IN LATE 1977, AN EXTRAORDINARILY ATTRACTIVE ITALIAN GIRL ARRIVED IN NEW YORK. SHE STUCK HER HEAD OUT OF THE LIMO ROOF SHE WAS TRAVELLING IN AND SCREAMED, "SOMEDAY I'M GOING TO OWN THIS CITY". AT THE TIME, IT MIGHT'VE SEEMED LIKE A SILLY DECLARATION FROM A TEENAGER, JUST LIKE MILLIONS OF OTHERS LIKE HER WHO COME TO THE BIG APPLE WITH THE MAMMOTH AMERICAN DREAM OF MAKING IT BIG. WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT THAT STATEMENT WOULD SOMEDAY MAKE IT AS THE FAMOUS LAST WORDS OF A FAMOUS SOMEONE? A COUPLE OF DECADES LATER, THIS AMBITIOUS GIRL WITH A WISH TO OWN THE WORLD CAME TO BE KNOWN AS ONE OF THE GREATEST LEGENDS OF OUR TIMES, MADONNA. THE MATERIAL GIRL TAUGHT EVERYONE WHO WOULD EVER DOUBT THAT SOMETIMES THE BIRTH OF AN ACHIEVEMENT STARTS FROM SOMETHING VERY SMALL, A CONVICTION. THE REST IS STILL UNWRITTEN.
A few generations after, a girl, let's say a towering young girl with porcelain skin and the most delicate features ever, arrived in the New York of India, the buzzing Bombay city with equally big dreams. Ambitions that seemed unachievable for an outsider with no clue of the manoeuvrings of the glamour industry, the workings of Bollywood. To say that there were hiccups galore would be an understatement, but the part Kashmiri part English, Katrina Kaif decided to follow her destiny regardless.
When she decided to step into the limelight as a model, she was instantly noticed by ace photographer, Atul Kasbekar. She was even chosen as the face of 'Lakme', a prestigious contract that signals someone's arrival in the glam world. Being pretty to a fault has been one of her greatest advantages to date.
Continuing to model was the reason she got her break in a Bollywood movie 'Boom' directed by Kaizad Gustad. Although the film promised to be different and had a star cast that included Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff and the likes, it was built for disaster. The film boomed alright, but on the decline. Not just did her career fail to launch, the debutante got catastrophic reviews for her acting skills (or rather the lack of it) to her pronounced anglicized accent.
If the reviewers were being bitchy about her being linguistically challenged, she never allowed them to get to her, "It's not something one can't conquer. Actresses like Sridevi battled with the same issues and made it and survived in this industry," Kats had said this in her defence. A debut debacle like her's could've set a newcomer back by many steps, but strangely it didn't. Fact is makers didn't easily give up on her.
Maybe she didn't instantly attract good Bollywood offers but the home fires kept burning with an influx of South films, which offered her a handsome remuneration. Bollywood was more forgiving than Kats would've been given to believe. By this time she was getting seriously involved with Bollywood's brat Salman Khan. Something that might've started as an innocent flirtation began to develop into something more concrete. Things did swing for her a bit post her involvement with tinsel town's most influential actor.
Katrina's career got a new lease of life when she was signed up with her real life hero Salman Khan in David Dhawan's 'Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya'. It made the audience immediately replace her 'Boom' memories with a newer image that they didn't even know existed. It was a turnaround for her. Despite the presence of stalwarts like Sushmita Sen and Salman Khan, Katrina stood her own ground and thereafter managed to make a spot for herself under the sun.
Either it's just her own classy appeal or something to do with the clique she hangs around with, mainly Salman's family, Katrina never got any of the B-Grade film offers. It was always makers of some repute, be it an RGV who cast her as Abhishek Bachchan's Anglo girlfriend in 'Sarkar' or in Raj Kawar's 'Humko Deewana Kar Gaye' as Akshay Kumar's love interest.
