Female Sirens and Male Egos

But less interesting, of course

Hehe…I read this in the papers today. When Dilip Kumar was campaigning for Indira Gandhi in 1977(I think), he raised the naara “India ka leader kaun?” to the masses, expecting, of course, “Indira Gandhi!!!” to be hollered back. The whole crowd as one, shouted, “Saira Banu”. This is very funny, if you picture Saira Banu in something like Padosan, with her shrill voice and overdone eyes…

I have always been a Sharmila Tagore person. She is, and always has been, too cool. Apart from the whole wearing-bikini and marrying-Pataudi deal, she was just so elegant. She even made the sad role of being Rajesh Khanna’s lover seem poignant and thought provoking. But above all, she was Hot. She Rocks with Shammi Kapoor, like no one does. Plus, she’s Bengali…The only thing I ever wanted in a film, was to have her in Amar Akbar Anthony…but ah well. Shed have been too old.

The kind of films I like seeing, have Hindi film heroines who always seem let you down. Of course, I haven’t seen too many arty or serious films, so I wouldn’t know about those. Asha Parekh was…hardly worth remembering. Jaya Bhaduri looked nice in Parichay, and Mili and suchlike, then something catastrophic happened, and she became Mrs. Bachchan, and she has looked scary ever since. After you have seen Khoon Bhari Maang n number of times, as I have, you will stop looking at Rekha as an actress, and just remember her as a nightmare. Hema Malini was wayyyyy too loud, and Rakhee was too eurgh. There’s this gap period-on the negative axis, there’s the lovely Sharmila Tagore and Wahida Rehman, on the positive axis is the gorgeous Parveen Babi and Zeenat Aman and the younger ones, and a depressing void in between. Maybe if we had had more hot babes then, women’s rights would be better off now….

Chupke Chupke is on, so I shall leave this rather random entry and go watch, Again. Oh, and do check out Economist’s article on why we have spines…basically, because trilobites wanted to impress some babes some gazillion years back, and having spines was this extremely radical thing. I think HT has given a sexed-up version of the article…but it Is, a very interesting thought.