Holi in Bollywood today is all about sexual tension
Holi, an orgasmic interplay of colour and sensuality, has always been Bollywood's favourite festival, be it in terms of iconic songs or just the way the leading ladies have been draped.
It is a telling reflection of the times that the films were made in, and perhaps also a slanted reference to the way women are perceived in an sexist industry, where subtle sensuality has, over the years, been replaced by a more in your face, brazen buxomness, where the heroine isn't batting her eyelashes and trying to escape the hero's forceful embrace, but wants to be part of a sexual high, taking charge and charging down with a fully loaded pichkari, high on hormones, unabashedly sloshed, her eyes drunken with debauchery.
Taking from the erstwhile Brij tradition where women were dressed like miniature idols, one recalls the cult film Mother India and the song "Holi Aayi Re Kanhai" in which Nargis is seen reminiscing a previous Holi that she had spent with Raaj Kumar's character.
The head-to-toe lehenga is a sign of the moderation of the times. The festival then was more a celebration of the romance between Radha and Krishna - the hero and heroine - an opportunity to touch gently and shudder with the first coming of spring passion.
Similarly, in the number "Holi Ke Din" - that is still played at every Holi - from another classic Sholay, it is still about hearts coming together as Hema Malini, playing the chirpy Basanti, sizzles in a violet and yellow mirror-work ghagra choli - the age-old conical bra catching one's eyes as are the flowers in her matted tresses and the jewellery she wears.
The image of the woman is almost like that of a Gopi, dancing and crooning to catch the fancy of the man, the attraction between them endearing and eternal. The charm of their fleeting caresses in the briefness of their intimacy. The song shows how the festival brings them closer, the possibilities, the pauses, the heaving chest and the playful eye signs.
The colour white, once symbolic with the virginal and puritanical heroine, has always been romanticised in B-town as the favourite Holi shade. Thus Asha Parekh, for instance in Kati Patang, while essaying the role of a young widow in the eternal melody, "Aaj Na Chhodenge" being touched by the charming Rajesh Khanna, also in a white kurta pajama drenched in colour who douses Parekh in colours is a symbolic coming of age gesture, with the woman hitherto untouched giving in to forbidden sexual pleasures.
Her face, forehead, lips flushed with newness and a second coming of sorts. When talking of the colour white and how it evolved from a widow's plain garb to the quintessential Holi hue of playful mirth and nok jhok, one can't but forget the iconic Yash Raj heroine Rekha in a controversial film about infidelity, like Silsila, where the "other woman" is almost deliberately shown in a sexier, fitted, contour-hugging white salwar, red bangles, a tight plait and a face full of make-up as opposed to the more staid Jaya Bachchan, adorned in a traditional pink and white sari with a silver border, her tresses open.
The difference in the two women protagonists was symbolised in their attire: one toeing the line and being quintessentially shy, the other more adventurous, the kind of woman who would seduce and saunter sans regrets, and was meant to catch the eye of another man.
The eternal Holi anthem "Rang Barse Bheege Chunarwali" even today is remembered for the visual competitiveness between the leading ladies on screen - daring versus demure - and the feelings simmering under the surface of a so-called family celebration - adultery, promiscuity and pleasure outside marriage and attraction towards a woman you can letch at, but can't have.
If Yash Chopra redefined festive flirtation with costumes, then one must also mention Juhi Chawla in the film Darr and in the song "Ang Se Ang Laga" from the film - a suggestive saucy track where a girly, giggly Chawla is seen whimpering in a fitted white salwar kameez - a Chopra staple by now - complete with a silver belt and white flowers in her head.
And while there is much mush happening between Juhi and her beau, the dashing Sunny Deol, with a bubbly Chawla dying to melt in his masculine arms, the lyrics of the song juxtaposed with Juhi's puritanical white costume almost seemed like the perfect foil for her obsessed lover, Shah Rukh Khan, who lurks around with bloodshot eyes, drinking her in almost literally. This one is a tease, and the tension in his longing is palpable.
As the biting your lower lip late 1970s and gaudy 1980s gave way to the more daring 1990s, the Holi entourage was in for a transformation that somewhere reflected the no holds barred sex appeal of the heroine and how Holi was a time she could tantalise the frontbenchers.
Her wetness, her wantonness. It was also the time for former Miss Universes and leggy models replacing heroines known for their traditional dancing skills per se. Their taut, bikini bodies being the selling point of songs that were now going to be played at thumping discos and not safe family garden celebrations.
In the track, "Let's play Holi", from the film Waqt: A Race Against Time, Priyanka Chopra didn't take time to change out of the mundane white suit into a more risqué white T-shirt, that was naturally soaked to the skin within seconds, capris and sneakers. The Holi heroine was no longer a distant dream, but a woman we can touch and "taste" and even take a few liberties with.
The festival became more about man-woman chemistry than recreating a godly aura, ala Vrindavan and Mathura. Even Yash Raj films followed with Mohabbatein and the hummable, foot-tapping "Soni Soni Akhiyon Wali", in which the Gen Next brigade of newbies, Shamita Shetty and Kim Sharma, are showing flaunting their well-toned bodies in nothing except a sports bra, a micro-mini skirt and a transparent shirt that's left open and sneakers.
The image was a drastic change. Aishwarya Rai who makes a brief appearance in the song in a lemon chiffon sari is almost an eyesore as the girl from yesteryear.
The new girls of tinsel town are now at par with the heroes in the revelry of colour, their fetishes, footlooseness, their fancy-free attitude a veritable sign of the times to come. Festivals like Holi is an opportunity to flaunt it if you've got it. No strings attached!
With the heroine now not afraid to be the temptress, eager to drink copious amounts of bhang and seduce the man, taking full advantage of the debauchery that the festival has been traditionally associated with, fetters on an expression of sexuality are being broken.
Thus Deepika Padukone, perceived as the thinking woman and associated with the modern urban Indian woman who's sexually assertive, is seen in the hit single "Balam Pichkaari" from the film Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani mouthing bold lyrics that have finally changed the tenor of Holi celebrations, from targeting women to sexually objectifying men with a "Jeans pehenke jo tune marathumka, toh latto padosan ki bhabi ho gayi".
Holi and the heroine possibly are two sides of the same coin - a saga of sexual liberation - the costumes not just being emblems of generational shifts but also the sexist stereotyping of an industry where skin is in.