Not that free a market

Not a single woman I know has a nice thing to say about it. Even the men are non-committal. But in my estimation — for whatever that’s worth — Dil mera muft ka from Agent Vinod goes a long way in bringing sexy back. You could, of course, dismiss it as just another failed item in a vast menu of eye-catchy numbers, but you’d have missed the point and missed it by a mile.

The success of Muft lies in the fact that it brings back to the relationship of the item and gawker a distance that was being sadly eroded. Strangely, Kareena Kapoor has been rendered more untouchable than ever, and for that, we have only Muft to blame. If you are confused by my twisted rhetoric, let me try a more simple explanation.

Though this is not a lament for the derelict kothas or mujras of yesteryear, it is impossible to explicate the significance of Kareena Kapoor’s new avatar without taking into consideration the contributions of her renowned ancestor in the history of cinematic tawaifs. In Pakeezah, Meena Kumari foretells the colours for a perfect wardrobe. Like Kareena in Muft, she wears pink in Inhi logon ne. Meena and Kareena were both in love relationships with producers of their respective films, Kamal Amrohi and Saif Ali Khan. But more than specific similarities, Meena Kumari outlines a convention for all those who’d follow her in her nimble footsteps. As she dances her way around a room and stops at each grotesquely leering man, she implores them to watch without shame, but affirms the fact that they have little right to touch. No better man than Gulshan Grover could master the intrusive gaze, but the very fact that he is being subjected to a mujra in Agent Vinod keeps him in place, wishing perhaps, that he could make time travel to the early ’90s when the ‘very bad man’ inside would just lunge at Kareena with evil impunity.

For the male viewer and the male in every viewer, Grover makes for easy identification. For once, we have obviously been denied the ambit of tactility, but given access to a realm of desire that is rescued from petty correctness by the sheer aesthetics of mujra as a form of song and dance. In Umrao Jaan, for instance, much of the consummation happens through sheer eye movement and eventual contact. Farooque Shaikh is literally singled out in the song In aakhon ki masti by Rekha who hangs to a belief in love, escape and poetry. There is a moment in Muft, when Kareena stops to stare at Saif; she holds her gaze and then an intended blink from her is met by an almost reticent half-wink by him. In my opinion, it is only the atmosphere of a mujra that provides for such a seamless pause. You might argue, and perhaps rightly so, that Pritam is no Khayyam, that the words are far from lyrically sublime. But in the defence of its makers, Muft doesn’t sound like a homage, tribute or adaptation. It seems part of a continuum.

The British destroyed the kothas and raped the tawaifs into oblivion. Cinema just reminds us of a heritage that was. And let’s face the truth, Bollywood’s tawaifs always had more money for cosmetic make-up. We have only ever seen constructed courtesans, never really been subject to the sweet justice of their courts. Also, the very fact that Kareena Kapoor is not playing the part of a besotted Chandramukhi from Devdas, that she is just performing the role of a svelte dancer in the middle of an action thriller for sake of a Bourne or Bondish plot, renders any kind of nostalgia for that ‘clean and artistic’ mujra dull, regressive and irrelevant. The buxom corset has clearly been forsaken for a cleavage-revealing push-up blouse — and I do mean this in all single-minded sincerity — the more we get to see of this sort of thing the better.

A spate of the ill-named ‘item numbers’ in films have recently followed a strict formula. Starting from a pedestal of sorts, the actress finds herself surrounded by burly men with half-drunk beer bottles. They dance in an unseemly manner and she seems to grace them with her proximity. Examples spread far and wide from Namak in Omkara to the recent Chikni Chameli. If ever there were a con, this is it. The first thought that rushes through the head of an audience member — if that monster can, so can I, and what’s more, I’d even do a better job. Now I have been waiting for my Munni to drop by. She still hasn’t. It is comforting to come across a song that sets things right, that forces you to curb your enthusiasm and toys with your desire judiciously.

Sheila was right. Kareena’s way too sexy for me.

Shreevaatsa Nevatia writes at DNA for a living. He may not be wise but he is a lover of wisdom