Cinema NEWS 9

A pregnant Vidya Balan, 34, slowly walks down a bustling Park Street in Kolkata even as director Sujoy Ghosh and his camera crew struggle with milling crowds to capture the dejection of a woman in desperate search of her husband in Kahaani. The crowds wait for the shot to be taken but such is the rush to get closer to the screen Silk Smitha that Ghosh and his team have already been beaten up once. The Dirty Picture grossed Rs.114 crore worldwide in 2011 but Balan had already established herself as the hero: No One Killed Jessica with Rani Mukherjee made Rs.36 crore in January 2011. Bollywood women have not looked back since Madhur Bhandarkar's Fashion in 2008. The film saw Priyanka Chopra, 29, sleeping her way to the top in the film, Kangna Ranaut,24, dying of a drug overdose, and Mugdha Godse, 25, the cleanest living model of the group, marrying a gay man. The film was Bhandarkar's highest grosser ever, at Rs.42 crore.