So do we get to see John Abraham in the raw, doing a Full Monty? Left to John himself, dropping his pants is no big deal. “I am very comfortable with my body,” says he. Still photographers with whom he has done sessions in the past will vouch for the fact that John has no qualms about shedding his clothes (he wears so little as it is for photo sessions).

But will Anurag Kashyap’s film No Smoking be worth the unconventional nude scene? Anurag, who specialises in dark films (his Paanch was banned for years for its stomach-churning violence, his Black Friday based on the Mumbai riots will now make it to the cinema halls since the Tada case is reaching final verdict stage), wants to go into the psyche of a smoker, show withdrawal symptoms, etc. Sounds exactly the kind of into-the-mind-of cinema that this film maker specialises in. But it’s not the subject, it’s the nude scene featuring John Abraham that has made news.

However, after nonchalantly declaring that there will be a Full Monty in the film, everybody concerned has already started making backtracking noises that the nude scene will be a flashback of John’s childhood and, therefore, it won’t be the hero but a child artiste who will shed his clothes!

Obviously, after making the first big splash, nobody wants to court controversy so prematurely. If such a film does get made, one is pretty sure that Anurag is the kind of film maker who will shoot a nude scene with John and the actor is the kind of man who’ll do it without a second thought once he’s convinced about it.

In any case, what’s new guys? It won’t be a first — full nudes have been done on the Hindi screen before.

Do you know that Rishi Kapoor had a full nude scene in Bobby? It was that scene at home where he has returned from boarding school and Aroona Irani comes barging into his room. Funnily, 19-year-old Rishi Kapoor was so full of beans that he willingly went nude for his father, Raj Kapoor.

And it was his fully-clothed co-star Aroona Irani who blushed and flushed and lost her usual poise before the camera!

Rishi Kapoor’s nude scene in Bobby was censored (I saw the uncensored one, by the way) and those days, the young actor had a casual, no-big-deal approach to it. Today, at 54, Rishi Kapoor would rather not be reminded about it.

Unbelievably, Rishi’s prim and propah co-star in Mera Naam Joker, the pristine-white Simi Garewal, is another actor who has gone fully nude before the camera. Simi did a nude scene for the English film Siddhartha, directed by Conrad Rooks. Her co-star in the scene was the thoroughly professional Shashi Kapoor which made the assignment a little easier for the actress. Still, Simi had only one answer to her doing the nude scene in Siddhartha. “You need guts, lots of it,” she said. Strangely, although Simi always accepted that she had done the scene for Conrad, when Film World (a film monthly, now defunct) put the nude still on its cover, the Rendezvous host took the magazine to court. Simi’s contention was that a nude scene watched by viewers of the film was fine, but a nude pic on a mag cover was not acceptable. She lost the case and T.M. Ramachandran (the editor-proprietor of Film World) triumphantly released his magazine with the nude scene on the cover.

There have been villains like Ranjeet who dropped his clothes for a weird cult film called Adam Khor and child artistes like Padmini Kolhapure who did a full nude for a ritual in Aruna Raje’s Gehrayee.

And there have been models like Milind Soman and Madhu Sapre who did an ad with only a snake as their wardrobe.

We can also add to the nude stars list the name of Shiney Ahuja (Gangster, Woh Lamhe, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Zindaggi Rocks). Shiney’s first big flop titled Sins (based on the story of a priest from Kerala who was convicted for the murder of his mistress), had the actor go fully nude in all the lovemaking scenes. For obvious reasons, Shiney doesn’t count Sins as one of his best films but he also doesn’t disown anything he did in the film.

The tale isn’t complete without including Rahul Bose’s outings in Dev Benegal’s films, English, August and Split Wide Open. For a while, Rahul used to be snidely called “Rahul Butt”, a jibe that made the actor bristle.

“English, August was one of the finest films I played,” said Rahul. “So if anybody saw just my butt in the film it speaks very poorly for that person. The film, even today, is easily the best English film that’s ever been made. If it had just been appearing in my first film with some nudity in it, it would have been incredibly pathetic. But I’m so proud of it, I would do that role again and again.”

So if John Abraham does do a Full Monty, he’s certainly got august company.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International