So, I wasn't really looking forward to a freewheeling chat. But I was in for a surprise.

"Some tags just stay," said Shiney, who, I must say, was not at all like what I had been warned about. "To convenience themselves people slot you in a particular type and then everything you do is turned around to fit the image they have created. I frankly don't care what people say. I am doing my work with the passion and dedication needed and will continue to do so."

Laughing away the controversy of being thrown out of producer Samir Sheth's Fame, he said, "I never signed Fame. I did not like the script, so I declined to act in it. About Drona, I did not know Abhishek Bachchan was acting in it. All I knew was a that they were offering me a negative role which I did not want to do."

For a guy who came to Mumbai with Rs 16,000, two t-shirts and jeans, worked in umpteen ad films and waited for three years for his first feature film to release, Shiney seems to be doing well now. He owns an apartment in a western suburb of Mumbai. He has not yet made it to the Bollywood A-list, but is climbing his way from the festival poster boy image to a saleable actor with successes like Woh Lamhe and Gangster under his belt. His upcoming films Khoya Khoya Chand -- with director Sudhir Mishra, who gave him his first break with Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi -- and Anurag Basu's Metro also look promising.