Rimjhim Mitra in Cross Connection and (below) Rituparna Sen in Bishh

Elsewhere in the city, women are becoming truly bold , though the authors of such boldness may not concur. Isn’t writing Panty, a Bengal novel that revolved around a woman who moves into a Calcutta flat to find a pair of abandoned, used panties in the corner of a cupboard and subsequently ends up wearing it, bold? “It was something I had to do to live with myself. I didn’t write it thinking it was something bold. I just did whatever I had to do, write whatever I thought had to be written,” says the author Sangeeta Bandopadhyay.

Niche Bengali cinema is now waking up to the bolder Calcutta woman. In March this year, director Q shocked Calcutta cinegoers with Bishh whose tagline read “Ekta koda (tough) Bangla cinema” and was the story of three Calcutta women who decide to go sexually adventurous one night. The posters depicted wild-looking (read “bold”) women. “I didn’t really show the three women as being overtly bold. The way they came across was a natural reaction to the claustrophobia and repression that they felt in the society they were living in,” says Q.

Subrata Sen’s 2001 film Ek Je Achhe Kanya had 18-year-old Ria, played by Konkona Sensharma, stalking a much older Sabyasachi Chakraborty. In Rituparno Ghosh’s 2002 film, Titli, a 17-year-old girl, also played by Konkona, develops a severe crush on a much older actor, played by Mithun Chakraborty, who was in a relationship with Titli’s mother in the past.

Rimjhim Mitra’s brazen Emon in the recent Cross Connection dresses skimpily and swears with abandon in English, so much so that her boyfriend protests saying: “ingrejite phor-phor korish na”. Aamra, Mainak Bhaumik’s 2006 flick, had one woman looking for sex on the web and another flaunting padded bras to entice men. And the soon-to-be-released Chha-e-Chhuti has Locket Chatterjee locking lips with female co-star Dona, in what is touted as Tollywood’s “first lesbian kiss”.

And women dancing with abandon at Durga puja bhashans and participating in dhunuchi naach competitions is old hat.