While other Bollywood actors are busy hunting forpriyanka exotic acting opportunities abroad, Priyanka Chopra is singing her way to international fame. Her huge fan base in India has now extended abroad with her new avatar as a pop sensation. Having released her first single In My City featuring international pop star Will.I.Am, Chopra, recently released another single,Exotic featuring none other than popular rap artist Pitbull. The success of the song is still to be gauged, but she is being applauded for playing an important part in hoisting the Indian flag on western shores. In a candid chat, Chopra talks about adding the much-needed Indian flavour to her new single, Pitbull’s reaction to the desidance moves and getting nostalgic about Dostana while shooting the swimsuit sequence. Take us through the making of Exotic. How did the single happen? The producers, Red One and I were discussing about releasing my next single. They zeroed in on the word ‘exotic’ as a title as they felt it was the best description for me. The next step was to add some desiness to it, and so I showed the producers some Bollywood songs. Apart from flaunting Bollywood moves, I wanted the song to have nice, peppy lyrics in Hindi and therefore we added the verse. I personally wrote the lyrics of the Hindi catchphrase — Pardesi babu ne iss dil ko maan liya hai — in 10 minutes and everybody just loved it.But it is the ‘Indian’ element in your video that has been getting a lot of flak… Exotic is my song, and I wanted my music to be true to what I am. I love Hindi movie dancing. At parties, I end up doing thumkas even on international numbers. Adding Indianness to Exotic, was completely my idea. People keep asking as to why I did not wear a saree in the song, to bring in the Indianness, but come on, it’s a pop song after all, you don’t think so much. You just dance and enjoy.

I am happy that it got two million views in less than two days of its release. Richard Jackson, who’s known to be the choreographer for Lady Gaga, choreographed your song. How did he respond to your desi move additions to the song? Yes, Richard has been Gaga’s choreographer, but now he will be known as Priyanka’s choreographer too (laughs). These were the instant desi steps that came to me while shooting. He loved the steps and incorporated it in the song. In fact, everybody on the sets liked the desi moves, and would keep doing those steps all the time! Didn’t he give you any signature Lady Gaga steps considering her immense popularity? No, we did not incorporate any Lady Gaga steps as I did not want it to be compared to anyone; I wanted it to be unique to me. We hear you shot the song in a minimal amount of time. Yes, I shot the entire video in two days. It was really hectic. I made my team slog to wrap it up on time. What are the comments that you are getting from the Bollywood film fraternity? My friends in Bollywood saw the video before it released. How can I talk about the compliments I received from them? It would seem as if I am bragging about myself. They posted great messages on Twitter, you can check them out. Do you plan to use your international songs and music in your films too? Frankly, I am a very organic person and certainly not a big planner, but I would like it if film-makers showed interest in using my pop numbers in their films. Your swimsuit sequence in the song reminds us of Dostana. Did it get nostalgic for you? Oh yes, it made me think of the lovely, bling swimsuit that I wore in the Dharma project. TheExotic one is pretty too. There was a feeling of déjà vu as just like the movie sequence, even this song was shot in Miami — same city, same water! Did you take up any routine to look perfectly fit for the swimsuit shots? Luckily, at that time, I was getting trained for the Mary Kom biopic. Since I play a boxer, I was already going through a rigorous training and it just helped me look ‘swimsuit perfect’.