By:
Subhash
K.
Jha,
IndiaFM
Tuesday,
November
07,
2006
Sex
workers
aren't
meant
to
be
sexy,
and
certainly
not
enigmatic
enchanting
and
poetic
,
like
Nargis
in
Adaalat,
Meena
Kumari
in
Pakeezah
and
Rekha
in
Umrao
Jaan.
These
women
remained
chaste
and
sublime--
qualities
defined
by
the
songs
and
poetry
that
they
sang
and
their
pristine
body
language.
Times
have
certainly
changed.
The
Fallen
Woman
has
gone
from
Chalte
chalte
yuhi
koi
mila
gaya
tha
in
Pakeezah
to
Bichua
dank
mare
in
Chingari.
"If
today
I
showed
my
heroine
as
a
virgin-
whore
people
would
laugh
at
me.
I
think
those
times
when
sex
workers
had
to
sob
in
a
corner
after
being
'touched'
by
a
man
are
long
over," says
Kalpana
Lajmi
in
whose
Chingari
Sushmita
gave
a
powerhouse
performance
as
a
prostitute
who
celebrates
her
job.
Now
there's
Aishwarya
Rai
doing
a
stately
tawaif
in
J.P.
Dutta's
sensitive
and
grand
Umrao
Jaan.
While
Sushmita
was
a
volcano
in
Chingari,
Aishwarya
is
a
gently
-running
stream
whose
undercurrents
are
discernible
only
to
those
who
care
to
probe
deep
within
the
exquisite
exterior.
Sush
lets
it
all
hang
out.
Asha
keeps
it
bridled.
Sushmita
isn't
the
first
feisty
woman
to
play
a
prostitute
so
spunkily.
Remember
the
entire
gallery
of
glorious
women
actors
in
Shyam
Benegal's
Mandi?
From
Shabana
Azmi
as
the
brothel
Madame
to
Smita
Patil
as
her
favourite
inmate,
to
Neena
Gupta,
Soni
Razdan
and
Ila
Arun(who
incidentally
is
promoted
to
the
Madame's
role
in
Chingari)...
somehow
whores
translate
into
award-winning
performances.
But
they
aren't
easy
to
play.
Even
saying
the
word
'randi' was
tough
for
Shabana
Azmi
in
Mahesh
Bhatt's
Arth.
And
yet
she
knocked
the
lid
off
the
coy-whore
prototype
in
Mandi,
Bhavna
and
Doosri
Dulhan.
I
vividly
remember
one
sequence
in
Lekh
Tandon's
Doosri
Dulhan
where
Shabana
narrated
the
tale
of
her
induction
into
the
oldest
profession
in
the
world
.
She
tells
Victor
Banerjee
how
her
mother
had
sold
her
to
a
pimp.
"Apni
sagee
maa
(my
own
biological
mother),
han?"
Her
shock
at
being
betrayed
by
her
own
flesh
and
blood
remained
the
most
palpable
moment
of
expressed
hurt
for
a
woman
of
disrepute....until
Sushmita
Sen's
incredible
performance
in
Chingari.
The
recesses
of
anger
and
angst,
desperation
and
despondency
that
she
expresses
on
screen
have
been
dismissed
by
some
critics
as
"over-the-top" acting.
But
for
an
actor
to
over-act,
she
first
needs
to
know
how
to
act.
There're
so
many
actors
who
pass
off
their
lazy
languorous
non-performances
as
"spontaneous
acting"
Sushmita
in
Chingari
is
a
volcano.
And
a
lot
of
that
rage
she
expresses
comes
from
within
her.
She
has
always
had
this
volcanic
effect
on
all
her
co-stars.
If
she
managed
to
make
Mithun
insecure
in
Chingari,in
an
earlier
film
(which
I
won't
name)
she
was
pitched
against
a
formidable
National
award-winning
actress
.Throughout
the
making
of
the
film
the
reputed
intense
actress
would
take
the
director
to
a
corner
to
inquire
not
about
her
own
lines.
But
her
co-star's.
Sushmita
has
always
had
that
huddle
effect
on
co-stars.
She
has
to
do
nothing
but
tap
into
her
potential
to
make
her
co-star
insecure.
Like
Shabana,
Sushmita
isn't
fearful
of
being
emotionally
naked
on
screen.
To
play
a
prostitute
you
need
to
rip
your
soul
apart
and
watch
the
fragments
of
your
consciousness
scatter
across
the
universe
of
a
film.
Not
too
many
actors
can
do
that.
When
Sharmila
Tagore
played
a
street-walker
in
Gulzar's
resplendent
Mausam
she
had
a
tough
time
saying
cuss-words
and
acting
cheaply
seductive.
She
won
the
National
award
for
her
efforts.
Kareena
Kapoor
didn't.
Though
she
was
effervescent
in
the
prostitute's
part
in
Chameli
somehow
Kareena's
exemplary
efforts
went
unrewarded.
Could
it
be
because
she
didn't
pull
out
all
the
stops
and
completely
lose
her
urban
inhibitions
?
Namrata
Shirodkar
had
that
problem
when
played
the
whore
in
Vaastav.
"Every
time
I
had
to
speak
lines
like
'Chal
kapde
utar'
I'd
cringe.
I
told
my
director
Mahesh
Manjrekar
I
won't
do
it.
Thankfully
he
helped
me
get
over
my
inhibitions.
And
when
someone
of
Jaya
Bachchan's
caliber
said
I
deserved
the
National
award
for
my
performance
in
Vaastav
my
day
was
made."
Today
Namrata
,
happily
married
and
away
from
the
limelight
can
look
back
at
Vaastav
as
the
single-most
important
film
of
her
career.
Every
heroine
from
Suchitra
Sen
in
Mamta
to
Manisha
Koirala
in
Market
has
at
one
time
or
the
other
excelled
as
the
Fallen
Woman.
The
tale
of
the
prostitute
and
the
Reformist-Hero
that
Kalpana
Lajmi
tells
in
her
remarkably
enacted
Chingari
isn't
new
to
Hindi
cinema.
Decades
ago
Vyjanthimala
was
the
prostitute
whom
Sunil
Dutt
rehabilitated.
The
sex
worker
is
no
longer
a
coy
helpless
creature
of
destiny.
She
stopped
being
a
sob-story
when
thirty
years
ago,
Rehana
Sultan
in
Chetna
and
Zeenat
Aman
in
Manoranjan
played
the
self-respecting
sex
worker
to
perfection
.
But
in
Umrao
Jaan
there's
no
redemption
for
the
Fallen
Woman.
To
the
end
she
remains
fallen.
Nonetheless
the
Fallen
Woman
is
more
than
redeemed
in
our
films.
Wonder
when
the
quality
of
her
life
would
improve
in
real
life!
Recent
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and
flipsides
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