Romance has often been written in excess in Hindi cinema. Grand gestures, swelling violins and declarations are synonymous to romantic offerings. Yet only a handful of actors have understood that love, at its core, is quieter and more complex. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan belongs firmly in that rarefied space. Over a career spanning more than two decades, she has portrayed love not as a single emotion, but as a spectrum. She has been portraying love in all its phases, namely desire and devotion, restraint and rebellion and sacrifice and selfhood.Aishwarya is not just a romantic heroine.