She pouts and preens. But you are in queue…. At Mumbai's Mehboob Studio, Mickey Contractor is putting the finishing touches on Bebo's (Kareena Kapoor) make-up. This is a silence zone. Make-up over, she will repair to the shooting floor where photographer Jatin Kampani awaits, lights and camera on the ready.

Her buddy, Niranjan Iyengar (who wrote the dialogue for Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and is here sporting a KANK jacket) has popped in to see her ("I've known her since she was nine and used to come for shoots with her sister".) Soham Shah, the Dharma Productions director, who made Kaal is here as well.

It will be a while before you can get your 15 minutes of Bebo's fame. You wonder how much you can pack into 15 minutes. You wonder if you can pack in anything at all.

You wonder.
You wonder if you should just document Bebo's silence. Her silence, did, after all, speak reams in Omkara. She is silent in her opening scene as she rides in the back of a cycle-rickshaw, an island of serenity in the chaos of UP traffic. She silently breaks down when she senses her relationship is on the rocks for reasons she cannot fathom. And she is silent in her closing scene, as she lies on a jhoola, the doomed bride in all her wedding finery. By the time her seething husband realises his folly, death has done them part. It is a different matter that death, ironically, reunites them just a few moments later.

You wander into Shakespeare terrain. You mull over the number of high profile films Bebo has turned down. Also, the number of high profile duds she signed on. Comedy of errors, anyone? On a more serious note, but still very much in the Bard's vein, you marvel at how she has graduated with honours from the school of hard knocks.

You decide you will muster the courage to talk about her failures and how they have shaped her. Sir William might have called it 'The Taming of Bebo'.

A STAR IS BORN AND UNMADE
As much as a Ford is born into automobiles and a Rockefeller into wealth, Bebo was born into the movies. The question was not whether she would get into the movies. The question was whether she would start her career with Kaho Naa Pyar Hai or Refugee.

She walked out of Kaho Naa… and did Refugee. It seemed a safe bet. One was a movie with the son of a failed actor. The other paired her with Bachchan Junior. This was a dream pairing, the prince and the showman's granddaughter.

If only she had read the tarot cards, the tea leaves. The Roshan and Roshan team hit bull's eye and continues an uninterrupted run of success, three films and six years into the millennium. Refugee sank without a trace. It began a nightmarish run of 17 duds for Abhishek till daddy dearest stepped in and team Bachchan and Bachchan struck gold with Bunty Aur Babli, Sarkar and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna.