Kolkata: The candidature of actress-model Archana Gautam in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections has somewhat stirred the apparently calm waters of moral policing and stereotyping in the state, which had championed the cause of vigilante groups acting on free will to enforce a certain code of ethics in the society at large.
Archana, a Miss Bikini India 2018, had also represented the country in Miss Cosmos World 2018 where she won the title of Most Talent 2018. For the record, she was also Miss Uttar Pradesh 2014.
Archana is the Congress candidate from Meerut's Hastinapur seat and is making her political debut. Since her name was announced as a candidate, her bikini-clad pictures have started doing rounds on social media with alacrity. The slant of the comments on social media platforms since her candidature has made Archana, who made her Bollywood debut with the film 'Great Grand Masti' in 2015, a bit cautious. She boils her political challenge down to a bus stand and a railway station. “There are many temples and places of worship in Hastinapur. It can definitely emerge as a prime tourist spot in the state and provide alternative livelihood to many. What is lacking is connectivity. If elected, my focus will be on development and connectivity,” she says while urging people not to mix her profession with her political career.
Incidentally, the outfit which has been hogging the limelight in place of Archana is the innocuous bikini. With Bollywood being a mass influencer in the country, much ahead of social media influencers and despite being the fact that beach-fashion never truly took off with the Indians holidaying or lounging on its spectacular beaches, bikinis and swimwear has been an easy entry for the sassy women of sixties to the young stars of recent times.
When the 1967 blockbuster 'An Evening in Paris' hit the cinema halls, there were no-doubt gaping faces in the darkness of theaters while the Mediterranean blue one-piece swimsuit-clad Sharmila Tagore dazzled the silver screen. Soon after the movie made ripples, Tagore posed in a black-and-white floral bikini for the Filmfare magazine, which flew off the shelves, very like the Sharmila-Shammi Kappor starrer movie's tickets. Again, for the record, there was hardly any hue and cry with Sharmila's outfit or that of Shammi's, who complimented the scene in an orange bathrobe exposing his thighs.
Bollywood's tryst with bikinis kicked off to a floral start with 'An Evening in Paris' and soon followed suit with sizzling stars like Zeenat Aman in 'Qurbani' where her run on the beach in a white bikini still gives a skip of heart to many or that of Dimple Kapadia in films like 'Bobby' or 'Saagar' or 'Jaanbaaz'. And there was also Parveen Babi in films like 'Yeh Nazdeekiyan' clad in a bikini on the backdrop of roaring waves.
What emerges from the comments surrounding the pictures of Archana Gautam is, this question with Indian cinema featuring divas in swimsuits and bikinis even taking into account that of a swimsuit-clad character played by Nargis opposite Raj Kapoor in the 1951 movies Awara, never appeared till the emergence of something unique – the social media on cyberspace.
“Social media has changed perceptions,” says Dr. Punarjit Roychowdhury, Assistant Professor with the Department of Economics in the Shiv Nadar University. “These days it is a triumph of the lesser taste. Are there any takers of classic art-literature-music any more? The songs which were barely considered as music even a decade ago are getting viral today, anything and everything is getting passed off as literature, movies, tele-serials as well as web series of all sorts are a hit now,” Dr. Roychowdhury told ETV Bharat.
“It will not be an exaggeration if we say that social media, which is barely a decade and a half old, has broken most barriers of entry into the market. I write a bad novel and get rejected from all quality publishers. So what? I upload it as episodes on social media and receive instant labels of a novelist. Directors reject me for failing auditions? No problem. I enter a pice hotel, shoot myself eating regular fare with my mobile phone and upload it on social media as a Vlog. Instant fame awaits me. Earlier, the market, which rejected low-ranked content through the process of sheer market economics, is now getting flooded with commonplace work. And people are lapping it up,” he adds.
Comments and slants in respect to Archana Gautam's bikini-clad photographs are not isolated from this phenomenon, which many social scientists are dimply putting as trends. What never deterred a Sharmila Tagore or a Zeenat Aman or a Dimple Kapadia, is now making people like Archana, who aspires to enter public life, grow some cold feet.
From Sharmila Tagore, Zeenat Aman or Dimple Kapadia to Vyjayanthimala, Khushboo, Madhavi, Madhuri Dixit, Mumtaz and then from Mandakini, Bipasha Basu, Urmila Matondkar, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Kajol, Anushka Sharma to Sonam Kapoor swimsuits and bikinis were and are there in mainstream Bollywood. The only difference is, earlier it was considered as breaking glass ceilings. Now it is tearing off the social media veil.
In a recent reaction to trolls about her dress, actress Disha Patani was candid in saying, “It is easier to judge a woman on the basis of how much they cover up their skin, but it is hard to accept your own cheap mentality when you can’t stop staring at those inappropriate areas which you are asking her to cover ... Wake up and start accepting that we are not going to be anybody’s idea of an ‘Indian girl.”
Again, for record's sake, Archana Gautam, the Congress candidate from Hastinapur, has her hands full working for several Tamil and Telugu films as well as musicals, after featuring in movies like 'Baaraat Company', 'Haseena Parker' and 'Junction Varanasi'.
