Understanding Aishwarya Rai’s performances
I have been meaning to write this blog for a very long time but I felt what Mr. Knightley did: if I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. Today, finally, due to a seasonal cold and a study break I have managed to compile a blog, a tribute, a note of gratitude for my most favourite heroine, actor, dancer in the world. Editor’s note: while editing this I realised that for someone who couldn’t figure out what to write, I sure had a lot to say.
I firmly believe like many others do that Aishwarya is a thing of wonder, joy and beauty to the world. There’s a song describing her as the eighth wonder of the world and I couldn’t agree more. Her movies have helped me in tough times and her characters have given me courage when I needed it. She herself has become a role model for many by the way she has led her life. She’s taught me how important it is to be graceful, dignified in tough situations, how to uphold your self-esteem, how to not tolerate meanness from others, how to put your family first and how to always, always stick to your core principles. I hope you find as much joy in reading this blog as I did in writing it. Aishwarya, if you are reading this, please know that I love you.
Ever since the Ambani wedding, my YouTube is filled with recommendations of videos about Aishwarya’s personal life’s journey and conspiracy theories about her marital status. I am guilty of watching a few of these videos and I was thrilled to see the outpouring of love and affection for Aishwarya in the comments section. Here is an actress who has not been in the public eye in a big way for a long time, she has most likely semi-retired from work, hasn’t done many movies in the last decade, hasn’t done or said anything controversial and yet, she is so adored by so many people of my generation and even younger and I wondered why.
The kind of love she gets today made me realise that this isn’t a celebrity we are talking about, this is a star. This realisation reminded me of how, unlike today, a majority of people back in the aughts hated this woman. She was blamed for leaving an abusive relationship, was harassed and hounded by the ex and his family, was boycotted by Bollywood and subjected to intense public scrutiny and speculations about her personal life by the media. Not only did no one want to work with her (because her abusive ex was an influential gangster of sorts) but they also removed her from already-signed movies (Veer Zaara, Chalte Chalte). She then tried to build a career for herself in Hollywood where Harvey Weinstein had a lecherous eye on her and Brad Pitt wanted her to compromise on her contract conditions. Things weren’t easy for her back at home either where she was facing a tall poppy syndrome due to her ventures abroad. To say that this must have been a tough phase of her career and life is an understatement but all through this, she maintained her dignity and composure, abided by her core values, fought on and built herself a robust, strong filmography filled with delightful, thoughtful, serious and mesmerising performances.
I find it lovely how not only is Aishwarya adored by her fans but also by her costars and directors. I like how Jayam Ravi, who played the titular character in Ponniyin Selvan, described himself at the Ponniyin Selvan-2 trailer launch- “I am half Tamil, half Telugu but 100% Aishwarya Rai fan”. Akshaye Khanna said in an interview, “you just keep looking. I am sure she must be used to it but I am not used to not being able to take my eyes off of somebody. It’s embarrassing for men”. At this, Sonakshi Sinha chimed in and said “not only men, it’s the same with women. I just keep looking at her. She’s stunning”. These are heartfelt, genuine compliments that highlight just how mesmerising her aura and persona is.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Gurinder Chadha, Mani Ratnam and Suhasini have always highly praised her for her work ethics and professionalism. She is an extremely hard-working actor who is always willing to go the extra mile to ensure that the end result is perfect. Her choices in films also indicate a penchant for experimentation and a desire to keep pushing the boundaries and explore new genres. Aishwarya the actor onscreen is as phenomenal, riveting and delightful as Aishwarya the person.
This blog might seem a little biased. After all, I am a full northie and a 100% Aishwarya fan but that’s the point. I am writing about her performances not with the intention to criticise but to appreciate them. Most of the points that I make in this blog are based on analyses that I have read from critics, viewers, and from aishwarya rai fandom from back when I used to be on twitter, reddit, tumblr during the lockdown. On twitter, I used to follow an account by the name of Saleha Salam who would write about Hindi film heroines, their acting styles, legacies in such a wonderful and erudite manner. I learnt about the cultural and contextual connotations behind the meaning of a Hindi film heroine through her writings. Reading her works, think-pieces, reviews of movies also helped me enhance my critical analyses and comprehension skills when it came to understanding popular Indian media.
