How Kareena Kapoor's career-changing film Chameli

 
Kareena Kapoor's on screen image transformed drastically with her 2003 film Chameli, a project she repeatedly said no to and was almost shelved after its director's death.

The year was 2003. Anant Balani was making a film on a sex worker in Mumbai. He wanted to cast Ameesha Patel, fresh from the double success of Kaho Na Pyaar Hai and Gadar. At the other end of the stardom spectrum, Kareena Kapoor--the newest face from the illustrious Kapoor family--was busy with masala entertainers like Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon and Talaash: The Hunt Begins. The two were not even on the same plane. How they converged not only ended up giving cinephiles a memorable film but also transformed Kareena's image and career. As the actor turns 42 on Wednesday, a look back at arguably her finest performance and how it almost never came to be.

Chameli, as we all know, was a small-budget, low-key film that told the story of a single night. The titular heroine was a saree-clad sex worker, completely de-glam and not like the heroines Indian audience was used to in their commercial films. It did not make sense for an actor like Kareena to be even approached for it. And she was never on filmmaker Anant Balani's radar. Ameesha Patel was the first choice.