What if there was more to a porn star than heavage?

Most of the critics who reviewed the Poonam Pandey-starrer Nasha have struggled to find words that will accurately describe how much they hated the film. A few have remarked it’s not as bad as they thought it would be. The one point on which everyone is unanimous is that Nasha’s major disappointment is Pandey, Bollywood’s latest heavage queen , to quote Firstpost columnist Anuya Jakatdar. Jakatdar is one among many who don’t get the point of casting women who act in pornographic films in Bollywood titles. Their argument is that those who want to see these women at work can turn to the Internet. Or, as Jakatdar eloquently puts it, “Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” Pandey’s response to such comments would probably be an offer to strip (that seems to be her Pavlovian response to everything), but here’s an answer that’s a bit more than a mouthful. Most of India’s population— men and women — are ridiculously hypocritical and buttoned-up when it comes to sex. This has resulted in pornography being a grubbier and sleazier secret here than it is abroad. Milking for free allows us to forget a number of things, including the fact that the cow exists, that it deserves a degree of respect because it’s letting you milk it and that a woman can be more than her reputation. [caption id=“attachment_997105” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Courtesy: Facebook[/caption] Actresses like Sunny Leone and Pandey have an impressive fan following despite the stigma of being porn stars. They’re known almost exclusively for the sexual and sexualised acts they’ve either performed or promised. That’s how they’ve made their living and according to social convention, their choices makes them less deserving of respect than a corrupt person who has sold their integrity for money and/or favours. One of the few ways for these women to lend respectability to their persona is to make it in Bollywood. General (as opposed to adult) entertainment dangles the carrot of being seen as one who isn’t just about scandalous behaviour, but also has to their name talent and personality. For someone like Leone, who is a successful businesswoman in addition to being the owner of the most famous pair of fake breasts, Bollywood matters because it offers the possibility of changing the labels stuck upon her. It’s probably the same reason American porn superstar James Deen accepted the role offered to him in The Canyons, directed by Paul Schrader. For countless women earning a livelihood in the frightfully exploitative and unregulated pornography industry in India, Leone, Pandey and gang have shown Bollywood is a possible way out. An almost impossible possibility perhaps, but there’s hope in the fact that some did get their foot through the door. It may seem vaguely sacrilegious to speak about the poetry-weaving heroine of The Mirror of Beauty, Wazir Khanam, while discussing porn stars, but hear me out. Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s novel The Mirror of Beauty is about Urdu poet Dagh Dehlavi’s mother. It is exquisitely written and his heroine has to compete with a fantastic collection of characters, historical events and literary flourishes. Wazir Khanam, as imagined by Faruqi, stands out as much for her elegant beauty as her brilliance and fortitude. History tells us Wazir Khanam was a woman who eloped with a British soldier in 18th century India, had many lovers and was seen as a sophisticated harlot at best. The only reason she wasn’t forgotten was that she was the mother of a fine poet. But Dagh is almost a minor character in The Mirror of Beauty, which focuses upon Wazir Khanam, a woman who defied convention and did so in style. Even as a child, Wazir Khanam is supremely aware of how her beauty turns men to putty and she has absolutely no guilt in making use of this phenomenon. The idea of being under the yoke of marriage and being subservient to men is abhorrent to her, even if this has repercussions in how society and her own family treat her. Wazir Khanam’s stature comes not from the men in her life, but her own erudition and diplomatic skills. She knows how to manage people, is a skilled negotiator and her knowledge of Urdu and Persian poetry is phenomenal. She’s enchanting enough to make you fall in love with her, and stay in love with her over the course of almost 1000 pages. I can’t imagine a woman who wouldn’t want to be like the Wazir Khanam that Faruqi has crafted in The Mirror of Beauty, despite her misfortunes. Originally written in Urdu in 2006, the English translation of this fabulous novel will hopefully give Faruqi and Wazir Khanam the kind of adoration they both deserve. The Mirror of Beauty is richly detailed and transports the reader to Delhi in the 18th and 19th centuries. The reason you keep reading the novel, however, is Wazir Khanam. Fiction allows her to shed the skin of disrepute and reveal herself in a light that celebrates her personality as well as the sexuality that led to history viewing her ungenerously. The Mirror of Beauty does for Wazir Khanam what actors like Leone and Pandey hope Bollywood will do for them. Let’s be honest though. The present crop of women trying to transition out of their oomphy avatars seem to have as much character and substance as the barely-there attire in their photo shoots. To imagine them like Wazir Khanam and able to let a ghazal flutter into a conversation as effortlessly as a dupatta caught in the wind, requires the kind of imagination that I, for one, don’t possess. Still, just because we’re only seeing their heavage at the moment doesn’t mean that’s all there is to see in all women of disrepute. Bollywood just needs to hold up the mirror to the right woman.