A self-trained actress, Tabu has acquired the reputation of being any director’s dream come true for the way she projects his vision beyond the confines of a script. Little wonder, the biggest names in the business — from Mani Ratnam and Subhash Ghai to Madhur Bhandarkar and Gulzar — have been seeking her out.

Recently, she completed a film for Gautam Ghosh in Bengali, Abar Aranye — a sequel to the Satyajit Ray classic, Ayanyer Din Ratri (Nights and Days in the Forest). It marks her debut in Bengali cinema and unlike her other non-Hindi films, Tabu has dubbed her parts in her own voice.

"My voice is so familiar that if somebody else had dubbed for me, it would have jarred," she explains. "With a little bit of effort, I knew would be able to learn Bangla and do the dubbing myself. Gautam-da has also been very encouraging..."

Another film she is looking forward to is M.F. Husain’s Meenaxi — A Tale of Three Cities. It is believed to be as abstract and convoluted as the Madhuri Dixit starrer, Gajagamini, but that does not worry Tabu: "I just wanted to work with Husain-saab and happily for me, it has been a learning experience. He is such an amazing person, that nothing seems a problem when you are with him on the sets!"

Clearly, Tabu has reached a stage in her career when she pick and choose her directors at will, state her price and not be bothered about the commercial prospects of her films. Yet, she is nowhere in the running for top billings as any other actress like Kareena Kapoor or Preity Zinta would be concerned.

"It is a state of self-assurance and complete self-contentment," she admits. "I could never imagine I would reach so far. But more than being satisfied with my success, I am happy I wasn’t born into all this. I feel bad for this generation, which keeps wanting more."

Scars of a broken home and a deprived childhood haven’t left Tabu yet. Today, as she drives a Mercedes and stays in a tastefully done up apartment in Mumbai with all the luxuries befitting a star, her mind flits back to Hyderabad, where her mother, a school teacher, could not even afford a proper bath soap for her.

"My grandfather, Mohammad Hassan was a free-spirited mathematics professor and he used to give me my daily pocket money of 25 paise," she recalls. "My grandmother taught English literature. There was hardly any money at home, but the values they ingrained in me from a tender age were priceless."

That essentially has taken Tabu to where she is. MF