Saat 'Dirty' Taboo Maaf

In this two part series, we chronicle the seven sins that Bollywood gleefully indulged in this year, from making hit songs about potty to getting A-list heroines to play unregretful murderers.

4. Foul lyrics don't make a hit song
Broken in: 'Dum Maaro Dum'

For a pot-smoking renegade, Zeenat Aman's character in 1971 hit Hare Rama Hare Krishna mouthed some pretty vanilla dialogues. Surrounded by hippies, she lamented tamely, 'Duniya ne hum ko diya kya, duniya se hum ne liya kya, hum sab ki parvaa kare kyon, sab ne hamara kiya kya?'

Circa 2011: A throaty Anushka Manchanda belts out, courtesy Jaideep Sahni's lyrics, 'Oonche se uncha banda, potty pe baithe nanga.' Featuring Deepika Padukone, the revamped version of Dum maaro dum, called Mit jaaye gum, was anything but vanilla. And it worked, despite being in-your-face.

When Hindi film songs tried to be bold before, they were largely suggestive, cleverly couching the innuendo. Mit jaaye gum, however, shocked purists with its audacious, but thought-provoking lines. Aman herself was reportedly aghast after hearing the number.



The plucky Manchanda, however, defends the song. "You can love or hate these lyrics, but you cannot ignore them. They are raw and edgy; exactly what the song needed."

5. Sex and death don't make good bedfellows
Broken in: 'Not A Love Story'



A dead body lying in a pool of blood, just metres away from a couple making intense love -- this act found an explicit showcase in Ram Gopal Varma's Not A Love Story.

The film, inspired by the Neeraj Grover murder case, was meant to shock, and it does. Anusha Chawla (Mahie Gill), a struggling actress is a witness to the murder of her director (Ajay Gehi) by her possessive boyfriend Robin (Deepak Dobriyal).

The protagonist, Robin, feels no remorse as he chops up the director's body with huge knives. The sound of chopping bones is enough to terrify anyone; and the shock value escalates when an effort to calm Anusha down results in an intimate moment between the two.



Here, RGV concocts a heady mix of death and sex -- a cocktail that filmmakers have refrained from experimenting with in Hindi cinema.

6. Heroines can't be murderous (and get away with it)
Broken in: 'Saat Khoon Maaf'



In a country where marriage is considered a sacred institution, an A-list heroine playing femme fatale and hacking her hapless husbands has to be applauded. Even more so, when the husbands in question are seven, which breaks yet another taboo.

Susanna, Priyanka Chopra goes on a vengeful killing spree, slaughtering all seven husbands -- played by the likes of Neil Nitin Mukesh and Naseeruddin Shah -- in Vishal Bhardwaj's 7 Khoon Maaf, based on Ruskin Bond's short story, Susanna's Seven Husbands. Amazingly, in her murderous journey from 21 to 65, Sussana evades all earthly laws, and seems to escape her sins at the end of the film.



That is a big departure from the moralistic norm, where female villainous characters -- like Kajol in Gupt (1997) or Nanda in Ittefaq (1969) for example -- had succumbed to fitting punishments.

7. Big banners don't back dare-bare-scares
Broken in: 'Ragini MMS'



Ekta Kapoor is a study in contradictions. While her TV soap operas tow oh-so-conventional lines, Kapoor loves to walk the unbeaten path in her films. While 2010's Love Sex Aur Dhokha showcased honour killings, an MMS sex scandal and sting operations, this year, she took a step further with The Dirty Picture and even concocted a new genre with Ragini MMS.

Starring newbies Rajkumar Yadav and Kainaz Motivala, the one-and-a-half-hour-long film had the risk of being judged as a sleaze-fest. But Kapoor's Balaji Productions took it on and turned the tide -- something not many big-ticket producers have attempted in the past.



Kapoor proclaims proudly, "Ragini MMS was a horror-date movie." The tagline: 'They didn't know it yet... It was a threesome.' -- makes that clear. The leading lady of the film, Motivala adds with conviction, "Ragini MMS has paved a way for a lot of young filmmakers to have the guts to even think of something unconventional and have the courage to write such stories."

Good girls? Says who?

>> As a gutsy journalist in No One Killed Jessica, Rani Mukerji mouthed expletives aplenty in this drama based on the Jessica Lal murder case.

In fact, her brash attitude found eloquent expression in the song, 'Aali re, saali re, milegi toh dilwali lekin muh khole toh gaali re.' She smiles, "I am comfortable, which is why I did it onscreen. It just came very naturally to me." Just like she casually flipped her middle finger too. She retorts, "We use such language in everyday conversations."

>> Katrina Kaif too sheds her coy avatar in Chikni Chameli and gestures that she has drunk a peg or two ('pahua chadha ke aayi'). Earlier this year, Kaif donned a bindaas image in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, in which she puffed away at a beedi.

>> Sonam Kapoor too, ditches her good girl image for Abbas-Mustan's upcoming heist thriller Players. The actress has surprised everyone by flippantly whipping out her middle finger in the trailers. The outspoken actress argues, "Are you telling me you don't use 'f**k' in your language?"