The New Nation - Internet Edition

Toronto, Agency

The dimpled damsel of Bollywood, Preity Zinta, has effortlessly gone from being a star of hyped-up, big-budget crowd-pullers to an actress to take on the challenge of lending her name and talent to films rooted in the real world and its myriad issues.

Deepa Mehta`s 'Heaven on Earth,' in which Zinta plays a battered Punjabi housewife in Canada who is a victim of domestic violence has just had its world premiere in Toronto. Banish the thought, she asserts, "Popular Hindi cinema is my bread and butter," she said here on the sidelines of the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival. "The only thing that has changed is that today there is space for all kinds of cinema in the multiplexes in India. The demographics are no longer the same and I can now afford to do films of all hues."