All Those Colours Beyond Bling

Once again, glamour is not the sole yardstick for the success of an ­actress in Bollywood

- Giridhar Jha

BHUMI Pednekar is the new toast of B-town with three ­consecutive hits under her belt in quick succession. The 28-year-old Mumbaikar, who swept all prominent awards for a deb­utante with Dum Laga Ke Haisha two years ago, has not looked back since, having sauntered into the big league with her next two releases, ­Toilet: Ek Prem Katha and Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, last year.

Bhumi’s success signals the ascendancy of the proverbial ‘everywoman’ in Hindi cinema—a growing tribe of young ­actresses who seem to have come out of nowhere to dominate the filmdom in ­recent times. In an industry fixated with its own definitions of beauty and sex app­eal, they are unlikely stars possesing  ­oodles of talent, if not the traffic-stopping looks of a glamorous diva. But they have risen above the ordinary, in the face of the beauty bias, with an asset that increasingly matters these days: acting prowess.

Bhumi, who played a plump housewife in her maiden movie and followed it up with the girl-next-door roles in her next ventures, is among a bevy of young act­resses who are now straddling commercial and parallel cinema with equal flair and flamboyance, caring little for the age-old perception about the traditional image of mainstream heroines, the ones with drop-dead gorgeous looks. Actresses like Bhumi, Radhika Apte, Kalki Koechlin, Richa Chadda and Huma Qureshi—all beautiful in their own way—are underlining the fact that a high glamour quotient isn’t the only attribute req­uired by an actress to sparkle in the tinsel town marquee.

Apte, whose PadMan