Want to be famous? Ask Mallika

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:=""><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></span><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">What’s in a name? A lot, if you ask Bollywood’s latest sexpot Mallika Sherawat, previously called Reema Puri, Reema Lamba and Reema Gill.Call her what you will, but you may not find it easy to disregard her. After all, here’s someone whose trump card is about knowing how to be in-your-face 24x7.</span><br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -3"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="36.3%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><#img src="796083-open/images/796092.jpg" alt="796083-open/images/796092.jpg" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">She first burst on to the scene last year by promising over half-a-dozen kissing scenes in her first big film </span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Khwahish</span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">. It’s another thing that someone in the film probably didn’t know how to count, but her no-holds-barred flamboyance ensured reams of newsprint running longer than all the cloth she’s used to drape herself and prime time coverage longer than the film reels she features in.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">The film, which few have watched, but almost everyone has heard of landed her an invitation for a TV show on the changing Bollywood. The show, in turn, got her noticed by none other than Bollywood’s big sugar daddy Mahesh Bhatt.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Impressed by her “unapologetic attitude towards titillation�, the big Bhatt offered her a role which expected her to do what she does best – show skin. That’s how </span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Murder</span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:=""> happened. With </span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Murder</span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">, Sherawat was now ready for the big kill.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Murder</span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:=""> was this year’s first big hit, and the leading lady lost no time in taking credit for it. “I have worked like Viagra,� she proudly announced to the press during celebrations for the film’s success.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">But even before and after the film, the sassy lady ensured a publicity blitzkrieg. First, she claimed her co-star Emraan Hashmi insisted on several re-takes for steamy scenes. Then, there was news she had refused to do a nude scene. </span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Shortly after the film’s release, she left a TV interview mid way after her co-star Ashmit Patel called her during the show posing as someone else and asking to sleep with her.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Next page: </span><a href="http://www.thetimesofindia.online/articleshow/msid-796083,curpg-2.cms" style="" font-face:arialfont-size:10ptcolor:0066cc="">A Bollywood ban on Sherawat</a><br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Next, there was a series of interviews in which she rued that she lived almost like a nun, with no man to sleep with. She played up her small-town antecedents to project herself as a struggler in Bollywood, claiming that her parents have ostracised her for her choice of career. The stunt blew up in her face when her father went on record denying there was any estrangement with her, and that she once told him she needed to cook up all this to stay in news!</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">From time to time, there also appeared reports that she was married. When asked, she refused to talk about it.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">Meanwhile, her unabashed skin show on screen and her chutzpah off screen left celebrated newscaster Riz Khan stirred enough to call her ‘India’s youth icon’ in an interview on </span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">CNN</span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">With international publicity, foreign offers could not been far behind. So it is </span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">The Myth</span><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:=""> with Jackie Chan this year, for which she has just finished shooting in Shanghai.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:="">The latest now is that a producers’ body has demanded a ban on Sherawat from Bollywood films for not completing an earlier film.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-family:="" arial="" font-size:=""> Don’t know if Bollywood would miss her, but there would be many others who would.</span></div> </div>