lead roles in films while “old” 22 year old Vidya, with her 6 years of acting experience, was being left behind.

Vidya kept going, found work in commercials and music videos, anywhere she could be hired. And then, FINALLY, she actually got a film released. A Bengali movie, a sexually explicit art film where Vidya’s performance got her noticed. And reinvented her a bit, Vidhu Vinod Chopra saw this movie and thought “aha! My beautiful unknown Bengali heroine for my re-imagining of Parineeta!” And Vidya just went with it. Local Bombay girl “Hum Paanch” funny teenager disappeared, and was replaced by “elegant young Bengali art actress being dignified and serious in a classy glossy literary adaptation”.

I first knew Vidya from Parineeta, and I think that is how a lot of people were introduced to her. Even if “Hum Paanch” was something you watched, you wouldn’t remember the name and face enough to tie it to this elegant woman in Parineeta. And the promotions certainly didn’t encourage that, there was no discussion of “see the Hum Paanch girl all grown up!” Parineeta was her restart button, no career failures in the southern industries, no wacky sitcom beginning, she was a dignified model/actress who made one strange Bengali film and now was being relaunched in this great role in a high profile film.

And then as soon as Parineeta was out, Vidya started hitting road blocks again. People just didn’t know what to do with her. She shone in small roles where she was allowed to be a non-traditional character (a crippled woman in Guru, a faithful servant in Eklavya) but in the mainstream heroine parts she was just bland, forgettable. And in the mainstream heroine part in the public scene, she was bland and forgettable too. This is the era when Vidya became moderately well-known as a terrible dresser, slightly chubby, and with bad hair. And that was kind of it.

2008 was Vidya’s nadar. Age 29, career dead in the water, and her pitifully small acting life and public persona was completely over-shadowed by a rumor she was dating her latest co-star, Shahid Kapoor, famous himself primarily for being the ex of another actress Kareena. She wasn’t even famous by association, she was famous by association by association. Ouch!

2009 wasn’t much better, she got a decent part in Paa, and for once her styling was good for the role, but it was also playing the mother of a 12 year old (at age 30). Even worse, Paa had this high concept idea of Amitabh Bachchan playing the son of Abhishek Bachchan as a child with progeria (sp?). The entire focus on the promotions and everything was on the Father-Son playing Son-Father idea. Vidya kind of got lost in the shuffle. It seemed like her career was over, after all the 20s are the best most important time for a heroine, and she started the decade struggling to even complete a shoot, and now she was ending it already playing mother roles.

And then, against all logic and history and patterns, Vidya’s career completely took off past age 30, playing roles past age 30. Her big break out part, coming long long into her career, was Ishqiya, the sexy widow romancing and playing against each other two middle-aged men. Followed by No One Killed Jessica, the dowdy angry older sister. And then of course Dirty Picture, the aging sexual woman. Kahaani, the pregnant avenging housewife. Ghamchakkar, the sexy wife.

It’s not just that Vidya’s career took off past 30, and it’s not just that she was playing radically untraditional roles for characters past 30, it’s a combination of the two. I think Vidya’s career took off because these strange older woman roles are where she fits. With another actress, one who comes off as more gentle, shy, insecure, these roles wouldn’t feel so radical. But with Vidya, suddenly the Ishqiya widow wasn’t a sad sweet desperate young woman, but a lush confident older woman. And on and on, she brought something special once she was old enough to be offered roles that let her be special.

Her personal life took off post 30 too. Vidya got married at 33, to a 38 year old twice divorced man, Siddharth Roy Kapur. He’s not very traditional either, his mother is a former item dancer (and Jewish), he had those two previous wives, and he was the head of the UTV studio, a big deal producer instead of a fellow actor. They don’t have kids and don’t seem to want kids (who knows of course, but they’ve been married almost 8 years and Vidya hasn’t even taken a gap in filmings to indicate she was trying for kids). And she is so happy with that! At least, so far as the public can tell. Big smiles and happy talk in her interviews. She wears saris and her hair up, like a traditional matronly wife, and looks more beautiful than she did when she was struggling with youthful modern clothes. She has just blossomed out as this older actress with a supportive older husband, seems to have become the person she was meant to be all along, it just took her some time to get there.