However, even before I had access to social media and could gauge what the public perception of one of the greatest leading ladies of Hindi and Tamil cinema was, I was aware that a majority of people do not think of Aishwarya as a good actress. There was one particular critic who hated her performance in Bride and Prejudice (2005) so much that he wanted her character Lalita to die! Hate to break it to the likes of Raja Sen but she is a talented actress and a great star. But it’s fine, for every Raja Sen who hate her, she has an Oprah Winfrey and a Roger Ebert who adore her.
- Acting Style
I am an enjoyer of Hindi cinema, particularly the golden era and the aughts, and I have some understanding of what constitutes as good acting. I have noticed that I usually enjoy performances of actresses who are trained in Bharatnatyam dance form. I remember in high school, I was obsessed with Waheeda Rehman and had watched her entire filmography of the golden era. Aishwarya, like Waheeda, is a classically trained dancer: both were trained in Bharatnatyam. In fact, since neither of them actually studied acting or went to acting school, this training is a crucial component of their acting styles and the kind of performances they bring to their cinema. I think acting is a lower form of dancing, particularly Indian classical dancing. Classical dance forms require one to have a knowledge of almost all the performance arts: music, dance, expressions, acting. That’s why actresses who are trained in any classical dance form always have an added zest and magnetism in their performances, be it Madhuri Dixit, Vyjayanthimala, Waheeda Rehman or Aishwarya Rai.
This explains why despite lacking formal academic acting training — which isn’t necessarily a determinant of good acting — these women are able to shine on screen and connect with the audiences in a way that only a star does but an actor may not. A good actor is one who is only good at acting but a star needs something more, an elusive, effusive dream-like quality that mesmerises the audiences and makes them want to go back again and again to the theatres only to see their celluloid heroes and heroines on the silver screen. A star needs to have that je ne sais quoi, an it factor. The reason why I think Aishwarya is so good at what she does is that she possesses that it quality. Watch this. I haven’t seen a heroine introduction more captivating, more gratifying, more venerating than “Man Mohini”. One of the lyrics says: a woman so beautiful that when the clouds see her it starts raining.
But let’s understand Bharatnatyam a bit more. Having learnt Bharatnatyam begrudgingly for five formative years of my life, I can attest that it is one of the toughest, if not the toughest, classical dance form out of all the eight classical dance styles that exist in contemporary India. For a Bharatnatyam dancer, lines are extremely important. As Meenakshi Sheshadri describes in this video, Bharatnatyam is an extremely disciplined form of performance art that involves firm and restrained movements. The movement of the hands, arms, eyes and body are mostly along lines. As such the amount of bodily strength and control over muscles required in this dance form is quite intense. In Aishwarya’s performances, you can witness the effect of her Bharatnatyam training so clearly and it is beautiful! Cases in point:
- Last scene of Devdas: no one but a Bharatnatyam dancer and no one but an actress as sublime as Aishwarya could have ran so tragically, so beautifully and so gracefully through the entire length of the Thakur’s haveli; even her sari’s pallu billows with such tragic grace. This is a heartbreaking scene yet rendered so gorgeous and memorable through her acting prowess.
- The incredible meaningful stillness of her face, her eyes in this scene from timestamp 41:00 is gorgeous.
- Her dance in Kannamoochi Yennada.
