Mallika Sherawat: The journey of Indian woman’s sexuality

by Prachi Bhasin


The much of muchness


We all love to hate Mallika Sherawat. We’ve all had too much of her brazen, outlandish, in-your-face sexuality, right? When she posed at Cannes with her The Myth co-star Jackie Chan, she looked less like an Indian actor foraying into the international market, and more like a walking-talking advertisement for a silicon implant, right? Her 17-kisses in Khwahish and some more in her later films like Murder and Kis Kis Ki Kismat (Her fourth film Bach Ke Rehna Re Baba is just out) seem repulsive, right? She is said to have restored Cannes's reputation as a showcase for steamy glamour and was compared to Brigitte Bardot. So? Big deal, right? We all talk about her but we couldn’t care less, right? Wrong.

We need to care. Because Sherawat spearheaded the much of muchness. Questions of sexuality have been raised a number of times. But it’s only after this Sherawat dared to make audience (female audience specifically) watch considerable doses of skin ’n sex show, that we are in a position to say we’ve had enough. We don’t need no more sex. Sex today is repulsive. But pre Sherawat, it was only needed too badly. Today, we get to see even the divinely virgin Aishwarya Rai in bed. Just too bad she’s not able to raise nothing.


The new wave begins?

Fantasies about sexual appetites of women were till recently, just, well, fantasies. Women them selves didn’t know what they wanted and what men expected from them. They still don’t, perhaps. But the matrix is complete now. At least, close to being complete. The sexual paradox we were living in is coming close to not existing.

Or at least we would like to believe that it is. At least we are out of the situation where coy Bollywood actresses were evading a kiss from the hero with impeccable timing and at the same time, everything around us was driven by sex. Concepts like those of ‘fuck friends’ and ‘let’s get layed’ were bombarding our brains. Our culture and religion that have historically contained a deep thread of sexuality were also staring at as from some far side. Today, we’ve experienced a change. And now we can either choose to live with it or not.