Mona Lisa Madhuri

She is to political correctness born. That smile, closest to Mona Lisa’s in India, often seems battery charged. Her laugh will never descend into a giggle or vault to a guffaw. The hair’s brushed, not an errant lock there. Lips are lipsticked right, the sari’s draped without a disturbing crease. At the age of 46, Madhuri Dixit’s playing Mrs Perfect.

Love her or tire of her, you cannot loathe her. Right now she’s ubiquitous, leaping out from street hoardings to flash that Basra pearl smile, enticing the nation to shop for the Basmati rice, jewellery and whatever-endorses-she. The TV screen has shrunk her to size in the dance reality show 'Jhalak Dikkhla Jaa' on which she has shed tears — ever so emotionally — for a shaker who has moved her. And she’s granting interviews which are as sweet as all those chocolates-ice creams-lemonades she trilled about in 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun'..!  Quite a sugar over-rush going on in Madhuripur.

Now that can be quite boring even for admirers, including yours very sincerely. When actors slip into a groove, that key element of surprise (call it the wow effect) is conspicuous by its absence. Okay, so her portrayal of a poesy-loving Begum Para in 'Dedh Ishqiya' was a class act. She looked… well… perfect… and her acting didn’t  go over the top. Actually you wish it had, she was too correct to be true. She was denied that big cathartic dramatic moment, that outburst she is known to handle with tremendous élan, even in a potboiler like Beta. La Dixit, reined in, is like boxing a whirlwind.

Still Begum Para might be rated as the most “daring” role of her life. A spoiler alert prevents me from saying why and but I could visualise the actress either lighting up like a chandelier or going, “Er... I don’t think so, can that aspect be modified?” at the initial script narration. From the almost furtive manner, in which that “daring” aspect of 'Dedh Ishqiya' comes across, suggests modification. That’s a presumption, of course, but still you do  wish Begum Para’s personality had been explicated.

Expectedly, the film has gained Madhuri Dixit, a heap of hosannas, from all except the ticket buying public, which didn’t exactly throng the cinema halls the way they did for the first 'Ishqiya'. On a positive note, at the very least, 'Dedh Ishqiya' has fared much better than her first comeback bid, Aaja Nachle, produced by the Yash Raj banner.

Whenever I’ve asked its congenial cameraman-turned-director Anil Mehta, “Kya hua?” he has responded with a cryptic, “I’ll tell you some day”. Again I can presume that there must have been far too much creative interference from wunderkind Aditya Chopra. The heroine has never commented on what went wrong either. It wouldn’t be professional.

Professionally though, she did spring a surprise by parting with her loyal secretary Rakeshnath aka Rikoo, a tree-sized man who would protect her like a bodyguard. It’s believed that he had got her out of several scrapes. Rikoo was bumptious, aggressive and quite off-putting in dealing with the media and producers. But the fact remains that without him, Madhuri Dixit is without a competent troubleshooter.

Besides the upcoming 'Gulaab Gang', in which she goes violent with bamboo sticks, our lovable Mona Lisa doesn’t have any film project to sing and dance about. Perhaps doing the wrong thing might help. After all, taking risks is what sustained success is all about. And she does have many more smiles to go…not necessarily over plates of Basmati.