I wear boots for Diwali: Preity

Diwali is round the corner, and actress Preity Zinta is happy that she's back shooting on home turf after three long years, especially at this festive time of the year.


Seeming excited, the pouty actress spoke about her childhood when she got burned while celebrating Diwali. Displaying a scar on her foot, Preity recalled, "I was bursting crackers with my brothers Deepankar and Manish.

And I was wearing open sandals and jumping on a zameen chakri. The damn thing burst on my foot and I still have a scar to remember."

However, that little incident has not ruined subsequent Diwalis for Preity, for she added, "Now I wear my Harley boots for Diwali. And I'm extremely careful with crackers."

This has been a good year for her. According to the pretty, much slimmer Preity, she is enjoying a "180 degrees of change".

"This year has been very different for me. The brilliant Rituda cast me in The Last Lear where I flaunt a Bengali look. I felt quite odd wearing such a big bindi but that completely changed my look. I wore jhumkas and a saree, and that's not the usual Preity you know." Evidently enjoying her new phase of diverse looks, the actress added, "And now I want to have a new face. This is my year. I don't have anything to prove to anyone. I want to do things my heart wants to do."

But it's not just movies which are uppermost on her mind now. The extrovert actress' heart beats for the many women-related causes she supports in India.

She said, "India is a young country and education is important. There are lots of young mothers who can be made aware about hygiene, HIV, etc.

So that they could take care of a generation ahead. My biggest concern is female infanticide in north India. We notice so many sexually-inclined crimes and they are on the rise because the proportion of man-women is destabilised badly."

She added, "When I was young, my dad told me, 'In life try everything once. But don't get pushed into it.' In life, we can all make different choices. What is unfortunate is when women do not have choices. They are paraded from the kitchen to the bedroom. Don't you think that in Mumbai, if dance bars were reopened, this would bring down the crime rate against women?"