Everyone in Sushmita Sen’s office refers to her as Ms Sen. So as I wait for Ms Sen (I am a few minutes early for my 2.30 pm appointment), I study the bookshelf in front of me. It’s full of thick, neatly labelled files: ‘RLB – British Dialogue Writers,’ ‘RLB – Location Breakdown,’ ‘RLB – Jewellery’ etc. What is RLB, I wonder.
Then the penny drops – Rani Lakshmi Bai, of course, Sushmita Sen’s ambitious film on the 19th century warrior queen, about which we’ve heard so much for so long. But the project is still at the preparatory stage – forget shooting, even the cast hasn’t been finalised as yet.
Naturally, there is a great deal of speculation around RLB – the film press has been wondering if it will ever get made. Just as film journalists have been wondering – in general – about Sushmita Sen. And having read what has been written about her, all of us (including those who claim never to read film magazines or watch Hindi films; Sushmita’s constituency goes beyond Bollywood junkies), are also wondering about: Where has she been all this while? (Yes, we saw her in the TV show Ek Khiladi Ek Hasina; but before that?)
Is she really that inaccessible, locked up in an ivory tower? Are stories about her strange behaviour true? Has she actually gone through dozens of boyfriends? Has she put on lots of weight?