I must have been 14 when I was seduced for the first time. She must have been close to 50 then. Her expressive eyes, lithe movements, sensuous dance and gyrating hips stole my heart, mind and soul.
The body, though, had to wait. It is still waiting and, in all probability, will wait forever. I was watching Helen sing Mera naam chin chin choo in Howrah Bridge telecast by that faithful old workhorse Doordarshan.
Helen was just the first. Nadira, Bindu and Shashikala soon sashayed into my memory and lingered on.
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Who can forget Nadira's masterful wooing of Raj Kapoor in Awaara or Bindu's unadulterated lust for the college professor Vinod Khanna in Imtihan?
For long, the much-in-demand
college professor was my fantasy till it was, quite surprisingly, fulfilled. Thankfully, minus the extraordinarily large black-framed spectacles that rested on Vinod Khanna's nose.
As raging hormones turned me into a pimply-faced teenager, the workhorse -- Doordarshan -- kept pace with me and dished out movies that defined the 1970s. And when Helen moved to the rhythmic beats belted out by Jalal Agha singing Mehbooba mehbooba in Sholay, I understood what heart in the throat meant. (I am willing to stick my neck out and say that the current crop of Yana Guptas and Lara Duttas are not a patch on Helen.)
The 70s were also the time when the black and white distinction between vamps and heroines started blurring. I have always had a thing or three for women who had no qualms about their sexuality and were comfortable displaying it.
The svelte Parveen Babi sharing a bed with Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar and the sexy Zeenat Aman cozying up to Feroz Khan in the warmth of a campfire in Qurbani just reinforced it for me. With style and oomph, of course.
But they were still called vamps. I could never understand why. Maybe it was the lack of a better word.
But the meaning was crystal clear. They were ladies whom a 'respectable' man should not be seen with. A 'respectable' man could have a one-night stand -- the logic could be as inane as getting soaked in the rain -- but he could not have a permanent relationship with a vamp.
So at the end of a film, the vamp would always find herself at the sacrificial altar. And I would time and again baulk at the unfairness of it all.
A routine Hindi flick operated on the principle of bipolar opposites. On one end of the scale was the vamp -- evil, Westernised and wrecker of peace and prosperity. On the other was the Bharatiya nari -- the apostle of patience, virtue and sacrifice.
The way I understood it, if a woman was career-oriented, ambitious, wanted a man to be hers and showed it, downed a couple of drinks and had a cigarette dangling from the lips, she was not the Bharatiya nari.
The Bharatiya nari would always listen to her husband/father, not be ambitious, marry to save the khandan, weep before God when direct action could have saved the situation and generally sacrifice. She was just NOT the vamp.
Recent years have seen Hindi cinema tread a different path where a more assertive heroine is doing things that were once the exclusive preserve of vamps. That still hasn't led to a decisive power shift toward characters that portray a woman with a mind and will of her own.While it is true that the sensuousness of a Helen or the raw sexuality of a Bindu was an initial attraction, what I latched on to was their portrayal of an independent, bohemian spirit. A woman, who knew her numbers, was clear about what she wanted in life, and went all out to get it.
If such a woman is a vamp, so be it. And if I am a degenerate for falling for one, so be it.
