IN THE FLESH: Mallika Sherawat

In Bollywood, films die like flies these days. Even before the posters on the walls dry, they are replaced by new ones. At the altar of an impossible-to-please, blood-thirsty box-office goddess, movies are sacrificed every week. And like farmers waiting for the monsoon, filmmakers eagerly and helplessly wait for a hit.

Hope finally arrived early April. And, one can say, it came from Haryana. Mallika Sherawat, a Jat girl from Rohtak, has delivered the elusive box-office hit that the Mumbai film industry could die for. Murder, a low-budget, steamy love triangle, is Bollywood’s biggest success of 2004. “She deserves the credit,” says film trade analyst Komal Nahata.

In the past too, skin has brought success to Bollywood. Bipasha Basu’s Jism being a recent example. Yet, nobody has become a talking point like Sherawat. On CNN, Riz Khan hailed her as “a youth icon”. BBC, Washington Post and GQ have interviewed her. She has done so many interviews this month — “one day she gave 70 interviews in Delhi,” claims her publicist — that she is refusing to talk to the press now. The publicist says, the reason is, OD, short form for overdose.

What really separates Sherawat from, say, a Meghna Naidu or even a Basu, is that while others have just bared onscreen, the Rohtak girl has talked about both sex and sexuality with a bluntness and frankness never seen or heard before. “No heroine has been so upfront, so unapologetic and so matter-of-fact talking sex,” says film distributor Sanjay Mehta.

The 17 kisses Sherawat exchanged with co-star Himanshu Malik in Khwahish (2003), her debut film as a heroine, were done with passion and aggression. They were kisses, not apologies. Hers was not the attitude of a struggling newcomer being exploited for a role. Rather, this was enjoyable work. In an interview last year, Sherawat submitted, “I had a blast. Seventeen kisses onscreen. Imagine more in rehearsal, takes and retakes. If a hero can enjoy it, why can’t I? Both of us had a great time.”

Earlier, while talking about Khwahish, which explored premarital sex, contraception and family planning from a woman’s perspective, Sherawat had said, the film is probably radical and controversial. Then she added, “But that’s what I am about: radical and controversial.”

That, one might suggest, is pure spunk. Without spunk, the Jat girl who was born into an extremely conservative Haryana Jat family wouldn’t have come this far. Hers was the sort of home where women usually had a ghunghat over their faces and girls got beaten for putting on lipstick. “No woman in my family ever worked outside home,” she once said. (After he saw the steamy promos for her films, her father mourned that he wouldn’t be able to move outside his house without hiding behind a burka. Her brother, too, of whom she is inordinately fond, has been reported to say he was too ashamed to turn on the television, lest he be confronted with scenes from her movies.)

But much before she joined films, Sherawat was doing what no woman in her family had done. She studied philosophy in Delhi’s Miranda House college. She wore jeans. She started modelling. She was Reema Lamba then. And, she allegedly also got married and divorced. Then, she hit Mumbai. “I went around looking for work. All I got was propositions,” she said in an interview.

When she finally got Khwahish, directed by the unsuccessful but talented Govind Menon, Sherawat was determined to make the best of it, both onscreen and off it. In all Khwahish promotions, Sherawat has been keen to tell the world that she enjoyed doing the hot scenes and there were plenty of them in the film. “I have 17 kisses. And that should tell you how the rest of the scenes are.”

No surprise, film historian Shohini Ghosh believes that Sherawat and her generation of actresses are not being used but making professional choices. “They know their mind. They are agents, not victims.” During the shooting of Murder, Sherawat put her foot down and refused to do a nude scene she felt uncomfortable doing. As Mahesh Bhatt, who produced Murder, says, “Mallika is very clear about what she wants. And she knows how to make an impact. Mallika is a brand.”

Her interviews are essays in go-gettingness and have helped create the Sherawat brand. They show her resolve to be seen as a sex symbol. When a television host asked her if she could make eating an apple look sexy, Sherawat proceeded to show how. It’s this in-your-face attitude which makes her stand out in the Bollywood skin show. “Unlike other heroines, she is refreshingly candid about her sexuality,” says marketing executive Niketa Jha.

In the process, Sherawat has turned many time-tested Bollywood conventions upside down. In the Mumbai film industry, the star system is a carefully constructed all-male mansion where even top women actors such as Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit have only enjoyed brief hospitality.

On the contrary, in both Khwahish and Murder, Sherawat is the real hero. The film’s posters and promos tell you that. She is the central character in both films. The crowds go to see her. As she herself said, “I have gatecrashed into the star system.”

Bhatt tells you that her success is another sign of small-town India asserting itself. “The good thing is that her essential core has not been submerged by her success. She is still a person.”

Till date, Sherawat’s publicist Parull Gossain gleefully reveals, she has refused 50 films. On an average, she listens to three script narrations every day. “They all offer her central roles. But she is not signing anything unless she is sure about the project,” says Gossain.

In other words, Sherawat, who first acted as a side heroine in Vashu Bhagnani’s Jeena Sirf Mere Liye, is being flooded with offers from producers eager to cash in on her body, and the heroine is refusing to play ball. She is reported to have refused a film called Jo Bole So Nihal because “the role would not set the right example for women”. Her next release is Kis Kis Kis Kismat, a comedy with the original Jat hero, Dharmendra. “She told me her role is a cross between Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe,” says her publicist.

Her idol, though, is Madonna. And, it is easy to see why. The international pop star, who once said losing her virginity was a career move, has blended sexuality with power and now rules over a multi-million dollar entertainment empire. Like her icon, Mallika Sherawat is not a puppet but a power woman in the making.

Sherawatspeak

“I come from a place where women are kept in the backyard along with cattle. I decided that there would be none of that in my life.”

“I distrust people who badmouth sex and money. These are the two forces that drive our lives.”

“When I see my cutouts and hoardings, I feel a sense of triumph. I want to do even hotter movies, with more love scenes and more titillation. I want the audience to throw coins on the screen every time I appear. I want them to fall in front of my car, blow flying kisses and go berserk. I love it.”

“There is nobody in my life. I am on the lookout for a man who has more guts than I have.”

“Today women want to freely say that they want good sex and there’s nothing wrong in saying it.”