What do you do when you (are a woman and) lose in Bollywood? – Well, you strip!

It's like strip poker in the industry these days and almost every actress seems to have gone through this phase.

The Bikini culture in B-town can be broadly classified into two categories I reckon:
One, where you strip and you get lucky
The other, you keep stripping and nothing happens

The first category sure did give Bollywood some of today's sensational (and sometimes not-so seasoned) actors like Deepika Padukone, when King Khan saw her steaming in that swimsuit on the Kingfisher Calendar. Also, if you force yourselves to a nice little flashback down memory lane, you'll see the image of Priyanka Chopra sporting a Bikini in her first film Andaaz. Well, both of them have come down a long way now, with considerable success.

The second category is what keeps us wondering. What didn't work?
The most recent strip queens you get to see are of course Lara Dutta and Rani Mukherji. What forced them to try out Bollywood's most used, but hardly successful formula to success? Here's my speculation:

Lara : Hmmm... Understandable! She has been offered 'almost-not-there' kind of screen space for a long time now. The last time she had a decent hit was Partner which was back in 2007. I guess this frustration is what got her to do a lot of Bikini scenes in her new flick Blue. She looks good though.

But it hurts to see Rani, the good old Rani, in Dil Bole Hadippa. Agreed that there is no complete bikini but hey, who are we kidding. The clothes are pretty much a fusion of a swimsuit and a lehnga. We thought you had good acting potential Rani, you really didn't have to do this!

Apart from these two, there are a host of other actresses who have tried out the same formula. I feel terribly sorry for Kareena Kapoor when I think of all that effort she had to put into shedding those curves to become a straight size 0, not to forget her bikini-self in Tashan. Didn't work, again. Amisha Patel (who?) in 'Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic', Minisha Lamba in 'Kidnap'(why?), Amrita Rao in Shortcut (why, oh why, oh why?) – all flops, big flops. Bipasha Basu and Esha Deol's skin show in the Dhoom series went to the dogs when all the credit went to the boys – Hrithik Roshan and John Abraham.

So, is it time to let go of these shortcut formulas and try out some real acting?

(P.S - I really hope Rani and Lara don't fall under the Dhoom girls' category or the Kareena Kapoor league. Good luck girls!)