One of my favorites songs is from the film “Chitralekha”: Sansaar se bhaage phirte ho….
One very profound line in this song goes…
: Yeh paap hai kya, yeh punya hai kya
: reeton par dharm ke mohre hai
: har yug mein badalte dharmon ko
: Kaise adarsh banaaoge?
Translated…(roughly…I’m very bad at poetry, pardon)
What are these vices and virtues, sins and good deeds
If not but society’s stamp of approval over practices
How can you make these values/ morals that change with each era
As your ideals?
My great-grandmother, in her time, used to tie her pallu across her back and bring it to the front. In those days, even revealing your blouse was a no-no.
In the 1960s, the then-notorious-now-admired Helen used to wear body colour tights across her belly and legs whenever she was dressed in a supposedly revealing outfit. She never failed to shock my great-grandma with her wild ways.
Today if my great-grandma (God bless her soul) had cast her eyes on the likes of Mallika Sherawat, Bipasha Basu or Neha Dhupia or any of the aspiring starlets you can spot in music videos, she would have been scandalized and fainted with shock.
You can’t blame her. She was a woman of the 1920s and 1930s. Her sensibilities and values stopped evolving since the 1940s onwards. So everything would be judged based on her now-outmoded paradigm.
But what about today’s youth? I can still see many holier-than-thou moral police sparing no opportunity to deride the poor starlets aspiring to filmdom success and not being too prudish in the process.
Come on, grow up. Move with the times. E V O L V E.
We have had shocking nudity in Hollywood right from the 1970s onwards, many films having been shown in India as well. But even in the 21st century, we are still scandalized by a smooch here and a cleavage there, if it is done by Indian stars.
As a society, we have become far more broad-minded than previous generations as part of a natural process, which today has accelerated by the internet explosion. Our morals, sensibilities and value-systems all get shaped by these constantly evolving inputs.
Yes, there are events and people which severely test the moral limits of society, but over time, this gets blown over. To further accentuate this point, let me take some examples of not-so-long ago:
1) In 1994, Milind Soman and Madhu Sapre found themselves in a soup over the Tuff shoes ad (a very famous episode, so I wont elaborate). In 2004, this would hardly have raised eyebrows.
2) In 1995, Mamta Kulkarni incurred the wrath of womens organization who sought to donate some clothes to her whenever she appeared to be falling short of fabric. Today, Mamta Kulkarni’s clothes would be worn by the most dignified of heroines as part of the norm.
Hold on:
While I may appear to be so strongly for broadening our horizons on this issue, I still have some reservations against proponents of having a free-for-all approach. For e.g., I disagree with the proposition that when you have so free access to porn on the internet, then why such a brouhaha over a bit of skin in Bollywood. Television, cinema, internet are (so far atleast) different domains and one cannot judge them by the same yardstick. I may watch the most obscene and hardcore pornography on the internet in the privacy of my bedroom with the curtains fully draped…. But I may not be prepared to watch even softcore in the presence of my parents. (Even I’m not that evolved….ha ha)
Even when on prime time TV, item number models strut their stuff in the skimpiest of strings and make the most suggestive of movements, I can sense the awkwardness felt by mom. Hence I would not even dream of going to a theatre to watch “Murder” with her.
But as individuals, we are different persons in different situations. My sense of arousal (for want of a more appropriate terminology) may be different while I’m watching porn and different when I’m with my mom and sister. But its there – I cannot deny it. Hence there needs to be outlets for all types – otherwise there would be repression.
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Coming to subject under question, Mallika Sherawat is allegedly Reema Lamba who was born in a small town. For more details on her antecedents, I would urge you to read a review on “Murder” on this very site by none other than our star writer, amrita, who has described Mallika in the most derogatory and condescending manner. I am tempted to quote her to drive home the point, but I’d rather not soil my review by doing that.
In her very first film, Khwaish (released in 2003), Mallika plays a small town girl who falls in love with a rich lad. Although I do not want to get into the merits/ demerits of the film here, I felt that Mallika did a great job for her debut. She came across as an independent, intelligent, sensitive yet no-nonsense character in the movie, something which many of our much-touted heroines can never really hope to achieve. Unfortunately, our sex starved producers focused on her 17 smooches (I never really counted) and shots of her in a bathing suit on…hold your breath…on a beach, mind you! There wasn’t any sex scene to speak of, but the publicity would have made it appear to be a soft-porn film. No wonder it did not do too well.
In her next film, Murder (released in 2004), the depression, desperation and guilt of a neglected wife having a brief fling with her ex-flame and the resultant adventure that she undergoes, was brilliantly essayed by Mallika. Once again, the highlight of the film were her brazenly shot sex scenes with her co-star. Nobody really bothered about her acting.
I haven’t watched her latest film, but granting her 2 out of 3 films, the performance has been above average and competent. It is really difficult to pinpoint anything terribly wrong with her portrayal of the character, her dress sense, her expressions etc. She may not be the best dancer in town and she may have to work on her dialogue delivery. But she certainly holds promise. She refuses to settle for bit roles and item numbers and goes instead for characters with substance. Give her a Aishwarya Rai role and I’m sure the character would display far more confidence, élan and intellect.
Personalia:
As a person however, she comes across as a loud mouth, ready to shock and decidedly brazen. Rumours about how she hid her origins as well as enhanced some crucial physical assets did the rounds, but frankly, I couldn’t care less. I have watched her in an interview and on a debate – there she was, harebrained as ever, confusing the interviewer and getting all tangled up in her own words. That sing-song tone, the irritating monologue et all trying in vain to defend her actions in the face of the moral onslaught of the hypocritical society.
The verdict:
While it may appear that I have reserved my criticism for the Dutts and the Khans of this world (ref my earlier essays), while going easy on the Sherawat lass – let us put things in perspective. Mallika may shoot with her mouth – yes, she does say the most outrageous of things – yet she is harmless. She sticks to her guns – unlike the others. You cannot accuse her of hypocrisy. She appears to be a go-getter and achiever and I feel she will make it – she has the spunk all right! Read my lips!