Mumbai, Feb 03: Scene - the battered, bleeding hero, gnashing his teeth, drives at a frantic pace towards the climax of the film and hollers, 'Main aa raha hoon... main tujhe nahin chhodoonga'. He’s on his way to rescue his lady love who is in the clutches of the evil don/mafia/unspecified villain. Cut to 2003.

Scene: The awkward, scar-faced villain in the setting of a lavishly spread out mehfil in his grotto, with gallons of alcohol flowing from the jars and sexy belly shakers, cabaret dancers, or simple mujhra dancers giving them an irresistible visual treat!
Okay, let’s freeze on this scene now!

Every other Hindi film cuts to this ditto; same scene each time; while drawing towards the climax, or in most cases, the anti-climax. In the years gone by, it was the typical boy-rescues-girl scene that clashed with the sexy belly numbers. In new-age cinema it’s the same story, but in a more glorified and glamorous package.
The term 'vamp' is almost redundant in today’s movies. Instead, it’s positively termed a ‘negative role’. The hot dance numbers are respectfully called the ‘item numbers’. And the epitome of all glorifications and the crown for the phoniest title in Hindi cinema goes to this one – ‘Special Appearance’.
Whether it is Ash clad in a low-waisted half-saree, giving jhatkas to the tune of Ishq Kameena, or the sexy Shamita Shetty jiving to Sharara Sharara, every star from Tabu, Sonali Bendre, Shilpa Shetty, Bipasha Basu to the new kids on the block like Shamita Shetty, Isha Koppikar and Koyna Mitra have graced the item-number/special appearance tag. Finally they all win an honourable prominence in the credit title – ‘Our special thanks to (whoever it is) for the guest appearance’.
Khallas gal Isha claims, "Which girl wouldn’t want to be called sexy? Actresses’ live many lives in one life, and doing typical goody-two-shoes roles becomes mundane. Jism has just proved that venturing into a different genre of cinema is far more lucrative."
Decades after Zeenat and Parveen Babi vanished from the silver screen, Indian cinema wakes to find another sultry sex-goddess rise in its horizons. The Bong Bombshell – Bipasha, showing off a jism to die for. Almost like Zeenat incarnate. The dynamism, the boldness, the same fire in the belly. Making it without mentors and godfathers in the industry. Paving her own path, steering her own career. She didn’t twitch an eye; get convulsive pangs of being ignobly slandered by the industry, by covetous co-stars, or the snooping eyes of the media when she gave the nod to do the bold negative role in Pooja Bhatt’s Jism. It’s rare find that a lead actress portrays the uncanny bad-woman role, in a film that crosses the bedroom line with sexotism, passion and the dark side of desire.
As Ms. Babi believes, "There’s nothing wrong with a film that brings to fore human feelings like lust, desire and passion, as long as it retains its youthfulness, class and aesthetic value."
Moral of the story: Being a sex-symbol does not symbolise that the person in point makes a few-minute wonder appearance. She doesn’t have to be a cabaret dancer, a classical dancer, a ballet dancer or a belly dancer for that matter. She’s an actress, like any other, but with oodles of sensuality, dare-to-bare attitude and irresistible sex appeal.
As Isha Koppikar unflinchingly says, "Sex is all about attitude, comfort, body language and expression."
And don’t we all know how sex sells, even on celluloid? After all, what better universal language than body language?