The foreign touch

Trends in bollywood

They are all over India, especially in Hindi films. The aliens have landed, from all corners of the globe, and in 2010, both the biggest hit (American Sarah Thompson in Raajneeti) as well as the greatest flop (Brazilian Barbara Mori in Kites) have had damsels from abroad as lead stars. UK’s Sir Ben Kingsley (Teen Patti), Jacqueline Fernandez (Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai and a song in Housefull) and Miss UK Lisa Lazarus (Veer) have been the latest this year in a long line of examples over the last decade, though there definitely were sporadic cases earlier.

The foreign hand is clear, and whether they are upping the quality quotient or not, these actresses (and some actors for good measure) are decidedly raising the novelty factor of Hindi cinema: Yes, the guys are there too — Paul Blackthorne in Lagaan as the malicious British officer, Michael Maloney as the Hindi film-crazy cop in I See You, Martin Henderson in the bi-lingual Bride And Prejudice/Balle Balle Amristar Se LA, and of course Sylvester Stallone and Brandon Routh playing themselves in Kambakkht Ishq — although their scope is restricted.

What could be the reasons for this ‘female chauvinism’? They are very obvious. Firstly, it will be impossible to cast these people as Indians, which some girls, like Giselli Monteiro (as the Sardarni in Love Aaj Kal) or Miss Sri Lanka Jacqueline Fernandez (Aladin) could carry off. Secondly, it is unlikely that our heroes would like to co-star with firang heroes in equal roles. Finally, and more flippantly, the overseas heroes cannot do ‘item’ numbers! The third reason is, however, for real — in the sense that a lot of the contribution by the ladies to Hindi cinema has been in the form of ‘item’ numbers — Mariah Gomes from Italy being the latest in the sensational ‘Teri neeyat kharaab hai’ in Teen Patti.

Ambitious girls from Western/Far Eastern and other non-Indian cultures have little inhibition about showing skin and bold camera angles. And with censors getting more lenient, filmmakers are literally pushing the ‘erotic’ envelope, as in Dus where no one came to know the names of the girls who did the ‘item’ song and Brazil’s Bruna Abdullah doing ‘Rehem kare’ in another Anubhav Sinha film named Cash. Saif Ali Khan’s ex-girlfriend, Rosa Catalano, showed up in several films too, just as many more non-featured names from places as varied as Ukraine, the Scandinavian countries and Ireland have been playing similar roles.

Setting the trend was Czechoslovakian Yana Gupta, then married to an Indian, who came in with the chartbuster ‘Babuji zara dheere chalo’ (Dum in 2003) and since then went on to several films as a dancer, along with Negar Khan of Scandinavian descent, who took off with ‘Shaadi Ka Laddoo’ and ‘Rudraaksh’ in 2004.

Having said that, talent does count, and so does range, hard work and professionalism. With the exceptions of USA-based Linda Arsenio (Kabul Express, Mumbai Salsa, Aloo Chaat) and Jacqueline Fernandez, no foreign actress until now, despite enjoying the tenure in India and also wanting to work more, has succeeded in getting a second Hindi film.

“That may be as much or more because most films with foreign actors flop, and exceptions like Raajneeti, in which Sarah’s role was very small, ditto Love Aaj Kal with Giselle and Florence Brudenell-Bruce, only prove this rule!” confides a trade analyst. “Two more exceptions were Lagaan with Rachel Shelley and Rang De Basanti with Alice Patten. These two scripts demanded Britishers and in all four cases, the films worked, and they were certainly not hits only because there was a foreign artiste in the cast.”

This brings to the fore two more issues — first, that films pivoting around foreign heroines (like Kisna with Antonia Bermath) have never worked, and second, that in no film does the overseas heroine get the hero. So come Barbara or Sarah, Antonia or Rachel or even Baywatch babe Brande Rodericks (Out Of Control, in which the Indian hero is even unfaithful and caddish towards her), it is the Indian heroine who walks away into the sunset with the leading man!

Clearly, mindsets have not opened up that much. Unless a Giselli or a Jacqueline play Indian characters, no firang heroine gets the man. There is always an Indian alternative, and the overseas belles either die, have to leave, or hand over their man smilingly to the Indian girl and back off! The lone exception, Dil Jo Bhi Kahey, which saw the hero marry Annabelle Wallis rather than Indian heroine Bhumika Chawla, was a complete non-starter.

When it all began

Indian cinema, right from the silent era, had its share of foreign and Anglo-Indian artistes. In the 70s and 80s, there were more entries from across our immediate borders, like Rosina and Nutan from Bangladesh in Shakti Samanta’s Aar Paar (1985), Pakistan’s Mohammed Ali and Zeba in Manoj Kumar’s Clerk and Nadeem from Pakistan and Babita from Bangladesh in Door Desh.

And of course, the three names that gained fame of sorts in the latter decades were Mohsin Khan (J P Dutta’s Batwara and others), Zeba Bakhtiar’s (Randhir Kapoor’s Heena) and Somy Ali (who was better known as Salman Khan’s girl).

Some years ago, Mahesh Bhatt brought in Meera (Nazar) and Kaafila saw Sana as Sunny Deol’s heroine. On the Western side, Shelley Homick in Love In Canada (1979), Christine O’Neill (Dev Anand’s Swami Dada) were some foreign starlets who essayed second leads in films like Kashish and Yeh To Kamaal Ho Gaya.

Today, however, things are different: names like Yana Gupta and Jacqueline have graduated, like so many Indian heroines, from modelling assignments to movies. Prakash Jha and Rakesh Roshan went to meet Sarah in New York and Barbara in Mexico respectively through proper agents (Both actresses had proper careers as models and actors). And of course Denise Richards and Holly Valance came in, like Sly and Routh, as themselves in Kambakkht Ishq, where the story pivoted around Akshay Kumar as an Indian stunt duplicate of top Hollywood stars!

The globe’s getting smaller, and the Hindi film is getting bigger. Now all we are waiting for is an Indian boy to marry a foreign girl on the Hindi screen. And something tells me that the day isn’t far away.