Meera
Threats after film star's kiss
By Rana Jawad in Islamabad
March 7, 2005
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=2771026
A KISS is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, goes the song in the Hollywood classic Casablanca.
But a single smooch in a steamy movie made by India's Bollywood movie industry has left a film star from neighbouring Pakistan facing death threats as well as sparking a fiery moral debate.
The row broke out with a media report saying that popular actress Meera faced possible disciplinary action by Pakistan's culture ministry, including a heavy fine, for locking lips with an Indian co-star.
"My life is ruined. I have done nothing, yet I am harassed constantly," 27-year-old Meera tells AFP from Bombay.
Meera says she has been targeted by "extremist elements" for her role in Nazar, or Sight, the first co-production between the two countries.
"I have not done anything in the movie which contravenes the norms of my country. I am only an actor and I do my job with honesty and professionalism," adds the unmarried actress.
Commentators say the controversial kiss embodies the topsy-turvy semiotics of movies produced by Bombay-based Bollywood and its less successful Pakistani cousin Lollywood, which operates from Lahore.
Steamy song and dance routines are often used as metaphors for passion, and directors have no qualms about shooting low-angle shots of voluptuous actresses shaking their stuff or emerging from waterfalls soaked to the skin.
However it is only in recent years that they have dared to show a tame kiss on the lips between two stars, and lip-play remains largely taboo in mainstream Indian cinema.
Last year Indian actress Aishwarya Rai, described by Julia Roberts as the most beautiful woman in the world, said that after some two dozen films she was finally ready for her first screen kiss as she seeks to cross to Hollywood.
Media reports said 31-year-old Rai, a former Miss World, was being lined up by Oscar-winning US star Michael Douglas for his next adventure flick, Racing the Monsoon, to be shot in India.
"The double standards in film are reflective of the double standards in society, where privately you can indulge in any form of entertainment but publicly you condemn such behaviour," says Pakistani film critic Tahir Sarwar Mir, who writes for local daily The Express.
"In Pakistani movies in particular the concepts of vulgarity and romance have been confused. A kiss is romance, but what is shown in the Pakistani movies is pure vulgarity."
Meera, who entered Lollywood in 1995 and has starred in nearly 70 films, has also never filmed a kiss before Nazar, for which she was handpicked by veteran Indian filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt.
Pakistan's Culture Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani denies reports that his government is going to sanction the star.
"We have nothing to do with it," he tells AFP.
"We do expect when Pakistanis go abroad, they uphold the tradition of their country. But there is no legislation that empowers the government to act against an individual for acting against social norms."
But while religious parties fulminate about sex and violence in the movies and the authorities step in to censor offensive scenes, Pakistan's government has failed to tackle the root of the problem, says Mir.
And while it has banned Bollywood movies from being shown in cinemas, the films still have a huge audience in Pakistan on DVDs, VCDs and private cable television channels.
"The government has never encouraged improvements in the film industry and the vacuum has been taken over by amateurs who are there just for the fun," he adds.
Meera says that she loves her native land but instead of punishing her the government should be protecting her and her family in Lahore, who have also received threats.
"I want President Pervez Musharraf to ensure the safety of my family. I want the Prime Minister to take notice of this harassment campaign," she adds tearfully.
"I feel like killing myself. I have been made to pay for something which I have not done."
AFP
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