Vidya Balan bares soul on her love affair with Kolkata

Half the reason she agreed to act in 'Kahaani' was because the backdrop of the film was Kolkata, her "favourite city", Vidya said. "I was teling Sujoy (director Sujoy Ghosh) the other day that half the reason I did this movie was it had the backdrop of my favourite city and the characters looked so familiar," Vidya said.

Vidya Balan

The actress was talking to reporters after being conferred the Prabha Khaitan Purashkar 2012 by Calcutta Chamber of Commerce recently. "Right from my first feature film 'Bhalo Theko', to Pradip Sarkar's 'Parineeta' and even the character of Manjulika in 'Bhool Bhulaiya' - all these characters gave me so much that I feel at times I am a Bengali," she gushed.

She went on to say that whenever she stepped out of the airport, she felt a strange feeling as if she had all along lived here. "It appears so familiar to me and I always look forward to meeting some of my old-time Kolkata friends over and over again," she said.

"My family in fact says this loyalty to Kolkata has probably something to do with past life. I do not know that, but may be because I keep coming here and my love of Bengali language," Vidya said.

Continuing with her ode to Kolkata, she said that the very second film in her career was Goutam Halder's Bengali film 'Bhalo Theko'. She also professed her admiration for Satyajit Ray and regards Rituparno Ghosh's films highly. "I count Rituda as one of my most favourite Bengali directors," she said.

Asked about any other Bengali project after 'Bhalo Theko', she said she had not got any offer recently. She is next starring in Raj Kumar Gupta's 'Ghanchakkar' opposite Emraan Hashmi.u00a0