Desicritics Comments on Bollywood Acting 101: Looking Away Shyly

Comment by Sandeep

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:08:23 EDT

Hey Aditi, I am sure u r feeling lucky to be dreaded by people. Thank god u r saved from meeting someone who judged u just on reply he recieved. Look at the perks of the reply, now even I am planning to sharpen my replies. Well also I am enlightened now to know that lead actress or even the side kicks who dont shy or look coy are supposed to be potty and repulsive. will keep that in mind. I am still waiting for relation of prostitute, looking coy, tigress, eating man and the reference to latest version of Umrao jaan. did I blinked and missed it?

Comment by Saarthi

Tue, 7 Aug 2007 10:58:03 EDT

In reference to comment 13 Aditi I think oley-ola sounds like a pissed off Ash fan :D I have never heard a sane person say that the new Umrao Jaan was more "realistic"!!!! Haha I am an editor and I liked this piece so much that our paper would now like to run a few of your Bollywood humor chronicles like these! I hope you received my email. (And by the way your comment 2 wasn't all that potty-mouthed really. I am much worse in the mornings, especially if certain somebodys can't have a sense of humor!!!) Regards. S

Comment by oley-ola

Tue, 7 Aug 2007 10:40:53 EDT

oh 1 more thing . clear this sterotype. a prostitute is not a tigress waiting to eat up the men comin to her. she is also a normal woman. so for me the new umrao jaan was more realistic than the rekha one. here umrao was shown as a normal woman who has normal hopes & aspiorations from life. she behaves like a normal woman with her lover. she just happpens to be a prostitute because of the situations in her life.

Comment by oley-ola

Tue, 7 Aug 2007 10:33:49 EDT

if someone is so "potty" mouthed in the morning when ppl are the freshest how will they be in the afternoon & evening. no wonder they write such potty articles. after reading the kind of language in ur reply i dread meeting a person like u in real life by any misfortune. yuck !! i feel like throwing up. just cant believe u r a cancer researcher & blah blah. if one can have an opinion on a horde of bollywood heroines from the past to the present why do they call someone names for having an opinion on their article. i genuinely feel ur article is pointless & based on a very very trivial matter.Looking away shyly??? is that something to write home abt?? writing the review of a movie would have much better. what's wrong with heroines being demure, i fail to understand.Aishwarya Rai's "looking away shyly" coupled with a few histrionics has led to three Filmfare awards? what a sweeping & exaggerated statement. i bet it took her more than that. anyway, shy or no shy the winner is aishwarya because she finally won the awards. if amrrita rao blushed in vivah shahid kapoor too blushed in equal measure! who would wish to see a potty mouthed & repulsive heroine anyway? sense of humour?? that doesnt sound credible from a potty mouth ! satirical piece? really??and before i get some more of the potty mouthed abuses i must run for my life from here& never come back. TATA

Comment by Anindita Sengupta

Thu, 2 Aug 2007 12:05:57 EDT

LOL...wonderful post! So much said, and so well.

Comment by Aspi

Thu, 2 Aug 2007 11:38:33 EDT

Uma, you should do it, but only if you upload the video on YouTube so we can all watch it.

Comment by Aditi Nadkarni

Thu, 2 Aug 2007 09:39:07 EDT

Hey Guys, Thank you for the comments! Amrita: Glad you found it funny. Oley-Ola caught me in the morning when I'm usually crabby and potty-mouthed :) Jay: Uggh, hated the new and farsical Umrao Jaan! And you are SO right! PH: :) Glad you enjoyed those analogies! Aspi: Really? Now I have to watch that guy more carefully next time. Temporal: Yeah, I do mention a few outliers who did not conform to the "looking away shyly" protocol and hence got labeled as the "sexy sirens" like Sen did (if you mean Mun Mun Sen that is). Shabana Azmi was not very mainstream and the ones she was in, she did look away shyly (Amar Akbar Anthony) :) But you are right, there are quite a few who don't do the shy look, or probably cant! I have yet to see Ms.Zinta pull an effective one. Uma: I say go for it!! Experience says we get better at faking stuff with age. Hehe. Lemme know how it goes :D Appreciate the comments you guys!

Comment by Aditi Nadkarni

Thu, 2 Aug 2007 09:39:07 EDT

Comment by Uma

Thu, 2 Aug 2007 08:55:39 EDT

I've always longed to look away shyly. But if I couldn't manage it at 21 I doubt I'm going to succeed in my fifties. Do you think I could give it a bash anyways? After all we only live once.

Comment by temporal

Thu, 2 Aug 2007 07:27:30 EDT

adi: :) counter argument just off the top shabana azmi nandita das the sens (both mother and daughter) caveat: not all their films:)

Comment by Aspi

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 16:17:39 EDT

For my money, all the actresses might as well give it up because no one does itraoing over cleavage better than Himesh Reshammiya. God bless him!

Comment by PH

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 13:36:50 EDT

their cleavage deeper than Amrish Puri's voice, their bodices more conspicious than Mehmood's moustache. Hahaha, those were two verry cool analogies:)

Comment by Jay

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 13:36:02 EDT

Haha, another funny one Aditi! I HATED Vivah and I absolutely HATE the overt bashfulness of actresses who have no qualms about baring their skin but duck and giggle due to a peck on the cheek. Kareena Kapoor & Amrita Rao irritate the crap outta me. The other day I was trying to see what twas about the new Umrao Jaan that killed it compared to the old one by Rekha and then I realized that they have turned the new one into a love story between the Nawab and Umrao Jaan rather than making it Umrao Jaan's story. As a result you have Rai squirming coyly and making eyes at Baby Bachchan when she is supposed to be a tawaif exhuding bold sensuality, like Rekha did in Umrao jaan and Madhuri Dixit did in Devdas.

Comment by Amrita

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 12:18:39 EDT

Hahaha Aditi - I don't know which was funnier, your post or your reply to the comment above. :D I never really paid attention to it because itrao-ing and sharmao-ing is such a part and parcel of the whole actress gig but as I was reading it, an image of Amrita Rao floated up before me and OH MY GOD! You're SO right!

Comment by Aditi Nadkarni

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:32:18 EDT

Prove?! Ha! Well, I am fed-up of people who will pull a debate out of their ass over a satirical piece. Its not a critique or a review. Does everything have to be good/bad so you can then take sides and have a nice cleansing battle? One cannot have an article chronicling a common acting genre used in Bollywood? Ykw, I'd much rather be a pseudointellectual than an obvious dumb fck who goes around looking for a fight, labeling people and missing the whole point. Get yourself a sense of humor.

Comment by oley-ola

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:17:23 EDT

I'm Fed up of these pseudo-intelligent ppl. what's your point? what do you want tp prove? That heroines should not look coy??? Or should they???