The Fiery Masala Of Female Sexuality: Mira Nair & Her Bold Female Protagonists

"Wish me a happy birthday" whispered the sultry Mina to her lover after a long night of leisurely love-making.

This is a scene from Mississippi Masala, the love story of an interracial couple starring Sarita Chaudhary-Denzel Washington. While the affair brings to boil the cultural stew, the delicate handling of the love scene heats up the raw chemistry between Denzel Washington and Sarita Chaudhary.

In a seemingly simplest of scenes the two lovers speak softly over the telephone. Mina's thigh lays exposed from under the sheets, her bronze skin catching just the right shades of yellow light, her shy smile lighting up the scene.

The strong sense of sexuality that the female protagonists of Mira Nair's films portray was unmistakable in Mississipi Masala as with her other movies.

Monsoon Wedding had two shades of female sexuality each of which spelled emancipation in contrasting manifestations. In this wedding-family drama, while the bride Aditi comes to terms with a pre-marital affair before moving on to a life of conjugal bliss, cousin Ria finally faces the ugly demons of early sexual abuse by an uncle.

In Salaam Bombay, the two lives of prostitutes in Bombay are explored. While Rekha is on the brink of escaping the depravity of the flesh trade, Sola Saal is sent out to entertain her first client thus beginning a journey down an abysmal path.

In The Perez Family, the wildly sensual Dorita Perez brings color, spice and zest to a great storyline. One doesn't know whether to credit Mira Nair's directorial abilities or the script for the juxtaposition of young versus mature sexuality in this film but the sheer contrast of these two facets made it a more appealing story.

Ashok and Ashima Ganguli the characters of Mira Nair's The Namesake, arrive in the United States as immigrants, their new betrothal a product of a traditionally arranged alliance. The handling of the scene of their first awkward night of coupling is near perfect. The audience can feel the inhibitions giving way and the intimacy building. Moushmi, Gogol's love interest explodes onto the screen, her pouted lips and insolent admissions of ex-lovers, exuding bold sexuality made more apparent by the clever camera angles than merely by her body language.

In a discussion about Ms.Nair's handling of female sexuality, one cannot leave out Kama Sutra, A Tale Of Love, the story of the sensual exploration of two women, a princess and her servant. It reminds us that sexuality, treated as a taboo in Indian society, was in ancient times an art worthy of exploration.

It is said that art imitates life and I have often wondered why female sexuality is so blatantly ignored in films. Popular Indian cinema exploits the lowest form of female sexuality by incorporating exposed bodies and cheap meaningless lust that serves only to plant misconceptions into the impressionable youth living in a society that regards sexuality like somewhat of a forbidden fruit. In a laughable display of ignorance, effigies are burnt and protests are voiced when a filmmaker chooses to deviate from what is considered proper and accepted. Male filmmakers, no matter how liberal in their thinking, often lose out on the effervescence of the more sensationalist approach of a female firecracker by sticking to the trodden path. A female protagonist who is outspoken, confident of her abilities and displays self-assured body language would be deemed too threatening and is rarely seen. A shy, blushing damsel is usually the one who gets credited as the lead. As a result most films portray men as the ones making the first move and are assumed to be the sexually aggressive ones. The propriety of a love scene is determined by the intensity with which a man kisses a woman before the curtain falls. Mira Nair in her films brings a refreshing sense of power and liberation in her subtle depiction of female sensuality.

In Mississippi Masala, when Denzel Washington crooned "Happy Birthday", he could've put Marilyn Monroe's birthday song for Kennedy to shame. And female sexuality was born again.