Style file: Zeenat Aman in town on Wednesday afternoon. Picture by Pabitra Das

On a day when the city was scurrying between Agarpara and Rajarhat to catch a glimpse of Ms Bollywood, in breezed the original sexy lady. The 35-year-old Aishwarya Rai Bachchan may be the talk of the town, the Sita everyone loves to stalk, but Zeenat Aman at 57 is still quite an icon, the Janice who changed the look and feel of Hindi film heroines with the puff of a chillum and the flash of cleavage.

“I know I broke the mould,” Zeenat told Metro at a star hotel on the Bypass. “But it was not a decision I took to become sexy or glamourous. I was just being who I was. I was a young girl, I had studied in California, I was Westernised, I came down to India and I was offered Hare Rama Hare Krishna. It (Janice, the hippie) was a role that everyone accepted me in. Once the audience accepts you, everything falls into place.”

The quest for audience acceptance is what has brought Ash to Calcutta, to shoot for Mani Ratnam’s Raavan. Pleasantly surprised to learn that the Bachchan bahu was camping in town, this is what Zeenat had to say about one of her celluloid successors: “Aishwarya is a global diva… she is gorgeous and very talented… enormously talented.”

But aren’t Ash and Co. just carrying on what she had started 37 years ago? “I don’t think they are… yes, maybe a little bit!” Zeenat laughed.

So what made Zeenie Baby the trendsetter in the Seventies? “I was the first actress who blurred the shades of white and black,” said Zeenat. “Previously there was the heroine and there was the vamp. I brought in shades of grey. Now the leading ladies play good, bad… the whole gamut.”

And what about being The (first) Body of Bollywood? “You have to bring something to the part… I was myself in terms of physicality,” Zeenat said. “When you play characters, you are doing what the script says but you bring your own physicality to the role. Also, I think the whole western trend started with me and then it just became inculcated in generic Indian cinema.”

So, three decades later when Ash does a Dhoom:2 and Priyanka Chopra does a Dostana they carry a bit of Zeenat Aman with them. Priyanka, in fact, is a favourite. “I liked her in Don, where she played my character (Roma). She is doing well. I think she is also being considered for the Qurbani remake. I like her.”

But why shun the arclights, unlike a Hema or a Dimple? “I have two sons at home and my commitment is to them,” said Zeenat. “I have been doing little cameos (Boom, Ugly Aur Pagli) which have been fun. Now I am looking at scripts again because the boys are a little older. Anything which is appropriate for my age and fun to do, I am game for it.”