Having seen her colleagues beaten to death (figuratively) because of their alleged link-ups, Sonam Kapoor has decided not to get into any romantic rendezvous with her co-stars. Her romance with director Punit Malhotra has been ambiguous “It will always be ambiguous. Whether I am dating him or not is not the question, the fact is I am uncomfortable talking about it. I am very young, once I decide I want to to get married, I will talk about it,” she says. 

Often pitted against contemporaries like Deepika Padukone and Sonakshi Sinha,Sonam say’s that the "war" is just a media creation. According to the 25-year-old all the leading ladies of Bollywood can find their own place under the sun. "We all have been here for some time now and are trying to do our best. Why create a sense of war among us? I don't see any kind of rivalry here and there is no point in comparing one with other. The good part is that all of us are very different from each other. If you look at Deepika or Anushka, we are all poles apart. As for Sonakshi, I can't even think of getting competitive with her. She is a very good friend of my sister and has practically grown up with me," said Sonam.

A far cry from the pampered star kid that she is perceived to be, Sonam is fiercely independent. “I take all my decisions myself, financial decisions included. My car was bought with my own money and I am paying the EMI for it every month. I hate it though,” she says with a smile.

“If people think I lead a very cushy life just because I don’t come from a 2 bedroom house somewhere, they are mistaken. My mother wouldn’t allow any of us to be spoilt. We didn’t go to posh filmi schools, we went to Aarya Vidya Mandir and then I was packed off to a boarding school, where nobody knew who my dad was. I do all my work by myself. I do all the ghar ka kaam…everything. We have learnt the hard way that we can’t take things for granted. Perhaps that’s the reason why I have my values sorted out. ”

She is looked at as a fashion icon, does she wish people looked beyond that too?“I hope they do,” she says. “I came into the industry people looked at me as this gharelu girl. As time passed, people started noticing my clothes. I dress differently because I don’t want to be part of the herd, but eventually people will look beyond it.”

Sonam says men have it easier everywhere, especially in this industry. “If you want to survive here, you have to take the back seat. You can’t possibly dictate terms. The hero will always get the bigger van, bigger room, bigger paycheques… Dad was asking me the other day, ‘If you aren’t well, why couldn’t you get the shoot cancelled, I used to do it when I was not well,’ I told him, ‘Dad, you could do it because you are the hero, the heroine doesn’t have the luxury of doing that.’

Is this her dad's decision or her own, to live on her own income? "It's both, because my dad did not launch me. He had nothing to do with me for the first few years of my career.I started working at the age of 18 and since then, I haven't taken a penny from my parents. I've had my struggles. I've worked as an assistant director, which is no better than being a peon. At 18, I've taken the train and have earned '3000 as salary and lived on it, really lived on it. Nobody knows that I pay my own bills. My dad has never bought me a designer thing. My first designer bag was a small Chanel bag from London, which I bought myself. My parents have given me everything, but they haven't given me the luxuries people think they've given me.

Ask her if she envies any actresses and pat comes the reply, “Priyanka Chopra. She lives her life like a man and I love that. She is someone who doesn’t have all that other heroines do, but she still manages to be one of the top actors of our country. And I envy Kareena’s beauty. She is very beautiful.”

She speaks her mind, a trait that has created many a controversy "I am a blunt person and lot of people cant take it and I am fine with it . I think the world is not used to people who are direct and honest, who can call a spade a spade. But I don't have anything negative to say about anybody. So my dad is just okay with me being extremely straightforward and direct, instead of being a coward and sucking up to everybody, and doing things which are not needed to be done, because he feels that hard work and talent are the only things that can get you through," explains Sonam.

How was it working in Players with such a huge ensemble cast, especially Abhishek Bachchan “I am very fond of AB. He is really kind hearted. A decent, well brought up amazing human being. He has no hang-ups or starry tantrums. He is really great to work with. I had a fun time with Bipasha Basu too.”

What about Aishwarya Rai Bachchan? She was supposedly miffed with you one only hear about how she doesn’t get along with her female co-stars “Maybe that’s because they don’t get along well with her. Ever thought of that? She is really chilled out. I shared a van with her.I have to say that Aishwarya has always been nice to me. If she had a problem she never told me about it. She was super sweet to me when I met her. We met at Abhishek’s birthday party and we chatted for a really long time. She is lovely.