Ms Alternative
You know," says Ayesha Dharker, "it is all so dependent on glamour." So, she has chosen the route few tread here, of substance. And it's a dream. She's fresh from a best actress award at Cairo for playing Malli, the human bomb in Santosh Sivan's Terrorist. In Dev Benegal's Split Wide Open, she plays a paedophile's daughter. In both, her face draws her art; it's what Sivan describes as one which "captures your mind even when the sound is cut".

Ayesha started out at nine, the lead in a French production called Maneka, The Girl Who Lived Twice. Next it was the rickshaw puller's daughter in City of Joy, with Patrick Swayze, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri and Art Malik. "It was like film school." Meet the graduate.