Bollywood ki Heroines !

Bollywood extracts a lot out of its heroines. They need to look good. They need to dance well. They need to act well too. But even if they can’t act well, they can afford to attain moderate success if they look good even if it maybe at the cost of being an ‘item girl’. How many of the heroines of the past make you exclaim – “Wow! She still looks hot!” ? Many perhaps.

Now, how many of them you still yearn to watch even though they maybe plain janes ? They never fail to impress when it comes to acting. And no matter when you watch them, you cannot help but admire their acting skills. Sad, they go down into the annals of cinema history as someone who was ‘an art house product’ or someone who was more of a ‘behenji’ than a sexy siren.

While Padmini Kolhapure maynot have been a dreamgirl, she had her fair share of success with films like ‘Prem Rog’, ‘Who saat din’, ‘Souten’, ‘Pyaar Jhukta Nahin’ and some more. While she wasn’t a great actress, she still had that quality of being a plain jane next door girl and many a times the ‘bechari dukhiyaari’ type sacrificial lamb that cinema of that age demanded.

A Deepti Naval or Supriya Pathak were fine actresses. They never really made an effort to shed clothes and put make up as they knew they could impress with their acting skills. So these plain janes flourished thanks to the art cinema revolution which was launched as a tirade against the mainstream formulistic cinema. Many of these heroines nurtured an inherent desire to be as popular as their mainstream counterparts. And while some of them made attempts to cross over, the fact is mainstream cinema never really had space for them. That was primarily because they didn’t look ‘grrreatt’. Period.

It was an age when star kids were still in their mother’s wombs or toddling around. It was an age when Miss India contestants while mouthing ambition to be the next Mother Teresa to win the crown, knew that nothing would get them more money, fame and success than a splash in bollywood. Thus began the age of Miss India turned actresses or model turned actresses. If you looked good, you were in. Acting could be learnt on the way. So, while the gloss and technical finesses made audience lap up even mediocre products, the real actress – one who didn’t look drop dead gorgeous but could still act were relegated in the background.

Worse happened as time progressed. The star kids had started kicking hard inside their mother’s wombs and lay their claim to inherit the throne of Bollywood. They couldn’t act. They couldn’t even speak the language well. You don’t expect kids coming out of convent schools and foreign B- schools speak chaste Hindi. There were exceptions of course. But the fact is the audience had to bear the assault of watching them as it knew it had no other choice.

I remember how much of a hype surrounded the entry of Ashwini Bhave into Hindi cinema. She was supposed to be a hot property of Marathi cinema and many thought she would replicate her success in Bollywood too. That was not to be. While everyone acknowledged that she acted well, she was pushed aside as someone who could at best be a bhabhi or didi. Poor girl didn’t have the oomph.

As years rolled on, many of the Miss Indias and star kids still survived despite their pathetic show. They were marketed like anything. Their Mummys and Daddys made sure they ate into cinematic fabric like termites. Some of them had talent anyway and did fairly well due to their own merit. But scores survived just because of their surnames.

A Gracy Singh happened with 'Lagaan' but poor girl had a double misfortune of not being a star kid and having plain jane looks. No wonder, she lost steam soon. Someone like Konkona Sen Sharma who with due respect is an okay actress but hyped as a ‘great’ actress, gets to attend celebrity shows and finds mention in gossip columns as well eats up the space which she isn’t really worthy of. After all, she is Aparna Sen’s daughter. It has to be in her genes, isn’t it?!

I am really confused and sad. Confused because I do not really understand who is bad and good. Many a times, I am forced to accept a dabbling in acting as a superlative performance. Also, many a times I wonder why someone is just doing a supporting role and cameos despite being an astounding actress. It has to do with their genes maybe. They were twice unlucky with it. They didn’t have good looking parents nor were they born with a ‘bollywood ka ticket’ in their mouth.