A sultry, 40-something woman picks up a boyishly handsome male stripper and has sex in a hotel room. The stripper turns out to be her son's best friend. Her son unexpectedly finds them. In a moving finale, she speaks to her son of the solitude within marriage and why a mother ends up naked with a stranger. Both her husband and son acknowledge their mistakes and forgive her.
-Oops, 2003

SEX-CAPADES: Bringing sex out of the Bollywood closet are brave new films like Tijori's Oops (top), Khwahish (centre) and Jism

"This body does not know love," the voluptuous heroine says, "it only knows hunger. The hunger of the body." Indeed. So the heroine seduces nearly every man in sight, plots her husband's murder and doesn't even offer the excuse of a terminally ill mother. She is an amoral sexual predator.
-Jism, 2003

These are not scenes you expect to find in a Bollywood film. Women in Hindi cinema are usually mass-produced by the same cookie cutter that functions on one golden rule: women are not sexual beings. Whether as mother, sister or lover, they are the repositories of values and remain unfailingly chaste. Sexuality is sublimated to thrust-and-grind songs. The heroine may do the shimmy in a bustier but will walk into the sunset a virgin.

Or at least this used to be the case. Increasing market segmentation and the evolution of an urbane, multiplex audience are allowing filmmakers to stretch the mainstream straitjacket. A plethora of performers is no longer squeamish about on-screen love. Sex is out of the Bollywood closet and even though the Hindi film heroine largely remains a stylish Sati Savitri, making love no longer means having to say sorry.

Oops, the directorial debut of actor Deepak Tijori, is an example of the brave new breed. Though the direction is amateurish, the idea is formidable. Says actor Mita Vasisht: "This is possibly the first film from a woman's point of view. She remains the archetypal mother and wife, but sex is an emotional demand." Post-Oops, Vasisht has become the "new older woman's sex symbol". Meanwhile, the younger women are getting sexier too. Kaante director Sanjay Gupta is involved in pre-production work on an Indo noir called Musafir about "one unhappy marriage and three illicit relationships". Pankuj Parashar's Intequam-The Perfect Murder, based on Basic Instinct, has Ishaa Koppikar doing a Sharon Stone act, including the classic crossed-legs-no-panties scene. The film, Parashar says, "has six murders and dollops of sensuality".

Of course, skin and sexuality are not the same thing. Filmmakers aren't hesitant about exploiting the former. As producer Mukesh Bhatt says, "The bottom line is that whether in Hollywood or Bollywood, sex sells." But understanding and portraying female sexuality is tougher. In truth, Bollywood is yet to come to grips with the modern Indian woman. Filmmakers speak of creating confident women, but this is hardly the case. Heroines might be glam dolls but few female characters have the depth of Nutan in Bandini or Nargis in Mother India. Bollywood remains a male-centric industry. Though the number of women directors is increasing-recent converts to direction include Honey Irani and Farah Khan-a sensitive Bollywood film about female sexuality seems a few years away.

Why? For one, there are hardly any strong roles being written for women, leave alone those that explore something as tricky as sexuality. Distributors, burned by incessant flops (Bollywood lost an estimated Rs 300 crore in 2002) are finding safety in multi-starrers. As two or three male stars strut their stuff, heroines are consigned to being clothes-horses in the margins. And even if such a script were written, filming it would be a Herculean hurdle. Though the mindset of actors has undergone a sea change, most filmmakers haven't still figured out how to film sex aesthetically. Says director Shaad Ali: "The discomfort shows. The person who is trying to tell the story must shed his inhibitions before he asks the stars to do so."

In an essentially conservative society, popular entertainment is something that can be consumed by the whole family. Moreover the censor situation is complicated. Says author Nasreen Munni Kabir: "People see censorship as repression, not guidance, and there is no control at the theatre. You can't have steamy scenes until this is fixed." Indeed, a graded censorship system would allow cinema to push the envelope further.

However, films like Jism hint that Bollywood is taking baby steps. Kabir points out that Hollywood too went through a period of noir films before emerging with more complex female characters. Certainly, the door isn't wedged shut as it was before. Vashisht believes "something has begun". Indeed.