2. Eyes: the eyes Chico, they never lie
I always find it fascinating how Aishwarya seems to use her eyes while acting. There’s a whole song dedicated to describing the beauty of her eyes so I shall not speak about it for that would require a separate blog altogether. Instead, I’ll talk about how she uses her eyes in her performances. You can see how much she emotes through her eyes and this scene in particular shows how well she can act with her eyes alone. Here’s what Shobana, an exceptional dancer and actor, who choreographed Aishwarya’s dance in the song Kalvare had to say about the role of eyes in Bharatnatyam performances:
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“I think most of the trained dancers use their eyes a lot. With technique comes the training in the use of eyes. I’m just doing what I am trained to do. Eyes can also be used to look at what you yourself do visually. It’s called the ‘mind’s eye’ and it’s good to have a bird’s eye view of the performance, not to mention one needs to keep an eye on the audience too. As for expressing emotions through my eyes, there has not been any emotion that doesn’t come to my eyes.”
I believe the same applies to Aishwarya’s performances. There is a transparency of emotions which is visible through her eyes especially in Umrao Jaan (2006). In her dance performances, her eye, hand, body movements are so disciplined, studied yet so effortless. A redditor said: “Those movements, the detailing, the clarity with which she performs, they flow so seamlessly. She makes it seem so effortless. You can easily distinguish the end of one movement and the beginning of the other yet all her body movements flow together in synchronization like waves, not missing a single beat. Must be a lot of hardwork.”
Aishwarya reminds me a lot of Waheeda Rehman, Keira Knightley and Leela Naidu in her acting style. Like Keira, Aishwarya looks like she belongs to a bygone era, does a lot of period dramas and has portrayed the role of Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice onscreen. Such wonderful Jane Austen heroines! Moreover, Aishwarya has the old-world charm, a stoic grace and dignity in her demeanour, an untouched, star-like quality that doesn’t exist in actors nowadays. In this podcast, from timestamps 45:34 to 57:04 (you need not listen to the rest), Saleha talks about how, if Aishwarya were there in the golden era, she would have been way more popular and venerated for her acting than she is now because her acting style is very anachronistic. I fully agree with her!
3. The Anti-male Gaze
A Redditor described their experience of watching Aishwarya Rai in the song Ishq Kameena as being something not-right and that they were shocked to see that Aishwarya would agree to do this song as they always felt that she was too pretty to be touched. To this someone replied:
“She didn’t just feel it, she portrayed it. So much of Aishwarya is the idgaf attitude about what men think of her. It’s a big reason why a lot of men you might speak to will say they prefer some other actress over Ash — “she’s pretty but I don’t like her”. Why you ask? Because she doesn’t cater to the male gaze. She’s kinda this divine goddess figure. As for this song it’s one of few songs where she did like slide into our dm’s.”
A lot of Aishwarya’s stardom has to do with her denial to cater to or just the mere non-recognition of the male gaze. Now I know this might seem like a far-fetched hypothesis but I am not the only one who thinks so. In the podcast I shared before, Saleha talks about how Aishwarya would make men uncomfortable by her screen presence because what she seems to be saying when she’s performing in cinema is “I am better than you” and “you can’t touch me”. I find that most men usually are unsettled by extremely beautiful and feminine women and the kind of response Aishwarya elicited from a certain section of her audiences affirms my belief. There were people who actively hated on her for giggling in her interviews back in the day. It explains why her fandom on the internet mostly consists of women and queer men.
Aishwarya represents a sort of an inaccessible, untameable, stoic and reserved beauty that most might get perturbed by. Salam says that when she’s performing onscreen, it is not to pander to the male gaze or please men, but to find moments of joy for herself. That’s why her best performances aren’t the ones where she’s being forced to fit into a trope to please an audience but when she’s performing for her own satisfaction. For me, the most riveting and defining moments of her acting career are as Meenakshi in Kandukondein Kandukondein, as Paro in Devdas, Sofia D’Souza in Guzaarish and as Nandini in Ponniyin Selvan, to name a few (see a list I made below for more) and the most enjoyable dance performances are Udi, Nimboda, Barso re, Kannamoochi Yennada and Kanjum Mainnaikkale, where she is dancing like she belongs to the nature, where she looks genuinely pleased and delighted.
