My life is full of ‘to do’ and ‘to get done’ lists. There are lots of things that I would like to do, which many already know about, so why list them? There are others on my ‘must do before you get beyond it’ list, some still in the formulation stages. Topmost of all these: to be BAD! Not ‘bad’ as in Michael Jackson’s song. Not ‘bad’ as in New York street slang of some years ago, when being ‘bad’ was actually all about being more than ‘good’. Not ‘bad’ as in really mean and nasty, not nice, unfavourable, ad nauseum. And not even ‘bad’ as in sinful, wicked or evil. Just plain and simple ‘bad’ as in ‘not all good’. Unfortunately, my overall image, though tinted gently at the edges by moments of bitchiness and bratty behaviour, is generally clean, albeit mercifully not squeakily so. That would be truly, utterly, amazingly boring, wouldn’t it!
At the moment I aspire to be a villain (villainess?) in a soap opera. As I have said before, I am newly inducted into the Hindi television soap opera-watchers’ club, and have taken to it with my usual focussed passion – I watch only bits and pieces, have no idea what I am watching, what the story is, who the actors are, what various relationships are all about, what the situation is and why the characters are all behaving the way they are. But I am completely and utterly charmed by the ‘bad’ people, in whatever show it happens to be that I click in to.
In particular, the women who are ‘bad’ really make my creative cookie crumble. They are stereotypically rich and have a clichéd, OTT characterisation that is completely charming As they enter the scene - almost always when they are needed least - the cue music announcing their arrival sounds deep, dark, dire and deadly over the soundtrack. You are likely to first see the character’s feet, usually clad in sinfully chic shoes, toes meticulously manicured, ankle bracelets, toe rings and all other bling neatly in place. The camera moves up along a silhouette that may be slim, or otherwise, nicely clad in elaborate costume, be it a formally corporate suit or an over-embellished sari, or just a fashionably low-waisted and belted pair of faded jeans.
And then you get to head level. The hair is artfully coiffed, spun into neat curls that punctuate the otherwise straight locks, carefully gelled back to form a kind of skull-cap or simply left to hang sleekly bonded over the neck and shoulders. A ‘bad’ lady rarely has her hair neatly confined in an elegant chignon or tied back into a braid – that is for the much-maligned sati-savitri ‘good’ bahu, heroine or mother. Our favourite baddie swings her locks every now and then or flips them back with a well manicured finger for best effect, looking evilly at her victim of torment as she does. Those aforementioned locks will be streaked blonde, red or orange, whatever the latest look for the season may happen to be.
There will always be a smirk on the woman’s face, an all-knowing expression that hints of unpleasant secrets to be used for a spot of blackmail or a dash of skulduggery. Her forehead will be emblazoned with a bindi that says something loud but not very clear, soon becoming her identification as the show progresses through degrees of her badness. Her eyes will be heavily lined and shadowed, false eyelashes casting dark, spidery shadows over her scarlet-rouged cheeks. And her lipstick – you could write a poem about a bad lady’s lipstick. It will invariably be thick, glossed mirror-like, lined some inches beyond her natural lipline. With all this, she will have the most outrageous sense of jewellery-chic there possibly could be. Full suites of the shiny stuff, with earrings, neckpiece, bangles, rings, even hairpins…they all hang about her person like tinsel on the Christmas tree.
But the best part of a soap opera villain’s presence is the lines she is given to speak. They will be coated with sugar, laser-like in their single focus and aimed at the most virtuous of the characters in the entire plot. Each word is so laden with innuendo and acid that you expect it to drop into the scene and chew through the carpeting. And, without fail, she will, at least once in any episode that she is part of, say those vitriolic words, watch their effect and revel in the result. All set to that wonderful cue music.
Shall we hum…?
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