The buzz in Bollywood is best captured by the kiss
count for Mallika Sherawat. A small-town girl turned
sex symbol, she debuted last year in "Khwaish"
("Desire"), which caught the eyes of critics for its
17 smooching scenes. Her latest movie, "Murder," is
also a sensation for reasons not all tied to plot.
"God has given me a great body and I will show it
off," says Sherawat, 21. "If you don't want to see
it, don't."
Many
Indians admit they do. Bollywood was dominated for years
by musicals in which scenes of bees' sucking honey from
flowers were as erotic as it got. Since the mid-' 90s,
some filmmakers have been getting racier to avoid the
fate of 75 percent of Indian movies, which is to lose
money. Now, there are signs the margin is becoming the
majority; so far this year, nearly two thirds of new
Indian films have received an "A" rating for adult
content. While these so-called sex flicks still stop
short of full nudity, they do show just about anything
that can be done with clothes on, from kissing on the
mouth to simulated copulation.
A leader of the taboo-bending
school is Mahesh Bhatt, who made "Murder" with Sherawat
and another recent hit, "Jism" ("Body"), with Bipasha
Basu. Basu had crowds cheering, and "Body" quickly
doubled its $1 million cost. That's big box office in a
nation where tickets cost $3 at most. "I believe I am
here to titillate," says Bhatt. "We Indians do
everything but never talk about it, never show it in our
movies. That had to stop."
Sex
saves, too. Top Hindi stars are men who can make more
than $1 million a movie, and Bhatt says he can make two
films for that price. Starlets "will cost less, be
bolder and throw less tantrums," he says. The rise of
the starlet dates to India's discovery in the '90s of
beauty treatments and contests, which now supply new
bombshells, starting around $20,000 a film.
Movies featuring "women in
skimpy clothes" are taking off for a simple reason, says
Dr. N. Bhaskara Rao, head of the Center for Media
Studies in New Delhi. "Producers make money, the
starlets get media attention and everyone is happy." Not
everyone. Movie producer B. K. Deb says he dropped a
Mallika Sherawat project because sex can't overcome a
bad story. "Sex flicks are a kind of parallel cinema...
small-budget productions with low-cost stars," says Deb.
"They will always remain off mainstream." Perhaps, but
the box office will reveal all.
