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The southside showcase

Rajitha

Rekha

The trend, right up until the early nineties, used to be for good-looking girls from the south to migrate to Bollywood in search of celluloid fame and fortune.

The westward migration, involving scores of south girls, has produced its crop of successes -- from Vyjayanthimala and Hema Malini through to Sridevi, Jayaprada, Meenakshi Seshadri, to name a few.

During this period, stars from Bollywood have occasionally wandered down south for the odd movie appearance -- which was treated pretty much as a curiosity, a 'hook'. Examples range from Zarina Wahab, who appeared in around a dozen Malayalam films, through Anita Raj who appeared opposite no less than Rajnikanth, to Neena Gupta who was paired opposite Malayalam icon Mohanlal, and Smita Patil, who walked off with a national award for her performance in Aravindan's Chidambaram.

Hema Malini

Rekha Ganesan, incidentally, was signed on to play the third angle of a triangle featuring Sridevi and Kamal Hasan, in the film Meendum Kokila. Scandal -- surrounding her alleged involvement with her hero -- erupted, and she was dumped after considerable footage had already been shot around her, and replaced by Malayalam actress Unni Mary (Deepa in Tamil and Telugu).

These instances, however, have been few and far between. And then, as the century headed into its last decade, came a sudden reversal of the migration -- with Bollywood belles by the dozen making tracks for southern pastures. What follows is a representative, but by no means exhaustive, checklist:

Sridevi

Khushboo could, in a sense, be credited with sparking the movement -- having come pretty much a cropper in Bollywood, she headed down south and, a couple of years and some megahits later, scaled the final peak of south-style adoration when she found a temple erected to her in downtown Madras -- an honour that had, till that point in time, attended only on the late M G Ramachandran.

Nagma, another Bollywood reject, became big after the success of Kaadhalan, which paired her opposite Prabhu Deva. A song from that film -- Mukkala Muqabala -- had the rather dubious honour of sharing the top ten listing with three of its clones.

Manisha Koirala

Manisha Koirala was making waves in Bollywood for reasons other than her acting abilities, when Mani Ratnam picked her as his female lead, opposite Arvind Swamy, in Bombay. The film discovered her acting abilities, and she repeated its success with Shankar's Indian opposite Kamal Hasan.

Urmila Matondkar, who shared the billings with Manisha in Indian, is rapidly approaching icondom in Telugu film circles, thanks in no small measure to her association with Ramgopal Verma.

Urmila Matondkar

Pooja Batra's film career began when Mani Ratnam signed her on for a dance number in his production, Aasai. Priyadarshan subsequently signed her for Virasat, the remake of Kamal Hasan's superhit Thevar Magan, opposite Anil Kapoor. And Pooja capped a superb year with her appearance in Chandralekha, again under Priyadarshan's direction opposite Mohanlal. The film, ranked the biggest hit of the year in Malayalam cinema for 1997, has already broken all previous box office records, and is still packing them in at the turnstiles.

Aishwarya Rai

Aishwarya Rai won acclaim, for her dancing and acting, in Mani Ratnam's Iruvar and is now into the final stages of work on Jeans. Given that the film is helmed by Shankar -- the whizkid with a record of three megahits with his first three films -- the buzz in industry circles down south is that the former Miss World is all set to break her hoodoo and clock up one hit to her name, when the film hits the marquee later this month.

Sushmita Sen, for her part, registered a hit on her maiden outing on the southside marquee, when she teamed up with Nagarjuna in the Kunjumon production Rakshagan. While there is talk of her having signed a couple more Tamil movies, the news is yet to be confirmed.

Sonali Bendre

Sonali Bendre, like Pooja Batra, began with a dance number -- in this case, the Humma Humma ditty from Bombay. Last heard from, Sonali has been signed as the female lead in Kaadal Dinam (Valentine's Day), a megabudget film from A M Ratnam, the producer of Indian. The film has P C Sriram handling cinematography, and is being headed by Kadir -- the director who made the hugely successful Kaadal Desam (which, dubbed as Dilwalon Ka Duniya, came a cropper on the Bollywood marquee). For the launch, a bevy of top models from Bombay, led by Rani Jeyraj, were flown down to Madras, to add glitz to the glitter.

Sushmita Sen

Madhoo, despite a huge hit with Phool aur Kaante opposite Ajay Devgan on debut, was languishing when Mani Ratnam, again, picked her up for Roja and catapulted her to national stardom. With which platform, she has gone on to a hyperactive career in Tamil and Telugu, with the occasional foray into Malayalam as well.

Tabu -- rated the "thinking fan's actress" -- won the award for best Telugu actress last year for a film opposite Nagarjuna. In the same span of time, her Kaadal Desam (opposite Vineeth and Abbas) was a megahit in Tamil.

Tabu

Further, she appeared under the banner of two southside directors, in Hindi films -- Virasat under Priyadarshan, and Chachi 420 opposite Kamal Hasan debuting as a director.

Kajol joined the bandwagon when Bombay cinematographer Rajiv Menon turned director with Minsara Kanuvugal, co-starring Prabhu Deva (the film was later dubbed in Hindi as Sapnay).

If Khushboo attained icondom -- literally -- in Tamil, then Mamta Kulkarni duplicated the feat in Telugu. Taking over the mantle of the late Divya Bharti, Mamta produced a string of hits and, as the cliché goes, woke up one morning to find a temple dedicated to her.

Shilpa Shetty

Shilpa Shetty started off with a hit in the Telugu remake of Splash, playing the mermaid opposite Venkatesh. And more recently, teamed up with Prabhu Deva in Mr Romeo -- the dubbed version of which is due to hit the Bollywood marquee any day now.

Pooja Bhatt

Other stellar migrants include Raveena Tandon (opposite 'action hero' Arjun in Sadhu), Divya Dutta, Pooja Bhatt (who starred opposite Prashant, of Jeans in Kalloori Vaasal), Suchitra Krishnamurthy, Shilpa Shirodkar (opposite no less than Mammotty) and Ayesha Dharkar (who, along with Shilpa Shirodkar and Seema Biswas, appears in cinematographer Santosh Sivan's Terrorist.)

Karisma K

Look back at the list, and you find a veritable who's zoo of Bollywood heroines -- with the solitary exception of Karisma Kapoor, among the top names.

But interestingly, the biggest hit of the lot is a most unlikely name -- Simran, the Aankh Maari girl of ABCL's Tere Mere Sapne. A Tamil debut in the Mani Ratnam production Nerukku Ner catapulted her into the big time, VIP opposite Prabhu Deva confirmed her draw, and less than a year later, she ranks among the most sought after actresses in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.

All of which brings up the question, why?

Kajol

The question merits an entire story on its own. However, casual conversations with the likes of Shankar, and others, indicates that the attraction -- of southside producers and directors and Bollywood heroines -- is mutual.

For the producers and directors down south, Bombay girls represent glamour with a capital G. More disciplined and figure conscious than the buxom girls in the south, the Bollywood heroines lend themselves more readily to high fashion -- and the line-up of hotshot cinematographers down south are ideally suited to exploit their looks.

Suchitra Krishnamurthy

Added to which, directors like Shankar and Mani Ratnam have been able to tap unsuspected acting abilities in the likes of Tabu, Manisha et al.

And for the girls? Very simply, discipline. Directors down south work faster, enabling the cream of Bollywood's distaff crop to plan their releases to better effect, space them out through the year. And the fact that their performances down south are drawing more attention than their "clothes-horse" roles in Bollywood doesn't hurt, either.

Madhuri heads south