SEX IN INDIAN CINEMA
B.D. Garga
J.F. Madan, the founder of Madan Theatres, was the first to realize the possibilities of sex appeal in films. All through the 1920s, when, in keeping with the prevalent trend, Madan produced mythological (Dhruva Charita, Mohini Shivaratri) and Arabian Nights-type costume dramas (Toorky Hoor, Kashmiri Sundari), his films had sumptuous dance ensembles in which scantily clad girls cavorted in sensuous poses. The studio kept a sizeable ‘stable’ of Anglo-Indian and Jewish beauties and employed foreign technicians and directors (Manelli and Legrand) who were well conversant with the sex and spectacle films of Europe. Madan did for Indian cinema what DeMille did for Hollywood: provide ‘visions of transparent promise’.
The 1920s were, by our present standard, rather a liberal period. The censor turned a blind eye to sex, if not to political comment. Kissing was common on the Indian screen, whatever the genre of films. Sulochana and Dinshaw Billimoria would be seen in a tight embrace, kissing passionately in films like Anarkali and Heer Ranjha. There were others too, but Sulochana could rightly be called the Indian screen’s first sex symbol, the girl all men wanted to love. Her position and popularity was unrivalled by any other actress of her time. She was showered with gifts and souvenirs and besieged with frantic pleas ranging from autographs to matrimony. Her name shone in the brightest of lights on theatre marquees and in the boldest of type in newspaper advertisements. Then there was Zubeida, the leading lady of the first Indian talkie, Alam Ara, who combined innocence with eroticism. Her passionate kissing and love scenes in Ezra Mir’s Zarina were much talked about and raised quite a few eyebrows. In the film, the heroine (Zubeida) believes that ‘diamonds are a girl’s best friend’, and seeks to get them anyhow. Her slightly amoral attitude created much hue and cry in the press and with the public.
Kissing disappeared from the Indian screen not because of a fiat of the censor but because of pressures brought on by social and religious groups. Heroines now had to be virgins and virtuous. Sexual appeal had to come from some other quarter. In walked the vamp and the dancing girl, stereotypes that have survived. Sometimes the two were combined. The vamp-cum-dancing girl was invariably the villain’s accomplice, employed to entice the hero and cause his destruction. She remained something of a peripheral character, never quite integrated in the main plot. A rare exception to the rule was Kidar Sharma’s Chitralekha, in which the courtesan (Mehtab) is the protagonist and turns the film into a treatise in seduction. Among the amoral ‘nautch’ girls, Helen reigned supreme for nearly a quarter of a century. In the swivel of her hip, in the baring of her thigh, in the pouting of her lips, she has been a part of every moviegoer’s sexual fantasy.
Changing social values affect our moral and sexual attitudes. Gradually, the vamp and the virgin merged, creating a new kind of sex symbol as personified by Madhubala, Mumtaz, Zeenat Aman, Parveen Babi and Rekha. These ladies were not averse to stoking sexual fires, sometimes doing so with calculated brazenness. Madhubala was often compared to Marilyn Monroe for her striking good looks, particularly her manner of smiling—eyes partly closed, mouth open. Not to mention her several love affairs. She appeared in a variety of films—good, bad and indifferent—but will always be remembered as the girl who very nearly caused the collapse of the Mughal Empire. In Mughal-e-Azam, as Anarkali, she is at once vulnerable and aggressively erotic. Mumtaz had ‘oomph’ and incredible sex appeal, attributes that assured her the status of a pin-up girl.
Zeenat Aman came to films with a fabulous figure and the ‘Miss Asia’ title. She was first seen as a Westernized Indian turned ‘hippie’ in Dev Anand’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna. The film was a trendsetter of sorts, and Miss Aman’s status as the Indian screen’s new sex symbol was firmly established. In the scores of films that followed, Aman was made to duck in pools of water or caught unawares in torrential rains to highlight her considerable physical assets; but never with the same elan as in Raj Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram.
Raj Kapoor is said to have invented love on the Indian screen. That may not be entirely true but his presentation of young love in Aag, Barsaat and, later, Bobby doubtless caught the imagination of the nation’s youth. He has always maintained that his films have a certain spiritual dimension but he knows that sex and spirituality make a heady brew. To this end, he totally transformed Padmini in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai from the goddess of south Indian devotional films into a national sex symbol. The busty Padmini launched in India what Edgar Morin (author of The Stars) calls a ‘mammary renaissance’ epitomized in the West by Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot.
In Satyam Shivam Sundaram, as Zeenat Aman emerges from a waterfall, she is a delight to the eye. To those who objected to her excessive exposure, Raj Kapoor countered, ‘Let people come to see Zeenat’s tits, they will go out remembering the film.’ While one could dispute his claim as to the artistic merit of the film, he surely wasn’t mincing his words. In his last film, Ram Teri Ganga Maili, Mandakini, a well-endowed nymphet, appears in the role of a village girl who is made pregnant by a visiting city boy with whom she falls in love at first sight. Critics panned the film for what one of them called Kapoor’s ‘voyeuristic desperation’. Nonetheless, the audience loved it.
One of the most durable stereotypes of the Indian screen is the woman in ‘the oldest profession’ made memorable by Waheeda Rehman in Pyaasa. Rekha in Umrao Jaan and Utsav was no ordinary woman of easy virtue. Emerging out of the pages of two outstanding literary works, in one she dabbles in poetry and in the other in hedonistic pleasure. While in the one she is draped in fine Lucknawi ghararas, in the other she wears little besides gold chains and ropes of precious stones. Alas, it failed to magnetize the audience. But it did in Conrad Rooks’s Siddhartha, where Simi drops her drapes to reveal a figure reminiscent of Khajuraho sculpture.
There are actresses who would loathe being described as sex symbols, yet have the alchemy to build a character of genuine sexual impulse and ferocity. Among them Smita Patil was by far the best. She had what Henri Langlois said of Louise Brooks, ‘the intelligence of the cinematic process’ and the ability to slip under the skin of a character and transfigure it. In Chakra it is not the generous view of her thighs (as some critics prudishly remarked) which is so unforgettable, but the abandon and happiness she brings to her lovemaking, despite the misery of her surroundings. Again, in Bhumika, though her heart is filled with sadness, she hops from one bed to another with delight. Any other actress would have made a mess of the role, but Smita’s is a finely nuanced portrayal as she brings a certain heady recklessness to her nymphomaniac incarnation.
During the 1980s, the south Indian producers began to outdo their Bombay counterparts in a fit of voyeuristic abandon. Cinema hoardings all across the south displayed acres of female flesh in various stages of dress and undress. The very symbol of lascivious undress was a lady called Silk Smitha. She so turned on the audience that every third Tamil film had sensuous Smitha displaying her wares. According to Balu Mahendra, the cameraman–director who gave her the big break, ‘Smitha can articulate a question like “Shall we go to the temple and pray” and make it sound like “Shall we make love”.’ That is saying a great deal! Jean Cocteau summed it all up quite neatly: The Cinema, that Temple of Sex, with its Goddesses, its Guardians, and its Victims.
Extracted from Art of Cinema: An Insider’s Journey through Fifty Years of Film History.