Helen, Indian Cinema's Cabaret Queen

Forbidden desires, the virgin-whore syndrome, the all-pervading male gaze, and the satire of emergent feminism – the gyrating Item Girl of Bollywood – the spin-offs of the tawaif and Vamp in Indian Cinema, is not merely a trope for sexual license. She is a bodacious foil for the restrained sexuality and bashful subservience of the Indian heroine through the ages. Female identity and sexuality go hand in hand, and the clothing within their cinematic oeuvre is a fairly accurate gauge of the sexual attitudes of the times. Actress and dancer Helen started as a cabaret dancer and metamorphosed into the ubiquitous Vamp prevalent in Indian films.