She has her famous dimples — and oodles of attitude. Gul ‘Don’t-mess-with-me’ Panag is an army daughter, and proud of it. Clearly, the lady, with confidence oozing out of every pore, likes to call the shots.

It’s difficult to slot the former beauty queen-turned-actress, whose film Turning 30 released on January 14, and sank without a trace. She is not quite the ubiquitous Aishwarya Rai — beaming at the world from billboards and the big screen. Nor is she the discerning Nandita Das — seen in a few offbeat films, and at select film festivals.

Panag, biting the dead skin around her nicely trimmed and dark red nails, resolves the mystery for us. “I am in a league of my own,” she says. “I know I am attractive. Whoever I meet tells me that,” she adds nonchalantly.

You must give it to Gul Panag — the girl’s not scared of speaking her mind. She is articulate and impatient, likes reading Murakami and Ayn Rand as much as she enjoys Chetan Bhagat, and can’t believe that I don’t tweet. She also sets the rules before we can start the interview — she won’t answer any personal questions.

I have no personal questions to ask in any case. (A few weeks after I meet her, the society pages go berserk with pictures of her grand wedding — in which she’s seen riding with her pilot husband Rishi Attari in a motorbike procession.) But I am curious to know why Panag — who seems to have wowed critics with her portrayal of a woman about to turn 30 — is not in the big league. And what she thinks about reaching Bollywood through the oft-trodden path of a beauty pageant.

“I always found the participants of such beauty pageants dumb. Even before participating in it, I knew I would out talk everyone,” says Panag, who hogged the headlines after winning a Miss India contest 11 years ago.

But, she stresses, beauty pageants and modelling were never on her agenda. A graduate in mathematics and a postgraduate in political science from Panjab University, Chandigarh, she wanted to become a lawyer. But her family, she says, always joked about her wearing a beauty queen’s tiara — they’d tell her that her wishes would get fulfilled if she won a beauty pageant. “If I wanted a car, I was told by my parents that I would get it on my own when I became Miss India,” says Panag.

Born in Chandigarh, she moved from city to city as her father — who retired as an army commander — got posted to Delhi, Mumbai, Patiala and Ladakh, and to even Lusaka in Zambia. She went through 14 schools, but was mostly in the Kendriya Vidyalayas, except for a brief stint at Lawrence School, Lovedale, Ooty. “I pity those who are stuck in the same school for years. Changing places and schools changes your outlook towards life and you learn to adjust to any given situation in life,” she stresses.

Dressed in a pink sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of jeans, with a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose, the actor is in her BMW, being driven to a great many spots in Mumbai to promote Turning 30 around the time of its release. Panag, who started acting in it immediately after turning 30, points out that it’s a female-oriented film. “It is about a girl who is professionally successful. But suddenly everything falls apart just a week before she turns 30,” says Panag, who turned 32 on January 3.

Like the character she played, Panag feels that women undergo emotional changes at 30. “Most important, one learns to say ‘no’ at this age. This is when she gets her own identity,” she says, this time pulling the silver chain around her neck, on which tiny charms — including a chilli, a slipper and a heart — dangle.

The film didn’t fare well, but it made news for reasons not strictly cinematic. An intimate scene with co-actor Purab Kohli was much talked of and written about. Rumour had it that the two continued to lock lips long after the director had called “Cut”.

“It was a scene with 200 people on the set. I couldn’t hear the director’s voice. It happens many times with me in such crowded places,” Panag explains, suitably annoyed.

Her performance has been praised by critics. Panag, who joined a three-month apprenticeship programme with the UK-based theatre company Pentabus, says she learnt her skills there — picking up everything about the stage, from designing and lighting to costumes and acting.

But she took a while before saying yes to films. She’d acted in a few television serials such as Kashmeer after winning the beauty crown, but deliberately stayed away from Bollywood. “I could never identify myself with those stereotypes played by most Bollywood actresses. So I waited for the right role.”

The right role was that of Peehu Verma in Dhoop (2003), a film based on the true story of Captain Anuj Nayyar, who died in the Kargil war. Panag played the role of his girlfriend in the film. She still cherishes the experience of working with veterans Om Puri and Revathi. “My acting skills went a notch higher while sharing the frame with such legends.”

Her skills were appreciated in Nagesh Kukunoor’s Dor (2006), in which she played the role of Zeenat, a woman who faces the daunting task of saving the life of her husband, on trial for murdering his friend. “Such movies stand out,” says Panag.

Not all her films do that though. Among her many commercial films that bombed are Atul Agnihotri’s Hello (2007), Manoj Tiwari’s Hello Darling (2010) and Ram Gopal Varma’s Rann (2010). “One particular movie cannot define me. I go for any role that fascinates me,” argues Panag.

At home there are not too many people to advise her about what roles to take for her parents haven’t watched any of her films. “Movie watching never figured in the list of ‘things to do’ at home. My parents will certainly not change their habits now for me,” she says with a smile.

As we move from Mumbai’s Andheri (West) to Mahim battling the traffic, I ask her if she likes the city. “Mumbai is much better than Delhi where you are mentally stripped in every corner of the city by men’s wild gazes,” she replies.

Her distaste for Delhi may be linked to the fact that she was groped by a group of unidentified men while she was running a half marathon in the city last year. “It was a typical thing that would happen in an Indian city,” she says. But such incidents don’t discourage her from participating in sporting events: she continues to be a regular at the marathons.

Passionate about adventure sports, she recently went for a reindeer safari in Finland. “I felt like Santa,” she says. “I work so that I can afford these passions,” she adds.

Panag also likes to ride a motorbike — a skill that she picked up when she was 16. “Every Sunday I go for a ride,” she says. What she hasn’t done yet — but has publicly said she’d like to — is have actor Salman Khan as her pillion rider. “Salman is my latest crush — ever since I watched Dabangg. I have wanted to give him a ride.”

But right now it’s time for her to make a halt. She has a date with a portal for a live chat with her fans. Panag strides in — an impressive five feet and seven inches — and the office staff break into welcoming smiles. The questions and comments start pouring in — ranging from “Can we enjoy sex here” to “You have a sexy back and a tight ass.” She ignores the first, and replies to the second: “I also give tight slaps.”

In between the questions and answers, she takes a minute off to tweet. “Am at a live chat but the questions are not very inspiring.” Since March 2009, when she joined the micro-blogging site, she has tweeted more than 24,200 times and has around 1.3 lakh followers.

She has her lunch — roti, daal and sabzi — but the questions continue. “Why don’t you do good films,” someone asks. “Are you a female Emraan Hashmi with a kissing scene in every movie,” somebody else puts in. Another fan wants to know when she’s going to marry — her marriage was still to make news when the Q&A took place. “When will you ask me,” she quips.

I suppose Rishi Attari beat him to it. And I wonder if Gul Panag will get to take Salman for a ride now that she’s married. Clearly, turning 30 — give or take two years — has its share of problems.