Former Miss World turned Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra gives a rare interview to our columnist DEVANSH PATEL
MAYBE it's because we normally see her in pretty dresses, speaking so exquisitely crisply, that it feels strange, paradoxical even, to be sworn at by Priyanka Chopra. Can she really have just blurted out 'kaminey' (meaning wretched), when all I asked was how would she describe her meeting with me?
But it's not long before the next one. The ex-Miss World laughs out loud when she sees my jaw drop.
She said: "I'm just kidding.
Kaminey isn't a swear word. It's just like calling someone stupid. It's fun. In fact, Dharamji made a career in acting out of that, so what's the big deal?"
Chopra has a new film out, Kaminey, and we are sitting in her posh Mumbai apartment, where she is briefed about my 'surprise' visit.
She asks me whether I remember the last time we ran into one another.
I put on my thinking cap and reply: "We met at Cineworld Feltham, London during your Love Story 2050 premiere."
I take out my first surprise - a laminated full page review of her film Fashion which appeared in the Observer last year.
After a second, she says: "I remember talking with you after you saw Fashion in London. You said it made people cry. Thank you for this."
Then she sits like a cat on her plumped-up sofa, grabs a dark purple pillow almost half her size and shrinks right into it.
There is something quite feline about Priyanka Chopra. When I talk about her work, she purrs. She speaks easily, and appears content and relaxed.
When I attempt to steer the conversation towards her life outside work, the claws come out. In a very good-natured, playful way, it has to be said.
At times the date feels like a sparring match, and she gives as good as she gets, if not better.
This is our third meeting and it's not that she's not polite, smiling and gorgeous. Her smile is sort of impenetrable.
It's a smile that puts me in my place and allows me to surprise her for the second time. She accepts it and rips the gift wrap apart.
"That's how I am. I like tearing things apart," she says, revealing the candle stand I had bought her and remarking how it matches the interior decoration.
"I like the way your house is touched up," I point out. "It's a cool mix of everything. Right from contemporary to traditional."
She says: "I told my friend Suzanne Roshan (Hrithik Roshan's wife) the kind of house I wanted.
"I like a lot of space and corners in my house. Where we are just seated is one of my favourite cosy corners.
"There is a music room which is another corner. I like it opulent and yet understated, which is why the chandeliers.
"The colours are very muted but it still has the splashes of red."
I was a male journalist who had fallen under the spell of this starlet and somehow imagined that there is something nicely ordinary about her.
"Nobody ever asks me out on a date. I don't know why. It ends up being like someone saying, 'Okay then, we'll see each other sometime.'
"I'd like my ideal date to be highly romantic, in a mushy kind of a way.
"But it has to be done originally. It can't be the flowers, the cakes, the chocolates, the champagne, the limo. Oh no."
I get a bit cheeky and continue from where she ends: "Nor the candle stand."
But Priyanka laughs: "Let me clear the air. Candles are good.
"Food is good too. But my date has to involve music, dancing and someone who can really look in my eyes deeply."
I dare to ask her: "How about him being a bit Kamina (a rogue)?"
Chopra takes it in her stride: "I like it a little bad too. It's fun."
She also reveals: "I hate cooking. You see, I'm a very moody person.
"There has to be something that keeps my attention as my attention span is very short.
"Movies, sleeping, reading and music is highly therapeutic for me. I can blast music in my ears, look out of my window and relax."
I ask the actress to suggest five films worth a watch by her worldwide audience this summer: "I highly recommend Jerry Maguire, The Motorcycle Diaries, The Omen, Breakfast at Tiffany's and the famous Bollywood classic romance Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge."
Just before we switched our conversation to films I said: "I just can't understand why a 'date' is a man's prerogative."
The cat pounces: "It will always be a woman's prerogative. Do not even try and change that.
"The guy will ask her out and the guy will come and pick her up.
"We like our chivalry.
"As much as we know we are a better species, do not do it. That's just how it is.
"My man's got to know where he wants to take me. Let him toil over it and go through the pain of trying to figure out where he should take me.
"I wouldn't want it any other way." She has developed a relationship with everyone that is magnetic, robust and stealthy. She's got something - a talent so special that movie moguls everywhere want to bank it and people everywhere want to treasure it.
She has got what it takes to be the best date: a good smile, and an even better attitude. I wouldn't want it any other way.
