Full Circle

 

"She is ruining the psyche of 12-year-old boys in India, who are now doing Google search on her after reading about her pornographic escapades and seeing her on tely" griped Indian actor Amar Upadhyay: Times of India

What's a beautiful young East Indian born in Canada, brought up in Mississauga by her traditional parents - teaching Sunny Leone sweet modesty - doing in Mumbai?  Well, she has graduated from acting in pornographic films with a fairly wide audience, to acting in Bollywood productions, with an even wider audience.

Indo-Canadian porn star Sunny Leone made her Bollywood debut in the most controversial Hindi film of the year, Jism 2 , which opened on August 3 in India.

The adult films, Descent into Bondage, Debbie Does Dallas ... Again, must have palled on her aesthetic sensibilities.  She is, after all, a sensible young woman with a latent respect for her heritage.  Not satisfied that her voice had to be dubbed for the Hindi film Jism 2, she is taking language lessons, and has engaged a dance teacher to bring her through Bollywood dance numbers.

Not least, she has committed herself to India.  She has bought a home of her own in the Mumbai suburb of Andheri.  " I didn't think the Indian public would actually like me" she said in an interview.  "I've done everything that I could do wrong in the Indian culture".  Did she?  She boldly entered the pornographic film industry to satisfy some deep-seated need.

Thespian or the gratification of the id?  Whatever, there is an ancient tradition in India of just that; the celebration of sex, sexual acrobatics and sexual devices and sexual satisfaction in the search for ever-expanding manipulations of the human body and orgasmic delight.  It's called the Kama Sutra, and it is an epic instructive manual of immeasurable gravitas.


It is an instructional manual on life, on how to proceed with life, on how to achieve survival, material goods and eroticism.  Karen Malholtra, aka Sunny Leone was obviously, is obviously interested in tradition.  She has married her penchant for displaying herself with the heritage she was born to.

Though not everyone is thrilled about her presence on the Bollywood scene.

At Amritsar (where the Sikh Golden Temple is located) protesters burned her in effigy.  In Bhopal (where the Union Carbide disaster struck) members of the Hindu organization Bajrang Dal shredded posters of her Jism 2 film, preventing the audience from entering the theatre, and in Mumbai promotional posters were removed by order of municipal officials.

But the film has earned a nice profit, and she will certainly become a star in Bollywood.  There is no frontal nudity in the film, its love scenes are discreetly filmed, the actors well covered.  And though Karen/Sunny's success is viewed rather grumpily by some, that need not ruin her prospective career.