Gold Star

In just five years, ten movies, and a range of characters, Alia Bhatt has managed to establish herself as a force to be reckoned with. Mayank Shekhar finds out what makes her one of the hottest actors in Bollywood today.

- Mayank Shekhar

FIVE-YEAR-OLD ALIA was at home when her half-sister Pooja Bhatt, a Bollywood leading lady back then, had stopped by dad Mahesh Bhatt’s place one morning, while on her way to a photo shoot.“This is around 1998-’99,” recalls Pooja. The two sisters are 21 years apart.“Even I want to get a photo shoot done,” Alia had told Pooja, who casually passed on her location’s address, just to keep her happy, and left.

It was while Pooja was perched on top of a tree for a shot, which photographer Sumeet Chopra had set up in a Pali Hill bungalow, that she noticed that the determined li’l Alia had actually shown up, sitting there with her water bottle, two changes of clothes, and her nanny. She got the tiny tot up for a picture, which she holds very dear.

I ask Alia if she remembers that first photo shoot of hers. She does, by associative memory, since she’s been told about it so many times. “Surely I had no idea what a photo shoot meant. But I’ve seen the pictures, and I look very comfy in them,” she says.

What does this anecdote tell us about Alia? That she knew all along that films were her calling, without quite understanding the specifics of it. “My getting into show business and acting was not a result of chance or accident. It was all there in my imagination. My actual education, of watching films, studying performances, has only begun now. Growing up, I would daydream about what it would be like to be in the movies.”