Delhi Belly with its brazen humour, tongue-in-cheek odes to rock and care-a-damn attitude to propriety still retains the buzz it generated, months before its release. It gave the jaded cinema audience a refreshing reason to throng the theatres, it gave theatre owners a reason to smile thanks to its housefull pull and it gave us a heroine we could relate to, a fresh new face. Poorna Jagannathan's. Poorna isn't your average Indian movie heroine. Curly bedroom hair, a sardonic smile perpetually playing at the corners of her mouth, kohl lined typically south Indian eyes and a don't-give-a-damn, unfazed attitude, all this was Poorna playing the part of Menaka, a journalist, to the hilt. When I met her in Mumbai, I could see a lot of Menaka in her, with softer edges though. She laughs a lot, is easy to talk to and this will come as a big disappointment to her male admirers, is happily married with a child too! Her 38 years rests lightly on her petite frame, in the movie she could've fooled anyone into believing that she was a mere 20 something. She is married to Azad Oomen, a half Malayali and half American who runs an NGO, Poorna lives in New York with him and Anav, her five-year-old who incidentally loves the cheeky D K Bose song.

Born to south Indian parents, her father is a Diplomat, mom a 'simple south Indian' woman, Poorna retains some aspects of south Indian culture in her life. 'My wedding was typically south Indian, nine-yard-saree et al' she states. Thair Sadam (curd rice) is her comfort food and so are other south Indian delicacies. She went through the south Indian custom of Seemanthan when she was pregnant and wore a 9- yard-saree once again for it. She's been almost all around the world with her parents and was born in Tunisia, moving every three years, with three years of high schooling in New Delhi too, and living in Pakistan, Argentina, Brazil and Ireland. She currently lives in LA and New York. So how did a woman living in the US land up a part in a Bollywood movie? The answer is related to a saree and choli and a blackjack table!

She had accompanied her husband to a fund raising event in New York. The theme of the event was casino. Her husband was busy with the organizing chores, so a bored Poorna drifted to a blackjack table. The prize for winning the highest amount at blackjack was two tickets to India, Poorna won it, 'the first time ever that she won something.'

Six months later Poorna was in Chennai for a cousin's wedding, and though she was wearing a traditional saree, she wanted a sexy choli to go with it, her friend, who happened to be connected to the film designed the choli as well as her tryst with Bollywood! He mentioned that there was a part in Delhi Belly for which they hadn't found anyone, and she seemed tailor made for it. Intrigued, Poorna went to meet the people connected with the film and even as she walked in, the writer knew he had found his Menaka. Later he told her, what Poorna considers one of the best compliments she's received for the film, ' Until you walked in I felt my writing hadn't worked!' A 1000 women had auditioned for the role, but it had Poorna written all over it! Incidentally, all the characters of Delhi Belly are inspired from real characters and their names too are of real people, however it was only the part Poorna played that was totally the writer's creation. Yet, it was Poorna who he had written about!

Karmic connections have been around in her life from early on, 30 years ago as an 8-year-old, she went with her uncle to Chennai, where she still has a lot of family, to meet Charuhassan. Her uncle and Charuhassan were close friends. That's where she met actress Suhasini for the first time. One look at her and Poorna was drawn to her and it was the same with Suhasini too. The chemistry between the two was so strong that, she refused to go home with her uncle and wanted to spend the night there, she ended up staying there for a whole month! It was during this time that she visited film sets with Suhasini, her first brush with the celluloid world.

She went back with wonderful memories of it all, ncluding a big crush on actor Kamalahassan!

Poorna's family loved Delhi belly, though her mother couldn't really fathom what was happening in the fast paced caper! Her family was in India for a special screening of the movie, and she was watching the movie with her husband and everyone cracked up at the scene where when Imraan Khan asks her 'Who's the A*%@#$*? And she replies, 'My husband'! She has appeared in many American television shows like Royal Pains, Numbers, The Game, Law and Order and Love Monkey amongst others.

Poorna will soon be seen in Oscar winning director Bruce Beresford's Peace Love and Misunderstanding alongside the legendary Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener. Poorna is actively involved with a theatre group from New York ? Barrow, and her theatre is the reason she moved to New York from LA with her family. She is also a juror on the New York Indian Film Festival.

Poorna works as a Brand Strategist for her own company Cowgirls & Indians, her bright orange business card has a durgaesque woman in a cowboy hat and her designation simply reads Chief. Fitting for a woman who wears many hats, is essentially Indian and going by the recent success of her film, Chief too fits her pretty well!