Yes, today’s Union Minister did also take the country by storm once as Tulsi in ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ (2008)) for years on! During all that while, she had a very special bonding with GR8! and shared with us the choicest vignettes of her life, despite her reputation of being a closed book.

Here are a few of those vignettes that mirror the real Smriti...

On ‘growing up’...

Born to strictly middle-class parents, who both worked to sustain the family, Smriti (then Malhotra) was a bundle of contradictions in her growing years. Now introvert, now exploding, she was a Tomboy, who had no risk of being eveteased, because...

‘I was too ugly for that... And I was the local Gunda who would bash up boys... People would sympathise with my mother for having the burden of 3 Betiyaan and no Beta, but she would cut them short and snap - ‘I don’t want a Beta... My ‘Beti’ is good enough...!’ 

On ‘getting into Show World’...

It was more by accident than design when she filled up the Miss India form just for the heck of it. Miraculously, she was called for the prelims and all hell broke loose... ‘My mother stood by me, but dad was furious - ‘Ma-Beti ka dimaagh kharaab ho gaya hai’... I lost the competition, but decided to remain in Showbiz and more than anything else, it was because I wanted to be self-made and not to allow anybody construct my ‘future’ - not even my dad’...!

On getting ‘Kyunki...’

It was the second miracle happening to her. She had grabbed an itsy-bitsy role in Balaji’s, ‘Ghar Ek Mandir’. On the very first day, when she was to sign the contract, she bumped into Ekta Kapoor, who had a deep look at her and boomed, ‘Doosra Contract Lao’... ‘Yeah, and she said - ‘I’m making this mega Saas-Bahu serial and you are playing the lead in it’... just like that!

On ‘becoming an Icon’...

‘I’ve never understood this Icon bit... I was only doing a job... Suddenly, The ITA gave me an Award and that’s when this whole halo of an Icon started forming... Only The ITA Award made me feel like a Star for the first ever time’...!

On ‘Ekta Kapoor’...

The popular perception is that she and Ekta had been alter-egos who later tore apart, but she made us privy to the real fact about it... ‘No, I don’t get pally-pally with people that way, I was just an employee and she was the Boss – that’s all there is to it... I never went to her late-night parties, just did my job and when one day, in-between the run of the serial, she said - ‘Mar Jaao’, I didn’t blink an eyelid and parted’...!

On ‘marrying Zubin’...

It, too, was equally miraculous... ‘Our families knew each other and when my folks said, ‘ why not marry him? He is handsome !’, I cried - ‘Kya? Woh aur handsome? Uss se kaun shaadi karega? And look, here we are today - together and doing ‘chabarchabar’ 24x7’...!

On ‘Politics’…

She attributes her being a part of it because of the streak of activism that she has ever had...‘And as for BJP - my grandpa was a ‘Swayam Sevak’ and I was brought up in the BJP ambience...! And today she stands tall in it!

In the battle at the ‘hustings’, when Narendra Modi led BJP to a historic victory, Smriti Irani was like the party’s ‘Poster-girl’, what with being all over Television, rooting for Modi & BJP, most captivatingly. 

Still, the high pedestals do not matter to her, because...

‘If tomorrow I lose everything, I can still do Jhaadu-Patka at the McDonald’s, like I did during my struggle days!’