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About the newest love in her life. Her niece Myiesha who seemed to have stolen some of her thunder. Rani smiles at her 'slave status'.
"I can't tell you what joy Myiesha brings to our lives. Her smile makes us bow down at her feet. We become her servants. I'm longer the Rani. I become the maid; at her beck and call. We're all dying for her to just smile at us and when she does, we all go completely gaga," gushes Ms M.
Makes me do the quintessential 'follow-up' – Didn't it make her want to have a little one of her own?
"Right now I don't feel that way at all. Because I've seen my sister go through the pain of delivery. It's pretty painful and tough. So to go through that, I'll have to prepare myself over a few more years. I'm very happy with a niece. I can enjoy while my sis-in-law manages the more difficult things. I have all the fun with the child while she is completely caged. Poor thing, she's really become an ayah. But jokes apart, its great – one of the most amazing things a woman can do is give birth and hats off to all mothers who go through the pain of giving birth to babies."
Rani had felt much pain herself, when her dad had gone through bouts of ill-health. And she was by his side day and night. For her, with a loved one in distress, stardom could take a backseat.
"Yes! My dad has constantly been playing this 'game' with us - falling sick and recovering, no choice of his. It worries us. My own health in the industry is controlled by his health only. For me it's very important that the health of my parents is very good because when they fall ill I become completely dysfunctional. So it was testing for me. That's why I keep telling my family to look after their health. That's all."
So be it. But a point of consternation – last year the controversial KANK won her accolades, but everyone wondered if in real life anyone would give up a Mr. Perfect?
Typically Rani, she spoke, "I don't think marriage or relations are about people being 'perfect'. I think what works in a relationship is that you and your partner have an equal love for each other whether you're perfect or not. Marriages are not about marrying Mr Perfect or Ms Perfect. It is about marrying someone for whom your heart skips a beat; a person who may not be perfect at all; he may have a lot of flaws and probably I may have flaws. The cusp of KANK was 'What if you find the love of your life after you get married? Do you leave your love for that marriage or do you leave your marriage for that love'?"
Still, for an archetypal Indian heroine; it must've been a tough decision to play a woman Indians would hardly identify with?
"I don't think they refused to accept it. They probably tried to escape from it because maybe they're in a situation like that and want to portray to the world that they don't 'approve'."
Talking of which, it must be lonely at the top? The higher an actress goes – her choice of heroes gets narrower?
"It's never been like that in my case because whenever I've worked, it's for the film in totality. It's been teamwork. When I worked with Saif in Hum Tum, he wasn't chosen for his star quotient. He was taken because he suited the role. Similarly, Abhishek was also chosen for Bunty aur Babli because he suited that character. I've not always worked with someone who's owned the title of a star."
However, in the heroine A-list, could anyone be friends?
Rani shrugged. "People here don't have the time to become friends. Because what happens is, genuinely, every actor who does a film gets completely caught up with that set-up. We're spending maximum time with those people, shooting 9-9 with them, over 100 days. And then you shift to another film ... I've been lucky to have some great friends from the industry - like Aamir and SRK - who've been rock steady pillars of mine – feeling proud of my achievements. Friends like Anil and Sunita (Kapoor) who're extremely close to me, even though I've done only two films with AK. Then there's Sanjay (Bhansali). With Black, we started on a note that I thought we would never be friends, but we hit it because we're both honest people. And of course, my most precious friend Karan, who's supported me right from the day I met him. I'm lucky that I have such friends in the industry who've stood by be through thick and thin."
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