It is now well over three decades since the Hindi-film heroine drove the vamp into extinction, and even longer since the silver screen was ignited by the true Bollywood version of a cabaret. Yet, Helení¢ € ”nicknamed í¢ € ˜H-Bomb' at the height of her careerí¢ € ”continues to rule the popular imagination. Improbably, for an í¢ € ˜item girl'í¢ € ”who rarely appeared for more than five minutes in a movieí¢ € ”she has become an icon. Jerry Pinto's sparkling book is a study of the phenomenon that was Helen: Why did a refugee of French-Burmese parentage succeed as wildly as she did in mainstream Indian cinema? How could otherwise conservative families sit through, and even enjoy, her cabarets? What made Helen í¢ € ˜the desire that you need not be embarrassed about feeling'? How did she manage the unimaginable: vamp three generations of men on screen? Equally, the book is a gloriously witty and provocative examination of middle-class Indian morality; the politics of religion, gender and sexuality in popular culture; and the importance of the song, the item number and the wayward woman in Hindi cinema.
