The latest in the line is Sonakshi Sinha, who is back in a Bangla avatar in her forthcoming movie, Tigmanshu Dhulia's Bullett Raja. She was seen playing a Bengali zamindar's daughter in Vikramaditya Motwane's Lootera earlier this year. In her new film Sonakshi plays a contemporary Bengali girl opposite Saif Ali Khan. Though Dhulia's film is a gangster thriller set in the UP hinterlands, Sonakshi will also be seen performing a Bengali folk dance called Jhumur, performed by women in the interiors of West Bengal. Her look features the quintessential white sari with red border, complete with a red bindi and flowers in hair. "This is for the second time I play a Bengali girl. The character in Lootera was quite different," Sonakshi said.
Bollywood has always had a fixation for Bengali female characters. Beginning with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas in 2002, where Aishwarya Rai played Bengali girl Paro, to Vidya Balan's portrayal of the girl-next-door Lalita in Pradeep Sarkar's Parineeta in 2005, Hindi films have brought the Bengali woman in limelight.
The fetish to have a traditional Bengali face has increased in recent times. Anurag Basu's Barfi! presented Ileana D'Cruz in crispy cotton saris as the quintessential Bengali woman of the '70s. In Yash Raj Films' upcoming Gunday, Priyanka Chopra will be seen in traditional cotton saris as a Bengali belle. Director Shoojit Sircar insists he has never forced upon a region or language, and so, he presented an urban-educated Bengali woman played by Yami Gautam in Vicky Donor.
In the '60s and the '70s, the Bengali character was quite common. Nutan in Bimal Roy's Bandini and Hema Malini in Gulzar's Khushboo were prominent. Sharmila Tagore, of course, epitomised the Bengali woman in a number of films.
