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A
STAR
IS
PORN
They may make some Indians queasy—and others hot under the collar—but the new breed of Indian actresses moving into the adult entertainment
industry is gaining acceptance in the industry
By Nishtha Shukla
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When filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s crossover film, Fire, about two married women dabbling in lesbianism was released in 1998, hired goons of
political parties attacked cinemas nationwide. This was despite the film's sensitive portrayal of lesbians and the fact that the bedroom scenes were
rather hazy and left most of it to the imagination. Cut to 2004. Karan Razdan’s more mainstream Girlfriend, which shows explicit sex between Bollywood
starlets Isha Koppikar and Amrita Arora, is running to packed houses albeit after a few early alarms. The sex busters have
taken a back seat.
In this day of easy sex and dial-a-porn, Indians are beginning to let go of
their penchant for equating sex on screen with smut. Liberalization and the
exposure to the Internet may
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NICOLE NARAIN |
"I loved all the sets on my Playmate pictorial, but my favorite was probably the centerfold" |
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have got a lot to do with the change in attitudes—on both sides, the
middle-class movie goer, and the lumpen vandal—but what has helped in this
transformation is the arrival of a new breed of Bollywood actresses and directors.
Take the devil-may-dare Mallika Sherawat who's jumping from one screen bedroom to another as if the
industry is running out of stripping quotas. In the past year, Sherawat—who belongs to conservative small-town
Rohtak—has earned herself a whole lot of mileage for her explicit scenes and the conviction with which she
defended her case on Indian television. Her first tryst with fame was the film Khwahish and the
record 17 kisses. She was the woman on top again with the romp in Bangkok in Murder that treads the extramarital
terrain, which until then existed on Bollywood's fringes. But instead of becoming an instant outcast-which would have
been her fate in an earlier decade-she became an instant hit.
The upshot: it's payback time for Sherawat. She is flooded with offers and Sherawat goes global with director
Stanley Tong in his forthcoming film The Myth opposite Jackie Chan. Another rumour plucked off the Bollywood
bush telegraph is that the siren from Rohtak has been offered a centrespread by Playboy magazine.
Sherawat isn't the only temptress in town. In fact, given the
breathtaking speed with which starlets are turning in their saris for Gstrings,
she may have a short shelf-life in Bollywood. Take Sameera Reddy, who until recently used to act in demure B-movie roles. Now she’s
ready to go one up on Sherawat. In Musafir, releasing soon, she plays - what else - a neglected housewife who has not one, but hold your
breath, three extra-marital affairs. So, what’s her payback? Penthouse?
They aren’t by any means the first Indians in the sex files. That honor, if you
can call it that, goes to Nicole Narain, Sunny Leone and Angela Devi, models of Indian origin who have struck gold in the West’s adult entertainment industry.
Nicole, one of the most known faces with her hint of Indianness, is proud to be one of the few hundred models in the world to make it to the Playboy
centerfold. She says on her website, "My family is very proud of the fact that I’m a Playmate." Born in Illinois, she moved to Chicago after graduation and it was
in 1998 that she first had a chance meeting with Kevin Kuster, who was senior photo editor with Playboy. She had been modeling since the age of 12, when
Playboy came her way. "I thought it would be great to try something new," she says. She soon started modelling for Special Editions’ Book of Lingerie and
then appeared in the magazine’s March 2000 Girls of Mardi Gras pictorial.
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"Making other people feel good helps me feel awesome inside" |
ANGELA DEVI |
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The 20-something Angela was born in New York City-her parents are from New Delhi-has been living in Phoenix, Arizona, for the past 17 years. Sunny
was born in a small town in Ontario, Canada. When a friend from her class in junior college gave her the number to a modelling agency she found it wasn’t a
regular modelling agency but one for adult entertainment. Soon enough, she became the Penthouse Pet of March 2001.
Coming back to Bollywood, if Mallika does accept an offer abroad, it could be India’s big step into the world of adult entertainment. And while
critics call it a naked display of greed and want to pull the plug on porn, others say the cheap frills are the model’s/actor’s prerogative.
Says Preet Rustagi, director of the Delhi-based Centre for
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Women’s Development Studies, "If someone is voluntarily posing for a
pornographic magazine, there is nothing wrong with it. People are ready to watch
a cabaret or see a fancy dance in a five-star hotel. These same people under
different circumstances would say it’s unacceptable."
Rustagi doesn’t believe for an instant that it will kill culture. "It is the
patriarchal minds of the people and their approach to culture that’s
the problem. It is not about what posing or not posing for a
pornographic magazine does to our culture," she says.
Taking stock on smut, fashion designer Rohit Bal feels it’s time to dump
what he calls stupid Indian double standards and hypocrisy. "If all the people
in the world can do it, why not Indians? I think our Indian models and
actresses, even if they bare absolutely nude there, will be far less vulgar and
more aesthetically pleasing than when they do item numbers in Bollywood."
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Bal’s got it just right. Critics agree that Murder was by no means cheap. There were none of the downright nasty pelvic thrusts which are part of the
item number routine in Bollywood movies. Yes, there is heated that sex-onthe-rooftop scene between the wife and her lover, but as you walk out of the
movie, you are sick at the entire extra-marital business.
But there those who feel uncomfortable when an Indian woman makes it to the adult marquee abroad. A little wary Adhiraj
Singh, a Delhi-based polo player, says, "If a woman goes from our society I
would be a little squeamish. But in any case we are aping the West, so if we
stop someone from posing for adult magazines, it would be hypocritical. I am
sure every Indian has
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SUNNY LEONE |
"Wow, can you imagine a Penthouse Pet giving you a sponge bath" |
something to hide that he would be embarrassed if revealed."
Sunny, who’s still attending junior college part time, wonders what the fuss is all about. She hopes to give it all up and be a registered nurse. Says the porn
star: "Wow, can you imagine a Penthouse Pet giving you a sponge bath."
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