Despite all my flab overflowing, people say I was sexiest in The Dirty Picture: Vidya

Mumbai: Before her current lull at the box office, Vidya Balan broke stereotypes galore when she delivered back-to-back successes like ‘Kahaani’, ‘The Dirty Picture’, ‘Ishqiya’, among others, carrying the films solely on her shoulders.

The actress did that carrying with aplomb her curvaceous body or overweight as someone would put it, shattering another Bollywood stereotype of a typical slim actress.

In her upcoming film ‘Tumhari Sulu’, Vidya has again not had any inhibitions in flaunting her well-rounded physique as she plays a middle class housewife. In an interview with Indian Express, the actress opened up on her journey from being a ‘fat child’ till her current physical space.

Vidya said, “You know I was a fat child, but I was a happy child, I thought I was beautiful, that’s how I was made to feel about myself, at home. And then when I stepped out, people started telling me how I should lose weight and started teasing me too.

"And then while growing up as a teenager, you are bothered about the opposite sex and when you want their attention, all this becomes very crucial for and you start believing that maybe I won’t get the attention I need if I am not thin! I tried to lose weight, I went through crash diets, I spent a large part of my life dismissing and rejecting, and being sorry about my body. And then I realised that there is no end to it.”

But did anything change after entered the world of showbiz? “Becoming an actor had a huge role to play in that, at various points I lost weight, I worked out crazy, I starved myself, but my weight would come back because this is my body structure,” shared the actress.

Vidya then went to explain how despite her struggle to lose weight, she felt attractive and embraced her body the way it is, adding that her plump look in 'The Dirty Picture' is still considered her sexiest among her films.

"Whatever body I have been in, I have had desires, bodily desires. I felt attractive, it didn’t stop me from wanting to live my life to the fullest. So I realised that these are the limitations in other people’s heads which they impose upon me, because they have a certain ideal, and now I don’t fit into that and I am okay. I am not going to take away from the fact that I am still a living, pulsating human being. I decided that at least I should be on my side, because otherwise there is no end to rejecting your body and spending a lifetime doing that. But what really happens, it is not your body’s fault, your body needs at least one person on its side, and I said to myself that this is my body and I love it.”

She further said, “It is not that I haven’t tried, to an extent that I have killed myself some times, trying to lose weight, but it would come back on. I can keep wanting to be thinner, and I have realised that people all around want to be thinner, there is no end to it. If I do that to myself, I will be unhappy throughout thinking if I was a little less last week than this? Or I will wear that dress after losing weight, but ‘zindagi nikal jaati hai’ (life goes by), so I decided to live in this body and embrace it. But this happened only a few years ago, it happened after doing The Dirty Picture, where I had all my flab overflowing from everywhere, and people told me I was sexiest in that film among all the films I had done.”

Vidya spoke exactly like her character of a vivacious radio jockey in 'Tumhari Sulu', and now we are more eager to watch her on screen.