Some steamy news is pouring in as the Jaipur Literature Festival concluded yesterday. New Delhi’s fertile book publishing circles are abuzz that Bollywood’s oomph queen, Sunny Leone, has been roped in for an authorised biography.
The buzz, not without a trace of envy, has been sparked by the fact that the biography has been commissioned by Chiki Sarkar, who once spearheaded Penguin India and Penguin Random House and has now gone independent as the CEO of the recently announced Juggernaut Publications.
Whether the 34-year-old Sunny Leone – born as Karenjit Kaur Vohra– will write the bio herself, or whether it will be ghost written remains a conjecture. Either way, the book will detail the life of Ms Leone who featured in globally-watched adult flicks before entering Bollywood, with a range of movies from Jism 2 to the yet-to-be-released Mastizaade.
Sunny Leone’s Literary Foray
- New Delhi’s publishing circles abuzz with the news of Bollywood’s oomph queen, Sunny Leone, being roped in for an authorised biography.
- The buzz has been sparked by the fact that the biography has been commissioned by Chiki Sarkar, former head of Penguin India and Penguin Random House.
- Whether Sunny Leone will write the biography herself or whether it will be ghost written is not known.
- While female stars may have shied away from biographies for long, this year’s calendar is choc-a-block with books on their male counterparts.
B-Town Biographies
It’s no trade secret that B-town biographies are the flavour of the season. Efforts are on to commission authorised biographies which have a semblance of popularity, and are of yesteryear’s newsmakers as well. However, so far, Rekha and Zeenat Aman have not bitten the bait, despite ongoing offers and negotiations.
Books have been authored on Rekha, notably by the late Vinod Mehta and journalist Mohan Deep. The diva, however, has never commented on them. At one point, she was keen to give the go-ahead to a photo-centric coffee table book with photographs clicked in Europe, besides an account of personalities who shaped her life and career. The project fell through since Rekha demanded a steep fee which wasn’t commercially viable.
As for Zeenat Aman, who reinvented Bollywood heroines in the 1970s and ‘80s, she has responded to a multitude of offers with just two words: “Not interested.”
Female Actors Not So Keen
While they were alive, several widely admired heroines have also nixed authorised biographies, including Nalini Jaywant and Nanda, who also refused to grant interviews to leading newspapers and magazines.
Sadhana, who passed away last year, wasn’t open to talking about herself. However, during her chautha ceremony, some of her friends discovered a book at her house – written by a fan, an army officer, who published it on his own and mailed her a copy.
Male Actors Bask in Literary Glory
This year, books on male celebrities are in the pipeline, including a long-anticipated authorised biography on Rishi Kapoor. Dharmendra has elected to write his own biography, ornamented with Urdu couplets, which could well see the light of day if he is satisfied with the draft. Shah Rukh Khan, for over a decade, has been keying in the story of the beginnings of his career into a laptop, which his close friends claim to be a frank and slick read. The Khan won’t let it go in print till he’s content with his own rewrites.
A coffee table book on the Bachchan family, it is learnt, has been awaiting a green signal from Amitabh Bachchan since the last two years. The tome cannot be released till the family endorses it in on a public platform. Indeed, without elaborate book launches which are covered by the media extensively, sales cannot be expected to go astral.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the buzz on the Sunny Leone biography, the grapevine reveals that a competing publisher has commissioned a book titled Confessions of a Bollywood Startlet – an anonymous tell-all account of an aspiring actress who couldn’t quite make it to showtown’s Hall of Fame.
(The writer is a film critic, filmmaker, theatre director and a weekend painter)
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