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On Saturday afternoon, I got down and dirty with The Dirty Picture. But before that, there was this mini-battle to get into the theatre. Not with the crowds but with the self, which began straining at the invisible leash the moment the nostrils picked up the fragrance of caramel popcorn that the devilish plex owners place tantalisingly close to the entrance.
I overpowered the olfactory onslaught and settled down with my drink — a Diet Coke, I’ll have you know. Now, the merits of the movie, the legal tussle over whether “Silk” is really “Smitha”, Vidya’s “bold” act and boob show and Tusshar Kapoor getting yet another film thanks to sis Ektaa have been done and dusted.
What took me by surprise was that no one had yet spoken about the most important thing in The Dirty Picture — Her Tummy Tyres!
Around me, people clapped, chuckled and even managed a wolf whistle or a half (what fun it would’ve been watching this movie in one of our old halls with college buddies!), but I couldn’t react, transfixed as I was by the layers of fat girdling Vidya’s abdomen. They moved, they jiggled, they contorted into new shapes — they seemed to have a life of their own.
And no, in nine scenes out of 10, they didn’t look sexy, even by average Indian male fantasy standards (I can only presume). Yet Silk carried on about her business of sex goddess as if she had the abs of an anorexic 20-year-old!
Thirty minutes into the film, I wanted to stand up and salute Vidya Balan. For she sizzled, she scorched and she oozed oomph despite those layers in the middle, which she made absolutely no effort to hide.
Oh, us women and our body image issues… how many times have I (and millions and millions of women like me) looked lustily at a chocolate brownie and shunned it as “sinful”? How many times has our day been spoilt by pesky flab that refuses to stay hidden behind concealing clothes? And how many times have we nursed murder in our hearts when someone’s asked us condescendingly “have you put ON a little?”
While eating right and being healthy brook no argument, why have we let looks become equal to life? Why is calorie the benchmark for confidence? And why for the love of God is less so much more?
Thank you, Vidya, even as I push myself to those ab crunches once in a while or make yet another New Year resolution to get myself a gym membership, I know I will not kill myself over them.
And thank you Vidya, because of you, during the interval, I headed straight for the caramel popcorn counter!