PYTs from Pak: Not in demand

PYTs from Pak: Not in demand

With the latest import from across the border Seshah Agha’s debut last Friday, After Hrs analyses why they lose out to our desi girls...

They come, they try hard and then they fizzle out. What is it about Pakistani actresses that puts Bollywood off? The latest example of a cross-border import gone awry is Salma Agha’s daughter Seshah whose moll’s act in Aurangzeb has left the janta thanda and diehard fans of Parveen Babi craving for DVDs of Yash Chopra’s Deewaar where the beguiling Babi had played the doomed moll with smouldering intensity. Here’s looking at Pakistani chick list in Bollywood... With the latest import from across the border Seshah Agha’s debut last Friday, After Hrs analyses why they lose out to our desi girls... Seshah Agha: The hot bikini act in Aurangzeb hasn’t helped much. Although she has the benefit of being tagged a Yash Raj girl, she hasn’t connected with the audience like other YRF girls like Anushka Sharma or Parineeti Chopra. If she truly wants to make it big in Bollywood, she has to work hard, really hard. Because not many newcomers get second chances, especially ones whose first film doesn’t set the box-office ringing. Salma Agha: BR Chopra’s Nikaah gave Salma the biggest Bollywood launch possible. She was flooded with offers on both sides of the border. In Pakistan she had a bumper success as a tawaif in Bazaar-e-Husn. However, the Bollywood remake Pati Patni Aur Tawaif flopped. And that was that. Also, she was more interested in making a career as a singer, and not every producer wanted her to croon. Meera: Alias ‘trouble’. Ask Mahesh Bhatt. She huffed and puffed and nearly blew Bhatt’s house down demanding he meet her in the middle of the night. Bad behaviour compounded with failed films like Soni Razdan’s Nazar ruined her career in Bollywood. She looks older than every B-Town hero, so that made her an unlikely candidate. She also gained a reputation for being unstable and all filmmakers became allergic to her. Sara Loren: A.K.A. Mona Lisa, Sara made her debut in Bollywood opposite Himesh Reshmaiyya in the ill-fated Kajra Re. She was re-launched by the Bhatts recently in Murder 3. A third launch wouldn’t do the trick either. Just too insipid. Humaima Malik: She gave a stunning performance in the Pakistani film Bol. Thereafter Humaima came to India, caught Sanjay Dutt’s eye and bagged a plum role in the Dutt starrer Sher. The film’s future, and Humaima’s, is undecided. Veena Malik: Defiance and brazenness took away whatever chances Veena had of making it in Bollywood. She didn’t play her cards right. She took up C-grade projects, tacky item songs and resorted to cheap gimmicks, which turned off producers as well as the public. She has no takers in Bollywood. Nor for that matter her bold statements and no-holds-barred body language. If only she had chosen not to go so way over the top... Zeba Bakhtiar: She debuted in Randhir Kapoor’s Henna. Zeba had a zillion dos and don’ts. An overnight star, she couldn’t cash in on the success because she was unavailable for long periods of time as she travelled to Pakistan often which made the producers uneasy. After a few sporadic half-finished products (Jai Vikranta, Stuntman the unreleased Nargis) Zeba never returned.