She took people back to the black and white era with her role in the period film "Parineeta". Then came her fashion faux pas and a dip in the career graph. But a careful and confident Vidya Balan is on the rise again in Bollywood.
Though at 33 she is just six years old in the Hindi movie industry, her oeuvre is so impressive that there was a Vidya Balan retrospective at the Indian film fest in two Australian cities.

From playing a foul mouthed, manipulative vengeful woman in "Ishqiya" to the mother of a progeria patient to a grieving sister in "No One Killed Jessica", Vidya has been proving her versatility with her nuanced handling of different characters.

Her much-talked-about forthcoming releases - director Milan Luthria's "The Dirty Picture", based on the life of Silk Smitha, south Indian cinema's sex symbol, and Sujoy Ghosh's thriller "Kahani" in which she plays a six-month pregnant woman - are expected to take her creativity to another level.

Applauding her work and choice of roles, director Sudhir Mishra said: "She is very brave and very gutsy. Hats off to Vidya. She will last longer. It will pay her off very well. She will be remembered as another kind of actress and remembered more than a lot of people. She should continue doing this kind of roles. She should do what she can do well. She should retain that uniqueness."