Padma Lakshmi or Lisa Ray [Images]? 

The debate is on as to who made the bigger splash at the Toronto International Film Festival during its first five days.

Padma has a small part in the Aishwarya Rai [Images] starrer The Mistress Of Spices [Images], which has its world premiere at the fest. Lisa plays an abused widow in Deepa Mehta's Water.

Both delighted the photographers at the promotional events and parties for the two movies. Ash, who plays the title character in The Mistress Of Spices, could not make it to the festival.

"This is the people's festival, and the audiences here are really star-struck," complained a photographer.

"She (Aishwarya) could have been the most glamorous story of this festival."

Also making huge waves is John Abraham [Images], who plays the idealist lawyer in Water, showing ample promise as a low-key actor. The debate is still on whether he managed to get more coverage than the likes of Johnny Depp [Images] and Orlando Bloom [Images].

But there is no doubt that the paparazzi simply love John. Women photographers in particular, of course. The number of them who have exchanged their cell phone numbers with him could set a Toronto record.

"Isn't he awesome," gushed one photographer. "And isn't he a terrific actor? Couldn't take my eyes off him on the screen."

But John Abraham is taking things in his stride, tasting his first experience at an international film festival --- by now Toronto has become the second most popular and written about film festival worldwide, after Cannes [Images] --- and he has been busy giving interviews to a horde of journalists.

Deepa Mehta's controversial film, which shows the outrageous abuse of widows (in particular one young widow, played by Ray) in an ashram in an unnamed Indian city in the 1930s, opened the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8. It received fair to good reviews, but the footage on the film and how it was shut down by the fundamentalists in Varanasi about five years ago was stunning.

John Abraham says he was not worried about the controversy surrounding the first attempt to make the film.

"Having Deepa Mehta's name on my CV was far more important to me than the politics in my country," he said. "I am an actor, and I don't pretend that I understand politics."

While Water is being distributed in America by Fox Searchlight, The Mistress of Spices, based on an international bestseller by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and centering around a woman with healing powers, is still looking for a distributor. That status could change soon, following its premiere. Already the trade weekly Variety has named it among the 10 films that are hot for distributors at TIFF.

Text: Arthur J Pais in Toronto | Photographs: Getty Images