Dhoni is very affectionate: Lakshmi Rai

Mumbai: Lakshmi Rai started young. She started modelling at the age of 13. "My parents were a little apprehensive and said okay, thinking I would only be walking the ramp. Being an actress was way beyond their imagination." But an actress she turned out to be, as she won the Miss Karnataka crown twice and there were a spate of Kannada and Tamil film offers.

"I was very young and didn't know where I was going. I met some really unscrupulous people too and experienced a lot of rubbish. But thankfully, my parents were with me all the time," she says.

Those things are in the past now. After having made a bit mark in the South, Lakshmi is all set to enter Bollywood. However, she has just backed out of Himesh Reshammiya's Hey Gujju. "I had agreed to do the film, but after watching Karz (Reshammiya's earlier film), I decided I cannot be a part of such films. I requested them to let me go," she says.

But what has worked in her favour is being linked to the captain of the Indian cricket team, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. "I know Dhoni since last year. He, along with the Indian team, came for my birthday party and we got along very well. Dhoni and Suresh Raina stayed on till five in the morning. We have been in touch since then and I can safely call him my best friend. For a long time even though we were meeting, people didn't write about us. But after 26/11, security was stepped up...Once Dhoni had come out to have coffee with me. I think the security leaked the story that we were together. Since then, there has been no stopping the stories about us," she says, with a laugh. "Dhoni is a gem of a person. No airs, no attitude, very humble and down to earth."

Lakshmi let's in on a secret: "Dhoni says he wants to get married within a year or two..." And would she accept it if he proposed? "Someone else had asked me this question too and I replied, Why not?" she says, with a giggle. "But Dhoni is the kind of guy any girl would want to marry, he is very affectionate andbalanced."