He’s a familiar face on the ramp and he’s also trying to make it in tinsel town. Model Aditya Bal is one of the country’s top male models and he has also featured in music videos like Tarana’s Yeh Kaun Hai and Abhijeet Pohankar’s Piya Bawari. “I want to act more than anything else, though as a kid I wanted to be a lorry driver, so that I could roam around the country and eat at the dhabas,” says Aditya.

Aditya, who is the nephew of ace designer Rohit Bal, starting out by helping his architect father and then moving into the glamorous world of modelling. His break came when he entered a contest organised by fashion designer Ashish Soni. Among the five male winners was Aditya who went on to model the designer’s Fall-Winter collection.

Soon there were assignments for Maruti, Liberty and Levi’s Jeans and Aditya never looked back. Having rubbed shoulders with the likes of Dino Morea, John Abraham and Arjun Rampal on the ramp, it was the success of these model-turned- actors that convinced him to try his hands at acting. His debut, Afzal Ahmed Khan’s Mashooqa (2005) was forgettable, he admits. But he insists that it has got him several offers such as Nandita Singha’s Main Rony Aur Jony, where he plays a comic role as an unsuccessful artist. He now has three more projects in his bag, two of them being crossover films.

Shivani Bedi is Bal’s first cousin and is an advertising professional. She’s hails from an army family and calls herself a ‘military brat’. Because her father was posted around the country frequently, she ended up studying in about 11 or 12 schools in places like Kalimpong, Dharamsala, and Chandigarh, among others. “I have roamed all over the country and it’s been great fun. But I did my graduation from Pune, studying commerce. Later I went on to study animation in Pune as well,” she says.

The 27-year-old Bedi joined a production house, Far Commercials in 2001, where she worked as an assistant director for two-and-a-half years. Gradually she decided to strike out on her own and has been freelancing ever since. When she talks about her relationship with her cousin, what stands out is that she thinks of him as a “big brother”. “Be it the fact that he likes to advise and philosophise, or that he is so protective, that’s how I think of Aditya,” she says with a big smile.

Aditya:

Shivani is my maternal uncle’s daughter and a very intelligent and honest person. I have always thought of her as my own sister and not a cousin even though we never lived in the same city while we were growing up. My uncle was in the army, so Shivani and her family were always on the move. Meanwhile I grew up in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. There were, however, those family vacations with our grandparents when we used to all get together and have loads of fun. As kids, we used to play boy games such as cricket, football and we’d also play a lot with toy guns. I remember Shivani used to be very enthusiastic even at those times.

There is a four-year age gap between Shivani and me. On my maternal side, she is the only sister among a host of brothers. So yes, she is special. Also the women on my maternal side are very peaceful and serene even though they are sardarnis. And all of them cook very well.

Though I don’t know how good a cook she is, I must say that Shivani is an amazing baker. This one time, she baked a batch of cakes. I remember it from our recent vacation in Madhya Pradesh when my parents, younger brother and Shivani visited her parents. They stayed in the Mhow Army cantonment there. Those are some fond memories that I share of her and the family ? our walks to the dam and the lakes, the night picnics, parties and sessions of Dumb Charades. We enjoyed ourselves to the hilt.

We live in the same city now. While I live in Bandra, she stays in Santa Cruz. So we are near each other geographically. Once a fortnight we meet up. She either drops by at my place or I go over to hers for a long chat. It’s funny that you might be in the same city and yet not get the time to catch up. However, we still keep bumping into each other now and then ? at an editing studio or a show.

Shivani:

Iused to meet Aditya during our winter vacations, which would extend over three long months. The meeting point was Delhi. Aditya and his family would come down from Kashmir and we would reach Delhi from wherever we were. Both our grandparents stayed in the city. I was the only girl among the four of us ? Aditya, his brother Pranav and my brother, Arjan. So I used to end up playing cricket with them. Inevitably I would be on the boundary as a fielder because I could never last with the bat for more than three seconds. But there were no issues between us ? that I was a girl and interfering in their games. Maybe that’s because I was such a tomboy and also becasue of the fact that we would hardly meet each other.

Those vacations are redolent with memories of beautiful picnics in Lodhi Gardens and hanging out at Aditya’s grandparents’ place in Jor Bagh. There was a room on the second floor where the four of us would be jumping up and down all day long. We were creative as well. There was the song Supercalifragilistic Expialidocious from the film Mary Poppins that was a favourite with us. We would choreograph moves to that song and freak out. Or we would fill up a rubber dinghy and pretend we were sailing down a river.

Aditya is a really sweet brother. He is always full of advice. He might not look it, but he is the ultimate homemaker. He loves to do up the house, something which also reminds me that he is an excellent artist as well. I remember the paintings that he did when he was in school. Also, he’s a great cook. He whips up some delicious pastas and salads whenever I visit him. Besides all this, he is also a very typical guy. So during Rakhi, when we were young, he would gift me teddy bears that were chosen by his mother. Nowadays though he gifts me nice, funky clothes that he picks out himself from his trips across the globe. Once he even gifted me a Zippo, which I really liked. But at that point, I used to smoke. I have given up smoking now.

Photograph by Gajanan Dudhalkar