I say that because I am not sure if it’s God or the Devil or Mother Nature or Father Universe who created a woman. But the effect of a woman on a man is as mysteriously powerful as an asteroid hurling across the universe. The other day, I saw Murder 2 in a cinema hall. It was obvious that the males in the audience,
including myself, were salivating over the leading lady'’ thighs rather than getting horrified on the gore factor.
Inner beauty is constantly harped upon, as if a woman’s outer beauty did not matter. Why be so hypocritical? What's wrong in beauty being skin deep? I care much more about the skin than what it covers. Without outer beauty there would be no attractive movie heroines, fashion models and of course my favourite kind, the Playboy bunnies.
And there was Rifle. That was the name we students had given to a woman during my college days in Vijayawada. She was a construction worker. She was the sexiest woman I have ever seen in my life. My classmates and I would watch her through the window while boring lectures on soils mechanics droned on. It didn’t matter to us that her hair was uncombed and her body was covered with cement dust. She walked barefeet and would sometimes look us straight in the eye. She had more sensuality in her little finger than most women have in their entire bodies. Rifle was a teenager's dream come true.
I strongly feel there is a fundamental difference between beauty and sexuality. Beauty appeals to the senses whereas sexuality drives the senses and many times makes men go berserk. I always wondered why Rifle was so sexy in comparison to the other girls in college who were more expensively dressed, their lips painted in various shades of red. I think it was because Rifle didn't bother to wear lipstick. Either she didn’t know about lipstick or she instinctively knew that no man wants to taste lipstick when he kisses a woman.
I am strongly of the opinion that sexuality doesn’t need cosmetic enhancement. It appeals much more when it is completely raw and real, not artificially enhanced.
The first time I was struck down by beauty combined with sensuality was while shooting Urmila for Rangeela: when she was dancing to the beat of the Tanha tanha song on a beach in Goa. She was mesmerising to say the least. I was determined to frame her beauty correctly. I wanted to achieve exactly the right composition to contain her swinging waist in the camera. Urmila was the beauty, I was the beholder. I was showing her beauty the way I wanted to see it . I wanted to show it in a way that I wanted the audience to see it.
When I was a teenager, I barely had money to buy a movie ticket. One of the most compelling reasons for me to buy a movie ticket was to watch Sridevi’s beauty on the big screen. I remember being extremely upset whenever the camera moved away from her to show the valleys of Ooty. I wanted to slap the director and the cameraman as if they were taking away my bar of chocolate. Some women exude so much sexuality in their body language that their looks become secondary. It’s just the way they walk, stand, or sit, without being explicit. Their sexuality is conveyed by just showing a close-up of an ankle or even a toe-nail. In my dictionary, a woman's sexual appeal is the only thing which defines a woman’s beauty.
Among yesteryear's actresses, Rekha, continues to be beautiful. If she is not being seen more often, it could be because she does not want to do those conventional mother roles. I think she is correct in avoiding them. All of us would like to remember her as a sexy siren, rather than to see her in films showing her as a mother making chapattis in the kitchen.
Rifle, Sridevi, Urmila, or Rekha, they are examples through my eyes — of what God intended as a gift to mankind, before the evil demonic cosmetic factories, costume designers, make-up teams and jewellery merchants came out of their holes in hordes to contaminate the natural beauty of those very special wonderful species called women.
Most of the time, I am very upset with God for all the killings, scams, tsunamis, earthquakes and other evils he creates around us, but when I look at his greatest creation, the Woman, I forgive all his mistakes.