Actress Esha Gupta has some tips for the Bollywood hopefuls out there.

Esha Gupta gave up law to start acting without any industry connections. She reveals the secrets of making it big in Bollywood to Shiva Kumar Thekkepat

The lure of Bollywood is indisputable. As I sit, waiting at The Palace Downtown hotel in Dubai to interview

Humshakals actor Esha Gupta, I bump into a friend who, on learning why I am there, pleads to tag along so she, too, can get a glimpse of the star.

Does she like Esha for her looks or acting talent? I ask.

“Oh, I haven’t seen her films,” comes the sheepish reply. Apparently, what she has seen and heard of Esha – she was rumoured to be linked with heart-throb Hrithik Roshan – is enough to make anyone spend hours in a hotel lobby just to meet the star in person.

Although Esha has acted in only a few films including Jannat 2 (Heaven),

Raaz 3 (Secret) and Chakravyuh (Battle Strategy), and performed a couple of item numbers – the Bollywood term for dance sequences – in forgettable films, she is already in demand.

Recently in Dubai as a brand ambassador of local fashion house Splash, she’s already made it, if the number of journalists packed into the meeting room waiting to interview her is any indication.

And just like any Bollywood star of note, she keeps us waiting. It’s 45 minutes before we are ushered into a room to meet her. But she’s so charming, confident and, well, pretty, we immediately forgive her.

“When I was starting my career, I decided that I wanted to do different kinds of films,” she says. “Humshakals (Lookalikes) for instance, had me playing a really glamorous doctor, which is great for me as in real life I am not like that at all.”

She’s being very modest, of course, as she was a model prior to trying her hand at acting. But even then she had her priorities worked out. “I would only represent a brand that I think a middle-