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Indian cinemas particularly in the period between 1970-1995 included item song(s) as a mandatory factor to sell the movies. It was also a period when the society was judgemental about women who worked in films (not that the mindset has changed drastically in the 21st century) and there was an inherent disgust against those women who were cast in the roles of disco dancers, seductresses, villains, etc. Yet, these were the women that the majority ogled at and yearned that every movie had them, at least as a bit-uh.
Item songs created market for many artists and these roles were deployed in the effect of showcasing a contrast between the “good, well-mannered” heroine and the “lewd-spiteful” seductress. The casting of these contrasts was well-received by the audience - the men had a chance to lust after the disco-dancers, while women consumed the item numbers to elevate the status of ‘good-natured women’ and thus furthered the moral policing. In retrospect, we can make a safe analysis that women participated as actual watchdogs of patriarchy and that they have also remained the sole reason for the delay in raising sensitive boys/men.
In the pool of item numbers, I had ended up keeping the much popular Oo Antava Mawa on the loop for quite some time. The lyrics are intriguing and so is the song’s cinematography. While you see Samantha dancing to the tune with her envying fluid aerobic dance moves, she is actually foregrounding a significant message. She is trying to tell the audience that no matter what a ‘woman’ looks like (fat/black/ugly - all possible binary oppositions of what defines beauty!), men lust after her because she is a ‘woman’. This is indeed a bold song - to cry out loud - “mee maga buddhe vankara buddhi” (trans.: “men’s thinking is a twisted one”). It was perhaps this message that got me thinking about the once celebrated and now forgotten Silk!
We know the significance of an item number in Indian cinema, it is precisely a selling factor for a movie. Silk had created a market for herself where the distributors bought only those films in which her item number was included. Introduced by Vinu Chakravarthy, Vijayalakshmi Vadlapati soon became a popular face and people accepted the sheen and the shine and named her ‘Silk Smitha’. In Chakravarthy’s words, it is not the English word ‘silk’, rather, it is an immediate reaction that one would express towards a woman serving toddy in a village - ‘sillakku’ - which was later reduced to a mere English word ‘silk’.
While we had our celebrated heroes on one hand - Rajinikanth/Kamal/Ravichandran/Bhagyaraj, etc. - their movies reached maximum selling point for the item song that was included in the narrative. Several dance artists who became popular for glamour roles (Disco Shanti, Anuradha, Jayamalini, Shakeela, etc.) have conveyed their indebtedness toward Silk in their individual interviews.
I had to mine out from the corners of internet to get as much information as possible about Silk. It was a dead-end for she remained a mystery to her own contemporaries. However, that doesn’t stop me from dedicating a few words in Silk’s honour and courage!
Silk was someone who had managed to bring her own essence of erotica and showed men the power of a woman’s body. There are these two songs that strike to my mind immediately when I think of Silk - “Halli mestre.. halli mestre.. paata maadi banni..” and “nethu rathiri yamma.. thukam pochidi yamma..” - these are superhit songs that are still listened to and even used in popular culture spoofs. If you have observed these songs more closely - video and lyrics - you will notice that even when you interchange those heroes, the highlight called Silk remains the same. That was the power she had in a male-dominated, testosterone-spewing world.
Reading Silk through the lens of feminism (the “serious well-balanced theory” and not the “sari-red bindhi feminism”) alone will yield to a meagre understanding and categorises her as a working woman. I call in for an intersectional feminist reading which allows me to position her in the larger context of work and caste politics.
Silk was not a product of formal education; she explored fashion sense through multifarious magazines and keeping in touch with the emerging western trends of fashion. From the interviews of her contemporaries, I garnered that Silk designed her own costumes. This may not seem much of a bold step, but in retrospect, the costumes designed by her elevated her essence of erotica and today, they stand as style-statements. Just like how Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe’s dress for the Met Gala - 2022; Silk’s designs are appropriated by today’s fashion trends. The mix-match trend is not something new, and Silk had already mastered the technique in her time. Silk should be recognised as a fashion icon if anyone would attempt to write a biography of her.
Another aspect in the larger ambit of intersectional feminism is the caste politics that could be read into the works of Silk. While she performed in glamour roles/songs, the signs of caste hierarchy ran as an undercurrent in those movies. Women like Silk represented the ‘lower-caste’, and lewd and spiteful meanings were associated with that particular caste. Silk was used to run a stark difference between the way the upper-caste women behaved as opposed to the lower-caste women. The latter were always associated with the negative undertones. Look at those item numbers, the camera takes forever to focus on Silk’s face. While the fair-complexioned heroine is worried about her ‘man’, the dark-skinned dancer is seducing the same ‘man’. It may appear that the ‘man’ is common but NO! The female gender is common!
The fair-complexioned upper-caste woman is portrayed as one who is struggling to keep her man loyal to herself. She constantly loses in this struggle but in the end, her ‘good and pious-nature’ saves her from final humiliation. Now, consider the role of Silk - she is portrayed as an enchantress and she alone manages to lure men and captivate them in her charms. The so-called dark-skinned lower-caste woman knows how to take control of the ‘man’, her ‘man’. She, in fact, teaches the savarna men how to have sex! That indeed is a courageous move. Her body was the site to perform perversions, something that could not be executed on a fair-upper caste body. Come to think of it, Silk saved a generation of women by showing that one’s sexuality was one’s own business, and that there was nothing wrong in expressing one’s carnal desires.
Today, the market for glamour artists may have been affected, but women at large (heroines/character artists/etc.) have indulged themselves freely in doing item numbers. It is easy for me to see someone like Samantha as an item-girl and also as a heroine. In analysing the history of glamour roles in Indian cinema, Silk has played a significant part in both - creating a market for glamour artists, and making the binaries of good and bad more fluid.
This small write-up is just the beginning of an entire exploration of a lively chapter called Silk!