Sherlyn ka 'dard'

While I was sitting at the drawing room of Bollywood's wannabe starlet Sherlyn Chopra, my eyes caught the attention of her childhood photographs, placed artistically on her pin board. For a while I was a bit confused, and mistook those chubby cheeks baby as someone else.

While sipping brewing black coffee, she looked at the photograph and said, "That's me. I have not allowed anyone at my place, so people have not noticed this. Not many people know that I used to be a chubby kid," says Sherlyn.

"When kids of my age got all the attention at birthday parties, I would be cornered. I used to look at those pretty girls and ask my mother why I was not as pretty as they were? Why was I so fat?

My mother would embrace me and explain that I was the prettiest. As a kid I believed her, but soon I realised that it was a sweet lie.

When I planned to join the world of glamour, everyone in my family and my relatives made a huge mockery of it. They thought, with a face and a figure like this I could not be a star. They were correct, so I had to defy the rules of nature and fight my own battle," she says.

Sherlyn's battle was with her bulges, and she started grooming herself, "I won a beauty pageant as Miss Andhra Pradesh, but I knew for a fact that this title would not fetch me a ticket to Bollywood. I was far below standard compared to Bollywood's standard. It was then that I thought of going through liposuction. I had to reduce weight, and my doctor helped me get a body I'd dreamt of," she admits without any qualms.

While most of these stars are following rigorous diets and reduce weight healthily, why did she opt for an operation? "You must be kidding me!" she chuckles. "You think they lose weight by just following diet charts? Then the doctors would have starved to death. In fact most of them have gone under scissors. Some are courageous enough to talk about it, while others pretend to be morally correct," she adds.

But it seems that you are hogging publicity by saying that you have undergone liposuction. Is this true? "Please contact my doctor Hemant Kumar. He is a Hyderbad-based surgeon. If you are sweet to him, he might give you the intricate details of the surgical procedure, not only the date and duration of surgery, the cost of surgery and the amount of fat sucked out," she replies. But why does she choose to talk so openly about liposuction, when it's not really the right way to lose weight?

"Mujhe jo sahi lagta hai main woh karti hoon. Getting liposuction done is not the same thing as getting an abortion done. One can do any damn thing with one's body fat as long as one is in the hands of medical experts," she makes it clear.

Currently, Sherlyn is busy with her latest music video Dard-e-Sherlyn. "That's something close to my heart. My first music video Outrageous did fantastic business and then Bhushan Kumar from T-Series wanted to come up with another album. This time, it's a Bollywood remix. I have written and composed the English track in the song. The video is choreographed by Remo," she informs.

It seems that the video is a tribute to Hema Malini. "Yes, but it was not intentional. I mean, I wanted a few really gripping lines which would speak about my 'dard'. The album is in English, but I have used a few lines from Hemaji's 'dard' song from the film Dus Numbri, which was sung by Asha Bhonsle. Keeping Hemaji's sensuality in mind, I have tried to do something Indian in this music video," adds Sherlyn.

Much has been written about her role in Yash Chopra's next starring Shahid Kapoor and Rani Mukherji to be directed by Anurag Singh. It is believed that she has blink and a miss role. "Why would they want me to take a month long workshop session for a 'blink and you'll miss' role," she smiles.

It seems that when someone from Yashraj saw Sherlyn Chopra, they were astounded. They thought that she was anorexic. "Now, that came like a surprise for me too. While they have asked most of their actresses to lose weight, I think I am the only one whom they have asked to put on some meat," she laughs.