"The fact that she worked with the bigger heroes tilted the stocks in her favour. Look at the heroes she's been paired with, Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, Govinda, Abhishek Bachchan, and Bobby Deol. In the future there's Saif Ali and John Abraham. Barring SRK and Aamir, it covers every hero in tinsel town," remarks a trade pundit. This must've been encouraging for Katrina who decided she was going to make the most of this second chance.
She herself admits that for quite some time, she gave up on everything else and made films her life. There's a sense of discipline that indicates a long distance runner. "Free time is a luxury for me," Katrina said in an interview, "For me I could still be polishing my diction, learning to perfect my dance skills. I could be constantly doing some homework."
That attitude coupled with her brilliant work ethics has made her an attractive proposition for the A-list makers. Katrina is known as a thorough professional in the filmy circles. Stories of walking out of films at the nth hour or making unreasonable demands from producers evade Katrina. She maintains a strict code of conduct on the sets by giving respect to everyone she works with, which surely gets her around. It's the reason why everyone on the sets of 'Race' stood by her through a particular incident.
Mallika Sherawat who was doing a special appearance in the film went about bad-mouthing Kats on the sets with the temptation of extracting a few laughs. But the idle gossip got Mallika nothing but a shame-on-you. The unit members it seems were particularly biased towards Kats, and didn't tolerate any loose talk about the actress. This kind of camaraderie is really rare in Bollywood circles where pulling someone down is a favourite time pass.
It's the reason makers who have worked with her in the past are enthusiastic about repeating her like. Vipul Shah who has cast her after 'Namastey London' in his next titled 'King'. And if there are any talks of a sequel to David Dhawan's 'Partner', Katrina's sure to make it to the cast list. 'Partner' where Kaif plays the love interest of Govinda, is her fourth hit film. The other three being 'Namastey London', 'Sarkar' and 'Maine Pyaar…' Indeed, this is really not a bad track record for a new comer. Audiences were surprised with Katrina's dubbing which had improved ten fold since before.
If all this seems a P.R exercise, Katrina's projects in the pipeline clear any doubts that she's fast heading towards the top five heroines countdown. Apart from Vipul Shah's next, the actress has an impressive follow up that includes Subhash Ghai's untitled venture, a Yashraj film, Abbas Mastan's 'Race' and 'Welcome'. An insider who doesn't wish to be named says, "It might be hard to believe but today makers believe that Katrina is a more fetching draw at the box-office than a Kareena Kapoor is.
In fact for some really high profile films Katrina was chosen over Kareena, which is not a small feat for a fresher." Katrina's chemistry with Akshay Kumar is much discussed and she's being considered for quite a few films with the action hero. Although it's rumoured that Akki personally recommends Katrina for his films, the truth of the matter or at least the one that matters is that she's bagging a substantial number of projects given Akki's own saleability as a star.
Kaif naturally admonishes these rumours as loose talk or idle gossip, something she refuses to indulge in. Her child-woman appeal makes her a hot prospect to be paired with almost every top hero. And given her clean image, there's a whole new window of opportunity that lies ahead if she ever decides to push the envelope on screen. She's said to have strict reservations about skin-show and she certainly doesn't like falling into a stereotype.
"I just want to do good work instead of sporting such meaningless tags," she said of falling into the sex-symbol trap, "The exposure has to be relevant to the film and its characters and not forced for the sake of titillation." It's not an extremist point of view, certainly not something you can thumb down as regressive. They can purely be viewed as qualities that are a throwback in some ways to movie stars of another era where talent wasn't weighed with item numbers.
In retrospect, it seems like it was indeed her destiny to be here making love to the camera with viewers as the happy voyeurs. She might've been able to successfully lure the audience and the critics to finally acknowledge her presence but Katrina does in no way feel she's
arrived. "Yes I think I've come a long way since when I stepped into the film business. But I feel like I have an equidistance to travel as far as work is concerned. And that's also an aspect of this line, you'll always be learning along the way. You can't ever say this is it, you're at the top of the game and you've reached perfection."
Seher Hone Ko Hai
