In Bollywood, skin is in

After Jism, filmmakers seem to have chanced on a formula to beat the box-office slump. The surprise success of Pooja Bhatt's film has triggered off body consciousness in the Mumbai movie industry.

Suddenly, leading men and ladies are no longer fighting shy of taking off their clothes. "Why should they?" asks Suneel Darshan in whose Talaash Akshay Kumar stripped to his briefs with Pooja Batra for a scene in a sauna. "Our stars spend hours every day working out. They have enviable physiques. Why shouldn't they show it on screen?"

In his new production Andaz, leading ladies Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta are far from inhibited in their body language on the watery shores of South Africa. Quite a departure from the conservative depiction of heroines in the Darshan brothers' earlier films. Suneel agrees, "There is definitely more skin in Andaz than in my earlier films. Call it a sign of the times."

Producer Boney Kapoor, who is known for clean, wholesome entertainers like Woh Saat Din and Mr India, had to add a raunchy seduction number in Khushi. Says Kapoor, "The distributors insisted there was no titillating masala in my film. Hence the number. I left the song for places like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh where raunch is in demand; I removed it from the rest of the prints."

Earlier, bare-bodied entertainment was considered lowbrow. Jism has induced a new kind of respectability to skin. Though the film didn't contain nude scenes, it was marketed as a titillating thriller.

Director Govind Menon has shot many bare-torsoed scenes of his leading man Himanshu Malik and his semi-clad costar Mallika in his ready-for-release Khwahish. "Why not?" Menon asks. "They are young, good-looking people with great bodies. The scenes I have shot are integral to Khwahish."

"The way some recent films are going with flesh, there is a risk of mainstream cinema losing the family audience," cautions director Hansal Mehta. "Though my film Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai was a sex comedy, it did not contain a single nude shot. One can address adult concerns without getting blatant about it."

Films like Kaizad Gustad's Boom, Deepak Tijori's Oops, Mahesh Dattani's Mango Souffle and Kushan Nandy's 88 Antop Hill have their share of imposed oomph to bring in crowds. On a more mainstream level, films like Suneel Darshan's Andaz and Pankuj Parasher's Inteqaam (a remake of Hollywood erotic thriller Basic Instinct) explore the physical aspect of the human condition.

This year many big-budget films extolling traditional Indian values and conservative lifestyles are being readied for release. Chief among these are Honey Irani's Armaan, Sooraj Barjatya's Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon and Dharmesh Darshan's Bewafaa.

Kareena Kapoor, who plays a traditional middle-class girl in Barjatya and Darshan's films, is enthralled by the cultural contradictions inherent in the roles being offered to her. "I am required to play everything from a mourning Hindu widow to a cold-blooded killer. I started by playing a demure salwar-kameez-clad girl in Refugee and switched to the ulta-hip girl in Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai. This year, I am back to playing traditional girl roles. I guess there is room for both Western and Indian values."