Taking off the Chastity Belt

“Madhavis existed in the times of ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’ too but could have never been portrayed on celluloid. Now,they can be. People may attribute it to changing times,but I’d say that Bollywood has evolved,” says Tigmanshu Dhulia,director of the new adaptation. Dhulia makes a pertinent point. For years,the heroine was depicted through conformism — she played out a virgin,waiting for a virtuous man. Her purity was realised through the absence of any other competing heterosexual relationship. And sex,well it could only happen after a relationship was ritually formalised. It was chastity that denoted a woman’s strength,not real expression. Anyone without that invisible chastity belt was a vamp.

It took many years for the heroine to acquire shades of realism. Director Madhur Bhandarkar’s 2006 film,’Corporate’,had Bipasha Basu sexually manipulate her rival for corporate espionage and yet emerge a heroine. Now,women’s sexuality is more raw and real and the erotic expression is far from taboo. Pre-marital sex between Kareena Kapoor and Ajay Devgn in ‘Omkara’ had a normalised air about it. Gill’s character in ‘Dev D’ was of a lustful,young girl,aware and unapologetic about her desires. Shenaz Treasurywala in ‘Delhi Belly’ takes offence when her lover decides to leave her midway through sex. Anurag Kashyap’s next production,’Aiyya’,goes a step ahead with the heroine (played by Rani Mukerji) finding a man desirable because he smells good. The reaction the story generates is not one of shock. Instead,it stokes curiosity for the way in which the female protagonist woos the desirable stranger (Prithviraj).

Writer-director Sachin Kundalkar says the woman’s character is not purely fictional. “I have seen such characters exist. The difference is that we have begun to acknowledge them without passing judgments,” he points out. Kundalkar attributes the change to a new generation of filmmakers,born post the feminist movement,who treat women as equals.

Dhulia,too,views it politically and feels that new,global attitudes towards women have helped see the bigger picture more clearly. “This allows for a larger canvas of stories and character-driven roles for Bollywood actresses,” he adds

Credit also goes to actresses who are now willing to portray characters not woven around ‘purity’ that is confined to the idea of sexual chastity. Vidya Balan won a slew of awards for ‘Ishqiya’ for playing a woman who erotically manipulates two men. Her sexually promiscuous character in ‘The Dirty Picture’ has already whipped up interest. In ‘Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’,Katrina Kaif cheerfully played the role of a girl who had been in multiple relationships before settling down.

Another crucial indicator of on-screen female sexual liberation is the trend of top Bollywood divas turning into item girls. That’s an important milestone in the narrative. “The item girl tag was reserved for the industry’s B-grade heroines even until two years ago. Now,people view it no differently from a regular woman dancing at a night club — sensuous and dancing with abandon,” says Malaika Arora Khan,who shot to fame for Chaiyya Chaiyya in ‘Dil Se’ and topped the “item girl charts” with Munni Badnaam Hui in ‘Dabangg’.

But there is an underwired irony in this change. The audience may have accepted realism but the industry itself continues to be regressive. Kaif admits that her character in ‘Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’ was considered risky for her image in the industry whereas Gill says that following Dev.D’s success,she was mostly to play an adulterous woman. “I got categorised as ‘that kind of woman’ who will willingly lock lips with a male colleague and play bold,” she rues.