The ladies and their 'toy boys'

We hear of Paedophilia and say 'EEEWWWWW'. Call it Oedipus or Electra complex and it becomes all of a sudden something very intellectual and academic. Better still, call it something to the effect of how older heroines these days want to be seen on screen with younger actors and the entire 'EEEWWWW' suddenly becomes 'WOW'.

Believe it or not, many older actresses these days are voicing their wishes of appearing on screen and being paired with a younger boy. And accept it or not, many of you out there (boys and women) might be nursing a similar thought or wish in your heart.

And we say 'WHY NOT?' If older men can be paired with younger women, why shouldn't it be the same the other way round? After all in this day and age of 'women's lib' everything has to be equal right? So why did people make a hue and cry with Bipasha being paired opposite Ranbir Kapoor in Bachna Ae Haseeno? I can name at least 10 actresses from the top of my mind who've been paired with the fatherly Amitabh Bachchan in the days when he just wouldn't quit playing the hero.

The wishes we might silently harbour in our hearts in real life, when suddenly brought forth through films become something extremely controversial and at times 'shocking'. Here's a look into a few examples of the older women and their 'boy toys' strictly from tinsel town. Read on…

What's wrong with seducing Ranbir?
So Bipasha is playing the seductress to a much younger Ranbir Kapoor in their forthcoming film Bachna Ae Haseeno, so what? When the 'age' factor was brought up more than a sensible number of times, our Bengali beauty lost it. Recently she made her thoughts quite public about how 'SHE' feels about the entire age issue.

Well, if there's someone as sexy as Bips, we don't really care about her age, now do we? And if she happens to be kilojoules hotter than real life girlfriend Deepika, it's not really Ranbir's fault that the director would want Bips to be the seductress rather than Deepika.

We also heard recently about the silent war between Deepika and Bipasha over (of course) Ranbir. But the girl should probably understand that if she can romance SRK, Bips can seduce Ranbir too…And moreover, Bips is happy having a hotter than the oven boyfriend John Abraham, Ranbir for her is just… let's see a 'boy toy'?

When Ranbir came between Vidya-Shahid

Well, we all know about the so called 'romance' between Vidya Balan and Shahid Kapoor, which after much speculation turned out to be just another 'rumour'. But then again, when there are fumes, there must've been a fire. At least a little flame of some sort.

Much was said when Vidya Balan finally was cast opposite the actor much younger to her in Kismat Konnection. Many of us till date talk about how she was looking like Shahid's 'aunty' or 'bhabhi' in the film. But did Vidya really care? She took up the challenge and made the chemistry in the film really work…age notwithstanding.

And that was not all. The actress in a recent chat on Buzz18.com expressed her wish to act with Ranbir and Imran, both, mind you, years below her age. In spite of users asking her and talking about how she should act with Aamir Khan and Madhavan, the actress was bold enough to express her desires. And considering the way she can make the 'chemistry' look real (even with an ape, as a colleague once had said) with just about anybody or anything, we say, WHY NOT?

Ash is older to Abhishek and she for sure romances him not only on screen
"If Ash can marry Abhishek who's three years younger to her (or is it four?) then why can't I be cast opposite Ranbir?" said Bipasha when the 'age' questions became too much to handle. And it's not just Ash. Amrita had married Saif when Saif was only a kid. She was eight or nine years his senior and bore him not one but two children. What's more, they definitely qualified as one of the longest and steadiest Bollywood couples of recent times.

If a Dilip Kumar could marry a Saira Banu half his age, why not an Aishwarya Rai or Amrita Singh? The western counterparts of our tinsel townies surely don't bother themselves with such trivialities like age-gap. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher for example appear very happy together in spite of the fact, Ashton was probably licking his thumb lying in his pram when Demi was lying in the hospital giving birth to her first child.

Akshaye's Oedipus complex

We may not want to say it, but men (at least 85 per cent of them) have a 'thing' for older women. Many still drool over Dimple Kapadia coming out of the sea in Sagar. Many still drool over Dimple Kapadia…PERIOD.

The Akshaye Khanna-Dimple Kapadia relationship depicted in Farhan Akhtar's film Dil Chahta Hai was just an example of the same. And Dimple sure fit the bill of the mysterious, graceful and strong older woman.

A poorer depiction of the same was seen in Ek Chhotisi Love Story with Manisha Koirala. Though Koirala had or has no attribute of the desirable older woman, the movie however managed to get in to all kind of controversies for all the wrong reasons.

The older women younger men romance syndrome is thus not only restricted to women. The men too harbour wishes on the same lines, though however, none have really come out with it except for in reel life.

Shabana and Dimple's 'boy love'

In want of a better word for Paedophilia, we called this section 'boy love'. Well, real emotional (not physical) love for a boy your son's age can hardly be called Paedophilia right? And this 'boy love' happens. It's not just some random thought only seen in movies. After all, movies are meant to be the mirror of our society.

When Shabana Azmi fell in love with a younger Zakir Hussain and the love was reciprocated in the film Saaz, we thought the idea was almost blasphemous. To make matters worse, in the film, Shabana's daughter played by Ayesha Dharker falls in love with the same man who's just about the 'right-age' for her by Indian social standards.

So then what happens? Love they say is all-encompassing…does it really encompass the barrier of age then? Obviously 'NO'. In another film, Leela, Dimple Kapadia, a lonely though married woman happens to fall in love with her friend's son. Dimple the quintessential desirable older woman once again makes the plot so believable with her charm that any boy would be more than eager to fall in love with her.

The REAL 'toy boys'

And of course there are these real 'toy boys'. Devoid of any love or emotion, these relationships are based only on sheer pleasure. More often than not, the pleasure is restricted only to the older woman. And there are quite a few examples of these in our Bollywood masala flicks.

The more recent one is the relationship between Archana Puran Singh and Upen Patel in the film Money Hai Toh Honey Hai. A struggling model, Upen falls prey to fashion designer Archana's promises of making him the best model in town…the price obviously is by being her lover. That's of course a more light hearted take on the entire issue. But if you take some time to think maybe you'll realise that the casting couch is not strictly made for a particular gender, it can be and maybe is the other way round as well.

Then of course, if we are talking of 'toy boys' we can't forget about ravishing Rekha. The actress may have once upon a time in her life loved truly madly and deeply one actor whose name started with 'A', but could that possibly explain her series of on-screen and off-screen liaisons with many actors whose names started with 'A' and years (in age) started when she stopped counting hers.

There are many many more such instances in Bollywood as well as outside…but still whenever this 'age' issue comes up, it manages to 'surprise' or 'shock' us. Think it's time we got used to this though…with more actresses expressing their wishes and some of them coming true.