I don’t know how to explain this, but seeing Bipasha Basu on the cover of Elle magazine last week made me very happy. She has always been the reference. There’s a reason she is one of the few stars with a song named after her.
Bold, dusky, athletic, and an icon in the truest sense of the word, she has been the reference for a generation of millennials, and now the Gen Z, too. She was always the original ‘brown-baddie’, long before the term was even a thing. She not only owned her natural skin tone, but she was, quite simply, a fashion queen.
So, when she announced her comeback with a photoshoot, the internet was bound to be awed by her ethereal beauty. She is also set to make her return to acting with Hansal Mehta’s upcoming crime thriller Barabanki. Mother is officially mothering, if I may say so.
The face card? Flawless. The body? Sculpted to perfection. The glamour, the posture, the sheer star energy — it literally felt like muscle memory. She effortlessly brought back her 2000s siren energy, reminding everyone why nobody quite matches her aura and that she’s ageing like fine wine.
Serving the ultimate masterclass in glamour, she wore four different looks: a black mermaid gown with a fringe stole, a blue gown that made her look godly, an antique gold sequin corset gown and cape in which she looked as if she was dipped in gold, and an embroidered strap silk column dress with the most gorgeous beaded straps.
And the internet’s general consensus seemed to be that the shoot healed something in an entire generation — one that had grown tired of seeing the same conventional stars, the same predictable beauty ideals, and the same dull looks that no longer captured the essence of a generation that has moved beyond stereotypical beauty standards.
Bollywood is filled with fair beauties, dare I say it! So when Bipasha Basu made her acting debut in the 2001 thriller film Ajnabee, also starring Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, and Kareena Kapoor, for women who did not see themselves in the delicate, fair-skinned stars on screen at that time, Bipasha became the blueprint.
Bipasha was tall, muscular, dusky, and owned it all too. And then, a year later, her breakthrough performance as a leading lady in the 2002 horror film Raaz made her a household name.
But when she entered Bollywood, she was bullied for the very physical attributes that she is being celebrated for today. From being called ‘manly’ for her muscles by Mrunal Thakur to being trolled for ageing and gaining weight a few years ago, she has endured it all.
Perhaps that’s why her return feels bigger than a magazine cover or a movie announcement. Even Masaba Gupta cheering for Bipasha after the news of her comeback came out feels like a small win. Masaba posted the actor’s pictures on her Instagram Stories and wrote, “I am very happy to see Bipasha on a cover. You see, she is the last of the OGs. There will not be another Bipasha because everything else is a cookie-cutter template today. Boring. Dull. Doesn’t inspire one bit of confidence. And Bipasha Basu, I love your athletic build. I love the muscle – and I want more thanks to the standard of fitness you set. Too bad if someone doesn’t see it as feminine. This is so great. Welcome back. Breath of fresh air.”
Bipasha showed a generation of melanated women and girls that there was another version of what beautiful could look like. That taking space and embracing it was perfectly okay. That melanin is not something to avoid; it is something that is beautiful.
That’s how you make a comeback.
They were definitely right when they said — Rabne hai fursat me tarasha.
