Clean clean Bollywood? Or dirty dirty Bollywood? Nobody is squeaky clean as long as you are human, you wrestle with a pig and you get dirtier. Bollywood woke up to Tanushree Dutta’s MeToo allegations against Nana Patekar in 2018, she opened a Pandora’s box though it did raise awareness and many victims found a voice to expose their tormentors and speak up about their horror stories, rewind to times from 1970s to 1990s when women found very little support for MeToo allegations.
Sixteen year old Rekha who had just debuted with a sleeper hit Sawan Bhadon(1970) was flabbergasted when co star the much senior Biswajeet dragged and smooched her, an act that wasn’t part of Rekha’s screenplay. The kissing went on for five whole minutes with the studio audience playing mute spectators to an unsuspecting young Rekha. It was later alleged that Rekha had played along but she has always maintained that the act was not a part of her consent.
Bubbly Bindiya Goswami all of 15 accused her Jeevan Jyoti(1976) co star Vijay Arora of molesting her on the sets of the film. The “story” was splashed all over gossip magazines but some time later hushed up. Bindiya never raised the topic ever again, and Arora vanished into obscurity.
This was a sensational accusation in mid 80s when fourteen year old strapping teenager Sabia accused fading superstar Rajesh Khanna of molesting her while shooting Anokha Rishta(1986), Sabia’s mom Ameeta an yesteryear’s star lashed out at Khanna in every available film glossy. Khanna was unaffected but Sabia banned in Bollywood for almost five years. She resurfaced playing minor roles in hits like 100 days(1991) and Khiladi (1992) but soon disappeared into oblivion.
Must be a little known and hardly spoken about scandal. Sixteen year old Tabassum Hashmi accused sister Farha’s co star Jackie Shroff of molesting her. Farha known for her fist fights and mercurial temper vowed to break Shroff’s bones but miraculously the scandal lost steam, it was alleged that the “story” was a figment of the teenager’s imagination. The victim grew up to a national award winning Tabu and later made peace with Shroff at common friend Manisha Koirala’s party some years ago.
This case was as weird as the actors involved. Sex symbol Puja Bedi accused Sex Machine Aditya Pancholi of raping not her but the maid at her place. Wtf! That’s how the media and public reacted in 1989. Even before the case could reach its prime the Pati vrata Zareena Wahab entered the scene and saved the Pati Parmeshwar, years later Bedi made peace with Pancholi at a fashion event. What happened to the poor maid? Zareena ji bata sakti hain.
The tussle between maverick film maker Madhur Bhandarkar and starlet Preeti Jain only got dirtier day by day. Jain accused the director of raping her for many years on the pretext of giving her a lead role. He was proven innocent by the court of law and Jain high on vengeance appointed a contract killer to bump him off. Bhandarkar escaped the attack and Jain was on the other side of the law this time.
There are many such cases which are either forgotten or less talked about or hardly written about, more like done and dusted. MeToo was much needed but it lost its relevance when some opportunistic “victims” started playing foul. Whether the cases discussed above are true or just plain Bollywood gossip nobody knows but it’s quite disheartening to note that most of the cases involved victims were minors !!
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