It was past midnight when a sleepy actress reached for her jangling cell phone in a Goa hotel room. "Hi, this is Paul McCartney," said the voice in a Liverpudlian accent, "must say you look like Sophia Loren." "Yeah right," drawled Beatles fan Bipasha Basu, convinced it was someone's idea of a prank. But it was Mahesh Bhatt's familiar voice which came on next to confirm it was indeed Sir Paul who was watching her in a special screening of Raaz.

At 23, Basu has a hard time deciding what's better-comparisons with a screen legend called the eighth wonder of the world or her second film Raaz, which is packing in audiences in all over the country. In the four weeks since its release in January, it has grossed Rs 9.5 crore and the producers expect the figure to touch Rs 15 crore in the next few weeks. This makes it a very successful film in terms of investment: it was made for a piffling Rs 4.5 crore-or the salary of a big star like Sunny Deol. Pundits say the film's secret lies in its slick marketing, music and Basu's incredible sex appeal. On her part, Bips, as she is called in the industry, accepts the label in husky voiced gratitude: "Sexy is the biggest compliment you could give anyone."

Raaz-a reworking of What Lies Beneath and Fatal Attraction suitably Indianised with the Savitri-Satyavan angle-broke the industry truism that the supernatural genre was strictly C-grade fare. It was so for nearly 30 years. With the dusky smouldering looks that set her apart from the bleached hair, mini-skirted brat pack of wannabes, Basu has put the sexy back into the parched Bollywood screens. Her sex appeal lies in, as Loren would have put it, her lilting Italian accent-"50 per cent of what she has and 50 per cent of what people think she has". Basu's perfect alchemy of wide-lipped, fairy-eyed looks and a raw earthy sensuality marks the arrival of the westernised sex symbol-a void that hasn't quite been filled since Zeenat Aman and Parveen Babi sizzled and then fizzled out two decades ago.

"She's a glamorous Indian-looking girl, different from girls like Lisa Ray who are glamorous but look western," says Raaz director Vikram Bhatt, who is directing her in three other films. Mahesh Bhatt calls her "the dusky Indian girl who could topple the industry aristocracy of white-skin lineage and famous family names". "Mark my words," predicts friend and co-star in Ajnabee Akshay Kumar, "she'll go far in the industry." If Ajnabee showcased her glamorous side, points out industry analyst Komal Nahta, "then with a challenging performance-oriented role in Raaz, she has shown she can act".

Basu's story began six years ago when a friend suggested the lissome Class XII Kolkatan participate in the Ford Supermodel Contest in Mumbai. Her tryst with films began, well, almost, when she won the contest and caught the eyes of two judges. One of them, Jaya Bachchan, offered her the role opposite son Abhishek in J.P. Dutta's Aakhri Mughal, but the project was shelved.

The greasepaint and arc lights had to wait. Instead, she was walking the ramp in New York and Paris, doing music videos, over a dozen commercials, including the Calida advertisement in which Morea tugs at her panties with his teeth-an ad that brought hordes of women activists at her doorstep.

After three years of "been there done that" she had begun thinking anew about a model's mayfly-like existence. She had even considered setting up a restaurant when she heard of producer Vijay Galani scouting for a dusky model for Ajnabee. "I wanted someone sexy Bobby Deol's character of a married man had to fall in love with," says Galani. Soon Basu was slinking around Switzerland.

The film, released in September 2001, did not exactly set the box office afire but it uncorked Basu's sex appeal and had audiences panting and producers rushing to her door. After all she had held her ground with three established stars and had even overshadowed Kareena Kapoor, who made her ambition for the No. 1 slot sound like her birthright. The film also led to the Bips vs Bebo cold war which had Kapoor sneering in a film glossy: "Bipasha's only claim to fame is that she fought with me." Though Basu refuses to comment on the spat, Bebo may well be eating her words now. If she looked over her shoulder she might just see Basu closing in. "She is the dark horse which sprinted ahead," says trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

Basu doesn't seem keen on indulging the industry, where box-office performance is the criterion for success, and hungers for women-oriented roles. Her idol is Tabu. "I'm so jealous of her. She gets all the best roles," says the actress, who would "love to play bad-bad". But being bad doesn't come naturally to her. Unit hands gush at her unfailing courteousness-a quality not associated with stardom. In an attempt to get her to be more aggressive, Mahesh Bhatt, never short on theatrics, gifted her a 3 ft-long sword which occupies a place of pride in Basu's drawing room.

With an array of roles in hand, she will not get slotted in what she calls "diabetic films". Basu plays a policewoman in David Dhawan's Chor Machgaye Shor, Amitabh Bachchan's daughter in Vikram Bhatt's thriller Aitbaar, a punk in Mahesh Manjrekar's untitled thriller and the friend in Yash Chopra's Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi.

Ankush Mohla, of the Glen-Ankush director duo, jokes about wanting to cast Jodie Foster in his thriller Jaane Kya Hoga. "I settled for Basu since she has Foster's inner strength and vulnerability."

Bips is in bloom.