Isha Koppikar, who came to Bollywood via the South, also pioneered the Item Girl with Khallas in Ram Gopal Varma's Company.

Not that there haven't been item songs through the decades before her, or better danced numbers either, but it was the RGV hype machinery at work and Isha zoomed to the top. Luckily for her, she got some meaty roles too and proved that she is no mean actress.

Followed Koena Mitra, but immediately started biting if she was referred to as an Item Girl, for she professed she was an actress, not just an an item.

The box-office, however, is still to concur. That way Isha has been more successful and much more professional. Maybe, a little lucky too.

Now, Isha plays a very challenging lead role of a woman gangster in Shabri. She clarifies that it is not actually the story of a woman gangster. It is just how a woman makes her way in this male-dominated world

. Isha is also doing Atul Agnihotri's Hello based on the recently published novel, Chetan Bhagat's One Night at the Call Centre.

Her costars here are Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sohail Khan and Amrita Arora. Like a good girl, item or otherwise, Isha did her homework well by reading the novel several times, before she sank her teeth into the film script. - (SAMPURN)