Just the other day I came across a word that held me in thrall: ‘aggrimbo’. I had never heard this ugly-sounding word before. It was one of those cleverly concocted coinages that forcefully yoke together a couple of words to invent a new one that is supposed to define a new species; or capture the zeitgeist of the moment. In this case this combo of aggressive and bimbo was being used by a journalist in a national daily to describe the burgeoning brigade of young and sexy women who are increasingly using their meticulously confected and often surgically engineered sexuality to elbow their way into the limelight, celebrity status and wealth.

And, the biggest prize of them all: power.

Apparently, the author sees this new breed of aggrimbos as the latest avatar of feminism – yet another round of neo-feminism. Leading the charge is Poonam Pandey: remember the slinky model who nobody had heard of, the one who tantalisingly promised to publically strip if India brought home the World Cup and more recently created a stir by attaching a photograph of herself in a bikini in a twitter message meant for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The precursor of the bare-all, say-all motto is the brazen Rakhi Sawant whose provocative comments pop out like pearls of reality-television wisdom, as do her other artificially-enhanced assets. And then you have Mallika Sherawat whose witty insouciance imparts an edge to her sassy, uninhibited screen item numbers. The last one has also supposedly made it somewhere in Hollywood and is laughing all the way to the bank.

These ladies, in addition to Veena Malik, the outspoken and unrestrained actress from across the border on the western front, obviously adhere to the code du jour of if you have it, flaunt it, use it to easily skip most rungs on those slippery ladders leading to instant fame and power. However, it is somewhat ironic that all this flexing of the muscles of female sexuality is taking place at a time when the papers are studded with reports of brutality and sexual violence towards women as well as increasing incidents of female foeticide. Nor has honour killing become a thing of the unenlightened past.

Felled Men
The power of sexuality has never been in doubt: from Cleopatra and Mati Hari to our screen vamps it has been used to bring the mighty to their knees. But it took some work, and time. The game of seduction played out in stages. For long, at least in India and especially on our silver screens, the power of the blush has been particularly potent. The gradual, almost imperceptible heightening of colour on the face, the lowering of fluttering eyelashes, and the twisting and knotting of sari pallavs hit the solar plexus of the celluloid hero as nothing else – and he was a felled man. The late theatre legend Satyadev Dubey once complained that he could not get any of the actresses he was training for a television series to blush. The ‘modern’ girls, he once told me, were actually unable to blush. They obviously didn’t feel the need to. The era of a more muscular sexuality was around the corner: the item girls were showing the way.

And many are obviously going down that path. Women, and not just them, are exulting in their gym-toned bodies – and in their sexuality. What they appear to be even more elated about is the sense of power the obsessively earned size zero (well, make that 2, 4, 6 or whatever is the measure of the day) gives them. Fairness, natural or cultivated, has become even more entrenched as a weapon of mass destruction. Fair and sexy hold sway – to get the coveted man, keep the wayward spouse tethered, to get the job, charm even the most dour of mothers-in-law and to reign whether it be in the boardroom or bedroom or on screen. Ironically, the in-your-face sexuality or fairness-power is actually not even about mere seduction. Or if that is the case it has increasingly to do with self-seduction. Self-love, actually.

If you flip through society pages or scan red carpet events on television the Beautiful People (young dudes as well) look adoringly at the camera, and rarely at the person they are with or standing next to. This collective and public love affair seems to be with the camera because like a mirror it throws back to them their preening image of themselves. This self-love gives them a sense of power.

I have often wondered why a prominent socialite, not quite in the bloom of youth and getting to be a little long in the tooth, is unfailingly seen on Page 3 at even the most inconsequential of events – never once repeating a ‘frock’. Once a fairly important hostess on the London party scene she has metamorphosed into a regular party-hopper on Delhi’s social circuit. Somehow, she always manages to catch the lens of the photographers. It is almost as if the current purpose of her life is to never fall off Page 3. Today it is all about narcissism: love yourself and the world will love you.

Taste for Power
Power and narcissism are intimately linked, especially when it concerns celebrities or aspiring celebrities. And, undoubtedly even more so political leaders. It is generally believed that narcissists become leaders in multiple spheres because they have a taste for power and are usually endowed with outsize egos. Narcissists are often at the helm in both the corporate world and in public life. However, it remains to be seen whether they reach those coveted dizzy heights because they are narcissists or become so once they get there.

Power certainly feeds narcissism. Mayavati may have been toppled from her perch of power but the scores of statues of the former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (rather endearingly actually, show her holding a designer handbag) are testimony to that fact. When dictators fall, the first thing the next lot to pick up the reins do is to destroy the statues that usually depict their power and glory. Who can forget the image of Sadam Husain’s statue being stamped upon repeatedly after he was ousted.

The walls in the offices of most leaders are covered with their own photographs – or grinning next to somebody even more powerful. I will never forget the office of the former editor of a weekly news magazine. When I last counted there were 54 photographs and flattering cartoons of him everywhere: on the walls, his desk and in every available place. I was later told that I had underestimated the vanity of this outwardly humble journalist: there were even more photographs than I had actually counted.

MADHU JAIN IS AN AUTHOR AND A JOURNALIST. SHE WRITES FOR SEVERAL PUBLICATIONS AND IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON HER SECOND BOOK. SHE ALSO CURATES ART SHOWS.

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