Vidya Balan on her life in cinema and playing Shakuntala Devi

In talking about the new wave of women-centric cinema, it’s impossible not to credit Vidya Balan. The Bollywood star, last seen on the big screen in last year's Mission Mangal, evinced excitement about her upcoming straight-to-OTT film, Shakuntala Devi, in which she plays the titular character. "At first, I knew of Shakuntala Devi only as a ‘human-computer’ and her talent for performing calculations in record time. When director Anu Menon came to me with a one-pager and told me that we would be telling the story from the point of view of her daughter, I was intrigued. It humanises her; otherwise, you look at her only as a genius. She wanted to have it all and lived her life to the fullest. I find such women to be very inspiring," said Vidya Balan, to senior journalist Kaveree Bamzai, in a chat arranged as part of Time Pass, a series of webinars organised by The New Indian Express group. "She didn't let her gender get in the way of how far she got in life. She was not with guilt about having a life outside of being a mother. Often, you hear from the most successful women about how challenging it is to balance both. The complexity and contradictions excited me about her,” said Vidya, in this session presented by SRM Institute of Science & Technology.