Malaika Arora | Chhaiya Chhaiya | Dil Se

In the song Chhaiya Chhaiya, the role of the Item Girl was firmly established. This totemic woman, who seemed to have no attachment, other than with a band of migrants with no fixed destination, writhed to a catchy song that had no relation to the film's narrative. Lithe and sensual, she tantalized all atop a moving train, putting the alpha posturing of boorish men, in the background. Her clothes were disarmingly simple- a maroon blouse and black ghagra; but she fired the urban imagination of the forgotten romance of our rural past, of free-spirits that roamed verdant paddy fields.