By Subhash K. Jha
Mumbai, Dec 10 (IANS) After receiving flak from critics, Vidya Balan has now managed to impress them with her performance in “Paa”. The actress is now looking forward to “Ishqiya” and “Chenaab Gandhi” to strengthen her position and says she won’t do roles she doesn’t identify with.

“Isn’t that amazing? It’s taken a lot of getting used to. But I feel blessed. I’m done with trying to be someone I’m not,” Vidya, who will be seen as Amitabh Bachchan’s daughter in “Chenaab Gandhi”, told IANS.

“I went through a period of tremendous turmoil when I was struggling to do roles that didn’t come naturally to me. But now in hindsight I think that confusion helped me pick ‘Paa’, ‘Ishqiya’ and ‘Chenaab Gandhi’. It’s gratifying to know today directors think of me for specific roles and not just as one of many choices.”

Vidya became an overnight sensation after her debut film “Parineeta” (2005), but later earned flak for her clothes in “Heyy Babyy” and for doing a film like “Kismat Konnection”.

Thanks to director R. Balakrishnan’s “Paa”, in which she plays a single mother whose son suffers from progeria, a disease that accelerates the ageing process, she has regained past glory.

Though she played a perfect mother in “Heyy Babyy” and “Paa”, Vidya can’t get along with kids in real life.

“If I hold a baby for a while I get stressed. In ‘Heyy Babyy’, the baby would bawl every time I had to carry it. In ‘Paa’, I had to mother a man who was far older. It took a lot of getting used to. The fact that Mr. Bachchan kept referring to me as ‘Maa’ as soon he entered the sets, sure helped,” she said.

A lot is being said about her aesthetic clothes in “Paa”.

“All thanks to Sabyasachi Mukherjee I think he understood my body language and my personality perfectly. And he dressed me up beautifully without overstepping the parameters of my character.”