What movie stars really gave us

Why do movie stars matter so much to us May be because cinema amplifies and engages with not the timidities of rational logics but the boldness of the senses Its hyperkinetic tangle of conventions and innovations speaks to our urges desires emotions and intellect allows us to be all this and also several people at one time fluid unlike the rigid identities of law society political correctness Movie stars communicate these libidinal energies of cinema through a bodily presence Star and audience mirror and remember each other in an intimate mysterious embraceThe three stars who died recently each represented a specific era in this ongoing relationshipNimmi died in March at 88 A major star of the studio era she acted in Indias first technicolour film Aan 1952 Often the feisty village belle the unbound girl in the garden she made heavylidded eyecontact with audiences in songs that yearn for love Born Nawab Banoo she was one of the last starheroines from the tawaif communities Practitioners of the sensual courtesanal artsmdashdance music poetrymdashtawaifs were erased from performing arts via colonial laws and rising nationalism both squeamish about eroticism and pleasure They transitioned to films as producers directors actors contributing to Bombay cinemas defining aestheticmdashstylised eroticism through song heightened emotive adakari androgynous appeal glimpsed in figures like Nighar Sultana and a focus on pleasuring the audience With each filmic embrace we surrender to each dance move we mimic each song we sing these aesthetics become part of us a queer form of memory bodily but ephemeralRishi Kapoor who died at 67 last week carried forward the sensuality through his dance and romance persona His bodily vivacity fluidly merged masculine and feminine past pleasures like qawwali and more contemporary pop enjoyments even as parallel cinemas realism and masculinecentered Bachchan films began dominating His beauty was delicatemdashandrogynous pleasuresmdashand he often paired with women whose attractiveness was more robust Love was freedom frolic khullam khulla yet luxuriously intimate hum tum ek kamre meinMaintaining traditional cinema pleasures he also replaced their stylised nature with a modern casually stylish manner prefiguring later realist commercial film into which he flowed with energetic ease bridging two cinematic worldsIrrfan who just passed away at 53 was an iconic figure in the postglobalisation emotional realist cinema with its crossover films less interested in symbolic storytelling making room for more everyday characters Some of this cinema believes in what I call aspirational realism which considers older conventions of emotional and ornamental excessmdashlike songsmdashas lesser But in fact quite apart from his acting skills what made Irrfan a star was the sexual intensityof his presencemdashcarrying forward that desi quality of emotional and sensual excess something larger than life yet intimate to connect directly with the audienceThis is why I believe he was most compelling in films where he had a romantic trackmdashMaqbool Life In A Metro Pikumdashand underserved by anaemic works like LunchboxCritical culture sometimes favours a real estate mentality location yaniki cinema category determines value and meaning So it is that too little has been said of Irrfans cinematic libidinal intensity not enough about Rishi Kapoors virtuosity And barely anything about Nimmi The artistes themselves defied categorisationsThrough cinema they straddled the cusp of worlds always changing for better and worse simultaneously just like us helping us to flow with the fluxParomita Vohra is an awardwinning Mumbaibased filmmaker writer and curator working with fiction and nonfiction Reach her at aromitavohramiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news