The Changing Face of Sex Workers in Bollywood Cinema

Prostitution in Indian cinema has a hidden charisma, like a film that has been banned, and the banning becomes a tantalising invitation to the film that depicts or deals with prostitution. It is a part of everyday sexism. In constructing certain specific representations of women, it codes women as an object of the male gaze.

Chetna (1971), directed by the late B.R. Ishara, was perhaps the first Hindi film to represent a sex worker who stepped into the profession out of greed and was not embarrassed about it. But the guilt of having married one of her clients who fell in love with her proves her undoing. It was an extremely bold film for the time, encapsulating very bold cinematographic frames and a brilliant performance by Rehana Sultan.

Parched

Bijlee in Parched, directed by Leena Yadav, is part of a touring entertainment group that performs item numbers for the village men. She also sleeps with some of them in exchange for money. The owner of the company who pimps her gets a fair cut. She has a beautiful figure enough to set the men’s hormone levels rising. Additionally, she is a delightful woman who loves to return to the village to meet her friend Ranee, a young widow. She is not embarrassed about her job, flaunts her charms proudly, and gives courage to other women.

Bijlee is a sparkling beauty and crackles like fireworks with her naughty, teasing charm she veils her inner pain with. She throws up alternative ways of behaviour and thinking, changing female-prefixed abuses men generously use by substituting them with male prefixes and shouting these from the top of a hillock with her friends. Bijlee offers visions of freedom to Lajjo and Rani from the prison they are caged in. But simmering inside her is the pain of the trap that, for her, is a no-exit situation where love is as much a mirage as it is for Rani and Lajjo.

Akira

Maya in Akira is a high-class call girl. She is not ashamed of trading her body for money. She is strong and courageous enough to strike back when a corrupt and murderous cop blackmails her into offering her services for free. All because he set her free from being jailed once. She tries to avenge this wrong by capturing on video one of his corrupt dealings but is killed by the same cop and his team. Strangely, reviews of Akira do not even mention the way her character unfolds and the brilliance of her performance, who has no sad story to back up her being in the profession.

Badlapur

In Badlapur, Jhimli (Huma Qureshi) is portrayed as a confident sex worker who, despite her deep affection for Liak (Nawazuddin Siddique), remains committed to her profession. She ultimately becomes the mistress of a wealthy man, showcasing her assertive nature and lack of desire for marriage or settling down.

But underneath her flashy clothes and loud make-up, Jhimli is very fond of Liak, though he is a killer on the run. The only time we find her broken is when the hero rapes her with vengeance. Huma Quereshi as Jhimli gives an outstanding performance as a sex worker who is not embarrassed about her profession. There is an irony when placed next to a character who is a social worker who sleeps on the sly with men who she has business with. Jhimli comes across as a bold woman, in love with one of her clients but with no plans of marrying him or giving up her profession.

The prostitute, on celluloid as in real life, has her saleability in common. With other culturally prevalent representations of women such as the sacrificing or the ruthlessly selfish wife, new Indian filmmakers, men and women, have reinvented and created new codes of non-voyeuristic vision through the character of the prostitute in their films.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. Views personal.)