Move over Munni, big boys of Bollywood are here

NEW DELHI - Looks like the Munnis and Sheelas of Bollywood need to make way for the item boys! Stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan are showing a keen interest in song sequences that have so far been the preserve of women.

Farah Khan’s latest film “Tees Maar Khan” saw Salman dancing away with Katrina Kaif and Akshay Kumar on “Wallah wallah”. He had earlier succumbed to the item song craze when he performed on “Bang bang” from “Hello” directed by Atul Agnihotri, who is married to his sister Alvira. The film was an adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s novel “One Night@The Call Centre”.

Abhay Deol will be seen doing an item number in Sudhir Mishra’s “Tera Kya Hoga Johnny”.

“Male actors doing item numbers is a sign of changing cinema. This shows that they are also ready to try something new and create an image of their own. Moreover, it also depends upon the demand of the script,” trade analyst Taran Adarsh told IANS.

In Bollywood, one can say, the trend of actors getting into item numbers was started by Shah Rukh with “Ishq Kamina” for 2002 action-drama “Shakti”. He was joined by screen diva Aishwarya Rai and the two scorched the screen with the sizzling song.

He was later seen dancing on “Kaal dhamaal” in Karan Johar’s production venture “Kaal” and there the sultry Malaika Arora Khan joined him.

King Khan was later seen in the song “Subah subah” from “I See You” in 2007 followed by “Mast kalandar” in Sajid Khan’s “Heyy Babyy”. There are more - he also gave some sizzling performances on “Marjani, marjani” and “Love mera hit hit” with Kareena Kapoor and Deepika Padukone respectively in “Billu”.

Abhishek too shook a leg in a special song, “One love”, with Bipasha Basu in director Mahesh Manjrekar’s action thriller “Rakht” and the song became quite a rage. He also featured in the item number in “Mission Istaanbul”, but his hottest number was for “Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag”, a remake of the 1975 blockbuster “Sholay”. He was seen dancing to a tweaked version, “Mehbooba Mehbooba”.

“Doing it is good fun,” Abhishek posted on microblogging site Twitter when asked about the same.

Hrithik did an item song for his sister Sunaina Roshan in her first production venture “Krazzy 4″. Though the film was not a hit, Hrithik wowed all and sundry with his immaculate dance moves on the title track. Another version of the same song had Shah Rukh shaking a leg on it. Even Tusshar Kapoor did the item song “Manzar” for “Sunday”.

“The purpose of them doing an item number is to add star power to the film. A lot of actors have turned producer and are making films under their banner; so a lot of them also agree to do a special appearance for the camaraderie they share with each other,” said film critic Omar Qureshi.

Among older actors, Anil Kapoor and Govinda joined Salman in the song “Jalwa” for his 2009 hit “Wanted”.

Though the list of actress’ item songs is pretty long, actors seem to be queuing up to give them some tough competition.

(Priyanka Sharma can be contacted at priyanka.s@ians.in)