The short shelf-life of Bollywood actresses

 Jai Ho! Slumdog is top dog at the Oscars. I'm very happy that the film did as well as it did and congratulations to everyone involved - including Adlabs' small contribution. So much has been written about it in Indian media, however, that there is nothing new or original that I can tell you about it - though ask me when you meet me what Danny Boyle told me when I met him at Mumbai airport, prior to the film's shoot, was the worst aspect about making a film in Mumbai. These days he is either to effusive or polite to discuss the one horror. And, no, it's not the stench of the slums. 

An article that may have escaped your attention was an opinion piece by Praveen Dass in Times of India (One for the times) that tracks the antecedents of the film extremely well and in the process dispels some of the myths and caricatures about the film:

So, is Slumdog superfluous? Is it guilty of caricature? In parts, perhaps, but not in sum. Besides, soft burlesque, as many parts of Slumdog surely are, is not without its uses. Indeed, three outlandish sequences in Slumdog should point us to its real nature as fabulist melodrama. One is the moment when Jamal, the plucky protagonist, cheerfully plunges into a pool of shit to get an autograph. Another is the surreal image of a child dolled up as a blue Rama in the middle of a riot. And, finally, the dance sequence at the end is the film-makers' paying back their Bollywood debt. All point to Slumdog's true nature as an over-the-top modern fable, best consumed with a pinch of masala. In fact, the film's premise should give that away. Surely randomness and chance never get this good in life, real or reel. Boyle has tried this formula before with his underappreciated Millions. Second time was better. And maybe it needed India.

It is worth reading the whole article. Not least, it made me think that Scotland should have rebelled against how the wannabe independent part of the UK was portrayed in Trainspotting (heroin use, filthy toilets, random pub violence), had they been as easily offended or prone to manufacture controversies as some of Slumdog's critics - admittedly a very small minority in these post-Oscar days. 

While honest self criticism of India is admirably widespread, the same cannot often be said about the Hindi film industry (aka 'Bollywood'), which is why I was all the more fascinated to come across an article this past weekend about how the industry's leading ladies are finding themselves having shorter and shorter careers on the silver screen with each 'generation' (actually 'season' by now). 

The article is called 'Tick Tick Three Your Time is Up' by Indu Mirani. The article is far from preachy but asks some penetrating questions:

So, why is it that heroes can play the lead role for decades while the girls have a shelf life of just four to five years? Earlier, before the multiplex generation came along and changed the way we perceived filmmaking, there was the notion that the minute a heroine entered her 30s or got married, whichever was sooner, she lost her allure. “Women were to be fantasised about” was the explanation and the only way she fitted the traditional Indian (Bombay to Bihar) fantasy was if she was seen to be young, curvaceous and virginal, with particular emphasis on the last virtue. And so any girl who wanted to last longer made sure she was all this.

This often lead to the ridiculous situation where a girl who had debuted at say 18 suddenly claimed that she made her first film at 15, which soon became 12. That that kept her poised at 26 for many years was the idea and in most cases it succeeded.

To keep the virginal image intact was slightly tougher but they managed that too by making statements like “I’ve never been on a date,” or “Love? Never felt it. I’m dying to fall in love.” Sridevi, it is rumoured, was so unaware of things that when she got pregnant and felt the first stirrings of the child she thought she had gas.

This sadly means that Freida Pinto, the female star of Slumdog, cannot look forward to a long career in Bollywood, should she get a break there thanks to the film (far from given). Her best hope is to keep straddling both worlds - these days Aishwarya Rai features largest in the poster for Pink Panther 2.