4. The Most Beautiful Woman in the World
It is so easy to talk about her beauty when talking about Aishwarya but it is also important. Roger Ebert described Aishwarya as the most beautiful and the second most beautiful woman in the world. She has a very typical Indian type of beauty — very south Indian to be specific and for a very long time it was a matter of such pride and joy to me that the international definition of beauty is an Indian woman. A Sanskrit lyric describes the beauty of an Indian woman as “Nirupama brahmanda sammohini”— one who could seduce the entire world by her beauty and charms.
Aishwarya Rai has a face that is able to capture the imagination and emotions of millions around the world. To get into specifics, this video describes the intricacies of her facial beauty. More than watching this video, I love reading the comments section because it is filled with Indians praising her beauty. One comment said that her face has “the same dimension as anime characters”. In her own song, Man Mohini a lyric goes “mitti pe kheechi lakeerein rab ne toh yeh tasveer bani”.
In a fascinating essay about Greta Garbo’s face and its meaning, the French philosopher and critic Roland Barthes writes: “Garbo’s face represents a fragile moment when cinema is about to extract an existential beauty from an essential beauty”. He suggests in his essay that Garbo’s face presents a sense of timelessness and mystique that I find in Aishwarya Rai’s face too. Aishwarya’s visage represents an unattainable perfection, a sheer idea that was exerted into reality through the will of nature. That’s a face that allows a million people to project their emotions on, to draw their emotions from. She represents the standard for a universal beauty “the most beautiful woman in the world” which is a concept and we find its application through Aishwarya. A name that has become synonymous with beauty in our culture. She could never play the girl-next-door because she cannot be that; she would always be the representation of transcendental femininity, an apsara-like person, a woman who could make a robot fall in love with her, a woman for whom kingdoms would collapse, for whom a king could take his own life, a writer would go mad.
B. Rangan had written in one of his reviews, “For all the problems with Aishwarya’s ‘acting’, I cannot think of any other present-day heroine as Jodhaa”. Saleha writes that that’s where the magic lies and that in Aishwarya’s best works, “she is irreplaceable by dint of her specific star quality, while a performer who is simply good at acting can be interchangeable”. Aishwarya reminds me of Angelina Jolie who, despite working inconsistently and having several unsuccessful films, is always and undoubtedly considered a star. Similar is Aishwarya’s stardom, she hardly works anymore and yet her name alone is enough to generate views and gather attention.
Aishwarya has always been a part of the zeitgeist and I think she always will be. She has shaped the Indian popular culture in a very fundamental way. She represented the modern Indian woman internationally at a time when the definition of what it meant to be an Indian woman was changing. In many ways, the 90s in India marked a transition from the tradition to the modern and at this cusp was Aishwarya who was giving a voice and a face to the Indian woman internationally, a grave responsibility that she might have felt burdened by but carried it in a dignified manner nonetheless. She has charted for herself a marvellous journey from a college-going student in a middle-class family living in Mumbai to becoming one of the greatest stars of Indian cinema. Her life’s journey is a movie in itself.
5. My Favourites
My top 5 favourite performances of Aishwarya are: Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Raincoat, Provoked, Guzaarish, Ponniyin Selvan (Special mention: Raavanan, Kandukondein Kandukondein, Umrao Jaan, Guru, Ae Dil hai Mushkil)
My top 5 favourite movies of hers: Devdas, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Kandukondein Kandukondein, Bride and Prejudice, Guzaarish (Special mention: Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya, Taal)
My top 5 favourite solo dance performances of hers: Udi, Nimboda, Vennila Vennila, Konjum Mainnaikkale, Barso re (Special mention: Hello Mr Ethirkatchi, Salaam, Kannodu Kanbathellam, Kajra re, Silisila Yeh Chahat ka, Kalvare)
My top 5 favourite duo songs of hers: Dola re, Humko Humise Chura lo, Hai mera dil, Uttar Dakshin Purab Pashchim, Poovukkul (Special mention: Achhe Lagte Ho, Morey Piya, Aaj Jaane ki Zidd, Ramta Jogi)
