'Priyanka Chopra would order 2 big pizzas for lunch and finish both'

"When I was making Fashion, I had hardly seen Priyanka's movies. I must've seen only Don, I hadn't watched Aitraaz or Andaaz or any of her other films, was the astonishing revelation that came from Madhur Bhandarkar, the man who would give Priyanka her first taste of acknowledgement from the government itself a National Award.

"After my film Corporate, which was successful, a lot of people told me that I should repeat Bipasha Basu for Fashion too, said Bhandarkar. "They felt she would be the natural choice for Fashion because she'd been a well-known model and had walked the ramp too. But I was completely convinced that Priyanka Chopra was the girl who should play Meghna Mathur. She was what I'd imagined the character to be, with a certain fragility in her face. While others were advising me about casting a fashion model, I was looking at Meghna more from the character's point of view and the story, and how Priyanka would fit into it.

"Ten years after Fashion, Priyanka and I are still very friendly, we talk over the phone and we stay connected. Last year, when she was here, she'd invited me to a party where we had a long conversation. On Diwali too, I spoke to her. We follow each other on Twitter. So I know what's happening in her life and I can say that the one thing I liked about Priyanka when I worked with her and thereafter, to this day, is that she has essentially remained the same person. She was born and brought up as a middle-class girl from Bareilly and she has stayed that way. On the set, she would mingle with everybody, eat junk food like khakra (crispy thin Indian cracker) and munchies. I used to go to Neelam, the food store near my house, and stock up on all the snacks for us to have on the sets. She would say, Oh yes, do get this and get that.' She is one actress who eats well. You know how other actresses are, yeh nahin khana, woh nahin khana (I won't eat this or that). She's a rare actress who doesn't fuss about eating. I'm a foodie and so is she. So when we'd shoot in five-star hotels, we'd both ask for the menu card and start ordering a whole lot of food. She's someone who'll say, Order this and ask for that also. Dal makhni manga le, chicken manga le, woh bhi manga le (order dal makhni, chicken and something else too)', and we would both tuck in. I've never heard her say, Oh, I can't eat this or I can't touch that.' She doesn't peck at it, she really enjoys her food as much as she enjoys her work. If we were to have a break an hour later, we'd start ordering food right now.

At this juncture, an interesting break from her career would be to talk about Food another favourite F' of hers apart from Films and Family.

Food is a very important part of my life: Priyanka

"Where does it all go? I think it goes to my heart! she said to me. She hates cooking and, Gourmet food. I'm more of a junk food person. I love Indian food any day. Hyderabadi, Punjabi, South Indian, I love fish curry and rice, love, love, love!

Almost every person close to Priyanka noted her fascinating capacity to demolish parathas and pizzas and still look the way she does.

Rakesh Roshan: "It's amazing how fond she is of eating but doesn't put on weight. I could never understand how she manages that. I'd be surprised when she would order two big pizzas for lunch and watch her finish both. Not small-sized ones but family ones where there'd be ten or more slices. Then again after four o'clock, she'd be having something else. I always told her, You are so very lucky that you can eat like this but not put on weight.'

Actor Shahid Kapoor who had a love-thy-neighbour relationship with Priyanka when they stayed in the same building, is a vegetarian.

Earlier, when he was dating Kareena, he had influenced the girl from the meat-loving Kapoor clan to turn vegetarian. He'd presented Kareena with a book that had changed his life and his eating habits. With that book, Kareena too had become a vegetarian. But his relationship with Priyanka was either not too intense or it was too brief. Or perhaps Priyanka liked her food too much to change for a guy. Whatever the reason, "Priyanka can never turn vegetarian, Shahid had chuckled to me when he was still seeing her, "woh kabhi nahin hogi vegetarian, he'd repeated for emphasis.

"She loves her non-veg food too much. Our standing joke is, when we go out, she orders the main course and I end up eating the side order.

Not sure why this is being talked about now. Might be excerpts from Bharathi S Pradhan's unauthorized biography on Priyanka but I found it funny.

OmBooksInternational @ombooksdelhi

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