Bhumi Pednekar breaks Bollywood's slim stereotype

In glamour-driven Bollywood, where almost every newbie actress boasts of her painstaking regime from fat to fit, Bhumi Pednekar, the new find of Yash Raj Films (YRF), takes pride in narrating her story of going from pudgy to fat.

To step into the shoes of the small town, plus-size Sandhya in Sharat Katariya's Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Bhumi munched on a customised calorie-rich diet for around a year to weigh about 89 kilos.

"That was the best phase of my life," said Bhumi, confirming she is a foodie. Her character is an attempt to break the rigid Bollywood fetish of having pictureperfect heroines.

 Although her film is not creating any record, the audience has been left spellbound seeing her play the journey of an overweight girl who breaks her complexes and emerges a winner in a rare Yash Raj film. And her unique portrayal is just a start as YRF has a three-film deal with her.

"I was always an overweight person who enjoyed her look and never had any apprehension about it. I was taught that beauty was all about how you feel from within," said Bhumi.

Surprisingly though, the actress, who impressed everyone with her unabashed full-size role, slimmed down immediately after the release of the film.

"I am not the type to worry about my size. I will continue to lose or gain weight for a film as per the requirement of a script," she claimed. In her debut film, she portrays a sari-clad traditional married woman but Bhumi would not mind donning a short skirt in upcoming films to "experiment with the boundaries".

"The on-screen changes happening in Hindi films are because of the audience's growing demands. Viewers are accepting offbeat characters," said 25-year-old Bhumi. A strong script made her character Sandhya stand out and made the complex relation with her husband (Ayushmann Khurrana) relatable. "It is high time we break the mould and come out of the inclination to have all characters appearing in a 'certain' way."

The Mumbai girl from a simple Maharashtrian family, who strayed into the world of acting, was content helping aspiring actors with auditions while working as an assistant to YRF's casting director Shanoo Sharma. Post Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Bhumi has emerged as the poster girl of the plus-size club and is flooded with cheerful messages from all over. "It's heartening to see people are proud of my character in the film. But the main intention was to narrate a simple idea. It's all about loving yourself as you are," stated Bhumi.