Tease our eves... and be damned!

It’s the butt-pinching-disease syndrome.
Known to cause rash sometimes, on sensitive areas of the feline body. But more than the red welts that appear on the talcum-soft beauties that it offends, the syndrome traumatizes the psyche more so. Leaving the afflicted alarmed, confused, angry and close to feelings of violence towards the self as well as the offender.
It is the symptomatic fallout of an age-old disease – eve teasing! A common occurrence in the not-so-civilized areas of the North and some sections of the South.But in the metropolis of Mumbai, it was a rare occurrence. Hardly, if ever, was a bottom pinched, a bosom touched or a body outraged by a complete stranger in public.
I used to hear sobbing stories of how someone slapped the well-endowed girl next door on her ‘chest’ and ran away, when she visited her Kolkata cousins. Or someone experiencing a nightmare on a Delhi street as a million marauders reached out to touch or pinch the back of her Levis jeans – just because it was a snug fit. Even the stories of college boys chasing groups of gals in an auto-rickshaw down south, causing accidents and injury. Horror tales all. But gradually reducing in frequency as literacy taught civility and the law cracked the whip.
Except that the one icon of male-adolescent worship -- the female sex symbol star – would never be exempt from such lascivious excesses; driven entirely by the primeval parts of the human anatomy.
The actresses!
It is these goddesses of tinsel who are the object of every man’s desire worldwide.
Be it in drooling over Pam Anderson’s sex videos or Jenny Lopez’s ample behind; be it in their lust for scantily clad pin-ups of sex-symbols or in prying into their private bedrooms lives – the male has always desired these unattainable goddesses of tinsel.
And God forbid, should the male fantasy be provided with the proximity to their goddesses, then the animal instinct takes over – more often than not.
No wonder most of our heroines wear a scowl on the face and swear words on the lip to keep intruders of privacy at bay. It works each time.
Ask Kajol, if anyone dare break the invisible barrier that surrounds her like a laser screen of protection. And those who cross the line are severely dealt with a scowl, or worse, a scream. Anyone deaf, dumb or stupid enough to ignore even those warning signs, will get their cameras tossed into the deep blue yonder, so there.
But most actresses don’t have the natural ‘get lost’ expression that South Bombay’s favourite siren wears so easily. And their fear is something the ‘fan’atics feed on.
We may not have personalized ‘stalkers’ for our heroines, unlike in the west where the stars have to screen their own homes for ‘trespassers’; but what we have are the ‘touch and run’ kind of ‘mental molestors’ that our lovely ladies have to be alert to all the time.
Poor Bipasha Basu was, alas, not so alert. And God knows what cheap thrills the culprit got in ‘touching’ the sexy actress where he did; but the slaps he got from gallant John Abraham notwithstanding, it’s a story he is going to repeat to his peers with great relish – even added masala. Such is the human sickness of being.
The very next day, in Mumbai city again, and at a popular nightclub once more – it was actress Suman Ranganathan’s turn as she was ‘jostled’ by a stranger. This time making designer friend Rocky S flare up in her defence. What on earth was happening to a civilized city?
Actually, it’s not a very new phenomenon, this disease. It’s existed from the time the first celebrity was created.
I remember the time when Sridevi was reigning Queen Bee in the movie industry and preferred staying in the South. So, when she did come down to film in Mumbai, almost half a floor of the (now almost closed) hotel Sea Rock was reserved for her. Her entourage used to escort her everywhere she went. But on one occasion, according to the hotel grapevine, she was with just a hairdresser for company. And that’s when some of the hotel staff, liftman included, had allegedly passed some lewd comments and whistled. But the fiery lady brought the house down according to the media. She had the entire group fired and then promptly shifted bag and baggage to a Juhu hotel.
Beauty queen model turned actress, Sonu Walia, was not so lucky. She told me of this terrible time in Chandigarh where she’d gone for a movie promotion. Where, in spite of being surrounded by burly bodyguards, she kept feeling ‘some thingy’ sticking into her back even as she was walking towards her car. Not to add the hands that kept roaming on her back. “I turned back a couple of times to see who it was, misbehaving. But each time I couldn’t catch the culprit. Merely the security guard, who assured me that it was nothing� says Sonu with a grimace. “It was then that I realized that the culprit was none other than the guard himself. The cheek of him.� Only when she told him off, did the unabashed guard move within a safe distance from the outraged model.
I’d heard of strange instances of Nagma being at the rough end of some politically connected goons’ stick too, down south. But it was only when I’d gone with her to Hyderabad to attend a dandiya ceremony that I saw how helpless an iconic actress can actually be when faced with mob excitement. The poor girl could simply smile and make her way through dozens of ‘fans’ even as they tried to touch her.
I’d heard too of an instance concerning Juhi Chawla when an excited mob had surrounded her on the outskirts of a southern state; making her break out in cold sweat. Which is why she swore never to shoot in that area ever again.
Meenakshi Seshadri was less than lucky. She had to face the attack of a deranged man at Mumbai’s Mehboob studio itself. Busy in a shot, she didn’t notice the ‘slime’ creep up and take her by surprise as he attempted to outrage her persona in public, even violently pulling at her hair before he was caught by the studio-hands and thrashed soundly.
Likewise was the case with TV and stage actress Krutika Desai, who was man-handled by a mob at Film City. Where more than one incident is supposed to have occurred.
And as long as there is not sufficient security for our lovely ladies, it will continue to occur.
For within every man lies the beast of lust. Especially when awoken by the beautiful sight of our Venus’ surfacing from the sea (a la Ursula Andress). Just like Bipasha playing a character in Jism.
Maybe one should take a leaf out of Sunjay Dutt’s book, and tie up the offenders to the back of a truck and parade them through the city, with face blackened? After all, a primitive crime deserves a primitive punishment, now doesn’t it?