Early Life and Background
Vidya Balan was born on 1 January 1978 in Ottapalam, a town in the Palakkad District of Kerala, to P. R. Balan, currently the Vice President of ETC India, and Saraswathy Balan, a homemaker. According to Balan, they speak a mix of Tamil and Malayalam at home; she is also well versed in Hindi, Marathi, English and Bengali. Her elder sister, Priya Balan, works in the field of advertising.
Balan grew up in the suburban neighbourhood of Chembur, Mumbai and was schooled at St. Anthony Girls' High School. Balan aspired to make a career in film from a young age and was inspired by the work of actors Shabana Azmi and Madhuri Dixit. At the age of sixteen, Balan starred in the first season of Ekta Kapoor's sitcom Hum Paanch, as Radhika, a bespectacled teenager. Following the success of the show, Balan refused Anurag Basu's offer to star as the lead of a television soap opera, as she wanted to concentrate on making a film career. Her parents were supportive of her decision to become an actress, but encouraged her to complete her education first. She thus attended St. Xavier's College to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology and later earned a master's degree from the University of Mumbai.
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