Bollywood Blitzkrieg: Women in-charge of Bollywood 
By Subhash K. Jha, February 19, 2007 - 06:22 IST
Women in charge have never been a favourite character in Hindi films. I remember years ago in Raj Kanwar's Ladla Sridevi had played a hard-as-nails entrepreneur who falls in love with a foreman in her factory (ooh, talk about nuts and screws!), marries him, and turns into a docile lamb who brings pati-dev's tiffin to work in the same factory that she owns!
From Madhabi Mukherjee in Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar to Shabana Azmi in Dasari Narayan Rao's Yeh Kaisa Insaaf to Priyanka Chopra in Abbas-Mustan's Aetraaz… working women never had it easy in our films.
In Madhur Bhandarkar's Corporate we saw a female entrepreneur, played by Bipasha Basu, probably for the first time since Amrita Singh in Aziz Mirza's Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman.
Bipasha's is definitely the most hard-nosed female entrepreneur seen in our films. One aspect of Bhandarkar's cinema is that no one seems to notice is the dignity he accords to female workers. Whether it's Tabu playing the sex worker in Chandni Bar, Raveena Tandon as the politician in Satta, Konkona Sen as the journalist in Page 3 or Bipasha Basu as the woman entrepreneur in Corporate, or even the little-know Neetu Chandra as the street worker in Bhandarkar's Traffic Signal…. His ladies don't sit at home waiting for their 'other' to give them a second glance.
To a large extent the image of the coy demure, all-sacrificing heroine has remained unchanged. Even in a path-breaking film like Krissh, the girl Priyanka Chopra who is supposed to be a television correspondent seems so much at sea about her wants and wits, you wonder if she comes from another planet.
Sushmita Sen tried to be a single working woman in Samay, and failed. Though engaged to her boss' nephew Lois Lane continues to pine for Superman who was busy saving the world instead of saving his relationship with the girl.
Reminds me of Feroz Khan's play Mahatma Versus Gandhi where Gandhi was a father to the nation but not to his own son Harilal who died heartbroken in a brothel.
No one in the latest Superman flick, Superman Returns ends up in such wretched distress. But there's certainly a distinct element of Satyen Bose's Jeevan Mrityu here.
In that film where Raakhee Gulzar had made her debut Dharmendra 'dies' and returns in her life as a Sardarji. Clark Kent anyone?
Dharam-paji always was a better Superman than anyone out there. But this column is about the various shades of clay that mould the Lois Lanes of Bollywood. From the scatter-brained steno Tabu in Priyadrashan's Hera Pheri and the equally pea-brained office worker Karisma Kapoor in David Dhawan's Chal Mere Bhai, Sridevi as the screechy satirical press reporter in Shekhar Kapoor's Mr India to Rekha as the ruthless Lady Empire in Umesh Mehra's Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi …Traditionally Hindi cinema always sees the working woman as some sort of an oddity who knocks into hard and soft surfaces just because she doesn't have the sense to stay home and look after her kitchen.
Why is it that when we think of memorable working women in our films we always think of them as tawaifs? There was a strange dignity grace and pride to the way Meena Kumari, Rekha, Sharmila Tagore and Madhuri Dixit played the sex worker in Pakeezah, Umrao Jaan, Mausam and Devdas.
Funny you had to be a fallen woman to show cinema the dignity of a professional in a male-dominated world. Today, Bipasha can get away with singing a bawdy bidi song written by the inimitable Gulzar in Omkara only because Sharmila Tagore stood up and smoked one in the Gulzar-directed Mausam.
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Bollywood Blitzkrieg – Yesteryear Divas
