Zeenat

A Bombay girl, she earned a scholarship to study abroad and proceeded to become a self-confessed boring Grade A student at the University of Southern California. She returned to India a year later to begin a career that would see her become the most risqué, independent and intelligent actress Bollywood has ever seen.

Her arrival in Bollywood in the early 1970s didn’t so much as shake up the establishment as irreversibly alter it. At a time when film heroines were submissive wives and naïve lovers, Zeenat Aman’s characters were preoccupied with deserting jobless lovers for millionaires, aborting a baby for their career and falling in love with their mother’s ex-lovers. And she made it look good.

Her striking, contemporary look was never going to go unnoticed. Having finished as runner-up in the Miss India contest, Aman went on to become the first Indian woman to win an international event when she was crowned Miss Asia Pacific in 1970. But it wasn’t just her good looks and perfect size ten figure that made her a prominent model and subsequently, a movie star. It was also her fiercely independent personality. With these almost perfect attributes, Aman soon made a place for herself in Bollywood.

She became India’s first sex symbol.

It was Raj Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram (Truth Destruction Beauty, 1978), that held the country in a collective gasp. The movie dealt with the subject of inner beauty, but it was beauty of the more visible kind that became the film’s highlight. For a song sequence, Kapoor chose to dress Aman in a shortened, white sari revealing tantalising bits of her curvaceous body as she sang to seduce her admirer. Needless to say, she was successful.

Despite the unconventional and suggestive nuances of her roles, Zeenat Aman was not a sensationalist. Far from it. She did things simply because it was for her the natural thing to do. If she smoked hashish in Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971) and made a phenomenon of it, she was just staying true to her character. If she was one of the first actresses to wear a skimpy two-piece bikini on screen and looked good doing it, well, where was the problem? Here was a woman whose confidence in herself was nothing short of absolute.

It was precisely this sense of confidence and style that set her apart from the demure crop of Bollywood actresses. She was independent, intelligent and sexy in a manner that few women were. And she made it all look effortless.
 
The extent of Aman’s lasting impact became evident earlier this year, when British weekly newspaper Eastern Eye, revealed the results of its poll on Bollywood’s sexiest star of all time. Listing one vapid actress after the other, it wasn’t Aishwarya Rai, Katrina Kaif or India’s current darling Kareena Kapoor that came out on top. It was Zeenat Aman.

Thirty years after she showed Bollywood how it’s done she remains without equal. Every now and then there is talk of the next Zeenat Aman. Should she ever materialise, we’ll have to pinch ourselves to see if we’re dreaming.

They don’t make them like they used to. Zeenat Aman was always going to get the attention she enjoyed.

Zeenat Aman was always going to get the attention she enjoyed. A Bombay girl, she earned a scholarship to study abroad and proceeded to become a self-confessed boring Grade A student at the University of Southern California. She returned to India a year later to begin a career that would see her become the most risqué, independent and intelligent actress Bollywood has ever seen.

Her arrival in Bollywood in the early 1970s didn’t so much as shake up the establishment as irreversibly alter it. At a time when film heroines were submissive wives and naïve lovers, Zeenat Aman’s characters were preoccupied with deserting jobless lovers for millionaires, aborting a baby for their career and falling in love with their mother’s ex-lovers. And she made it look good.

Her striking, contemporary look was never going to go unnoticed. Having finished as runner-up in the Miss India contest, Aman went on to become the first Indian woman to win an international event when she was crowned Miss Asia Pacific in 1970. But it wasn’t just her good looks and perfect size ten figure that made her a prominent model and subsequently, a movie star. It was also her fiercely independent personality. With these almost perfect attributes, Aman soon made a place for herself in Bollywood.

She became India’s first sex symbol.

It was Raj Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram (Truth Destruction Beauty, 1978), that held the country in a collective gasp. The movie dealt with the subject of inner beauty, but it was beauty of the more visible kind that became the film’s highlight. For a song sequence, Kapoor chose to dress Aman in a shortened, white sari revealing tantalising bits of her curvaceous body as she sang to seduce her admirer. Needless to say, she was successful.

Despite the unconventional and suggestive nuances of her roles, Zeenat Aman was not a sensationalist. Far from it. She did things simply because it was for her the natural thing to do. If she smoked hashish in Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971) and made a phenomenon of it, she was just staying true to her character. If she was one of the first actresses to wear a skimpy two-piece bikini on screen and looked good doing it, well, where was the problem? Here was a woman whose confidence in herself was nothing short of absolute.

It was precisely this sense of confidence and style that set her apart from the demure crop of Bollywood actresses. She was independent, intelligent and sexy in a manner that few women were. And she made it all look effortless.
 
The extent of Aman’s lasting impact became evident earlier this year, when British weekly newspaper Eastern Eye, revealed the results of its poll on Bollywood’s sexiest star of all time. Listing one vapid actress after the other, it wasn’t Aishwarya Rai, Katrina Kaif or India’s current darling Kareena Kapoor that came out on top. It was Zeenat Aman.

Thirty years after she showed Bollywood how it’s done she remains without equal. Every now and then there is talk of the next Zeenat Aman. Should she ever materialise, we’ll have to pinch ourselves to see if we’re dreaming.