Between Kahaani and Kahaani 2, what accounts for Vidya Balan's lack of success?

Near the end of the last decade and the beginning of the ongoing one, Vidya Balan rose like a phoenix and became a name to be reckoned with in Bollywood. It was miraculous. Anurag Kashyap called Vidya the female Aamir Khan and the female Amitabh Bachchan of Bollywood, titles which the actor graciously accepted as compliments. It was a great time. Critical acclaim. Commercial success. Then came a strange lull and Vidya faded into the background as newer, competent female Aamir Khans took centre-stage.

Where did Vidya Balan go wrong? Did she suddenly lose her ability to pick the right script? Did Vidya Balan become stale and repetitive overnight? Did she underestimate the competition? We can never know, only Vidya can.

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Regarding her streak of box-office failures, starting from 2013's Ghanchakkar to 2015's Hamari Adhuri Kahani, Vidya Balan recently told India Today that her process of choosing roles has always been the same, irrespective of the commercial fate of her films.

"I obviously want each and every film of mine to do extremely well. That goes without saying. But I am also not looking at Kahaani 2 as a saviour. As far as I am concerned, nothing has changed. I still choose my roles the way I did earlier," said Vidya Balan.

Vidya added, "There are no regrets in doing any of them (her failed films). I don't think one can analyse or figure out why they failed. I'm not superstitious but I do feel har film ki kismat hoti hai."

Vidya Balan might just be right. There was nothing, nothing in Kahaani that could predict its humongous box-office success. Likewise for Ishqiya and No One Killed Jessica. One can pretend to believe in things like 'Content is king' and while they make great headlines, they are simply not true. Or films like Shanghai, Masaan and Island City would be Rs 100-crore films.

Barring the exception of The Dirty Picture, none of Vidya's best films (Paa, Ishqiya, Kahaani, No One Killed Jessica) were destined to be hits, let alone break even at the box office. These were risky films and their success changed the game. Suddenly, Vidya Balan showed that it was okay for a young female actor to be the central protagonist of the film (and play a mother, such as in Paa, or play a role equal in depth as that of men, such as in Ishqiya) because it could, just maybe, become a blockbuster.

If not for Vidya's phenomenal success in this period, we would not have got Kangana Ranaut's Tanu Weds Manu and Queen, Sonam Kapoor's Neerja, Anushka Sharma's NH10, Deepika Padukone's Piku and the entire second half of Alia Bhatt's career, post Highway.

So, what happened with Ghanchakkar and everything after that?

It was never Vidya Balan's fault. She was as committed to and sincere with all her projects. However, Vidya never quite became the 'female Aamir Khan'. A Khan can make a film a blockbuster simply by existing in it. That's just how it is in this Khan-loving, Khan-worshipping country of ours. That is because of pure star power cultivated over decades. If a Vidya Balan, with a few hits in her kitty, does a film a little too strange (Ghanchakkar) or a little bit trite (Bobby Jasoos), she cannot drag the project up from abyss just banking on her stardom. Vidya is not that big a star to get away with mediocrity. And there's a reason for it.

Regardless of the success of Queens or Highways, the Indian film industry has always been and to a major extent, is still structured in a way that the best-written roles of the year go to the men and not the women. Therefore, over the years, Bollywood's men have had time to build their careers, following, image and so on, while female actors were always relegated to play second fiddle to them. Hence, women were never positioned to be stars, independent of their male co-stars. The day a woman becomes a 'pure star' in Indian cinema has not arrived yet.

To be fair, times are slowly changing. With female actors, including those as young as Alia Bhatt, making bold film choices, there will be a time when we will have bonafide female stars as big as the men of Bollywood.

So, at such a crucial juncture, when women are slowly carving out their space in Bollywood as competent performers who can be great in their own right instead of hiding behind their male co-actors, the Balans and the Bhatts do not have the luxury to work in mediocre films, unlike their male counterparts. It takes years of quality work and good will to become a star and bland, monotonous albeit well-intentioned films like Shaadi Ke Side Effects and Hamari Adhuri Kahani cannot work in favour of Vidya.

With Kahaani 2: Durga Rani Singh, Vidya Balan gets back with one of her best directors, Sujoy Ghosh. If this, Srijit Mukherji's Begum Jaan and the biopic on writer Kamala Das do not fare well at the ticket counters or in the notebooks of critics, Vidya's Kahaani might just end adhuri and abruptly.

(The writer tweets as @devarsighosh.)