Comeback Apsaras: Indian bollywood beauties in their second innings

Comeback Apsaras: Indian bollywood beauties in their second innings

As usual, Madhuri Dixit is making the most buzz with her movie Aaja Nach Le due to her return as a lead heroine after a five year hiatus during which she became the mother of two children. The Yashraj films movie is gaining notoriety due to some objectionable lyrics which were deemed casteist and led to a ban of the movie in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, which appears to now have been lifted now that the songs have been lifted. The dhak-dhak girl chose a movie in her second innings as one which closely mirrors her current life story - an Indian expatriate settled in the US who returns to fight for the preservation of her guru's dance academy. Her presence was clearly deemed the selling point of the picture to the point that Akshaye Khanna, one of the best heros and actors (not necessarily the same thing) of modern times wasn't even used in the movie's advertisements!



It's difficult to believe that she's as old as she is now just by looking at this video. Or from this promo for Aaja Nachle:



Here's another trailer for the movie:



Another actress whose comeback was widely anticipated was Kajol. After marrying Ajay Devgan, Kajol, one of the most intelligent actresses of modern time, took a back seat, though Ajay's movies significantly improved. It was as if an invisible hand was guiding his choice of scripts which focused on his few advantages while leaving out the traditional chocolaty hero roles for others.

Kajol had always been a bankable actress and her early retirement had caused a lot of pain for the producers. For her comeback, she chose Fanaa, a vehicle with Aamir Khan which was a bit unusual, since her pairing with Shah Rukh Khan had been the more popular one from Baazigar to Dil Wale Dulhaniya Le Jaenge! Here's the song Chand Sifarish from the movie:



Ever the great actress, Kajol played a blind girl beautifully in the movie. Another song Dekho Naa from Fanna:



The super-star at the top before Madhuri Dixit - Sridevi - didn't make a big screen comeback so far. After her two daughters were born, she tried her hand at getting behind the camera and made a couple of flops.

Aishwarya Rai is clearly expected to stay in the movies after her much publicized marriage to Abhishek Bachchan, showing a generational change in the Bachchan household where Jaya Bhaduri, one of the top heroines of her time took retirement from movies after her marriage to the Big B (who wasn't quite that big at the time). Except for a few specials like Silsilay, she primarily returned as a much older woman. Here she's in Mili, one of Amitabh's earliest movies:



The reigning queen before Rekha - Hema Malini - probably made the best comeback as a mother of all the yesteryear heroines - Rakhi Gulzaar, Sharmila Tagore, Wahida Rehman, and Jaya Bachchan. The actress turned politician hopes to play the role of Sonia Gandhi some day, but in the meantime, she's primarily become the best pairing with an older Amitabh, that is when he isn't frolicking about with the younger girls like Tabu as you can see in the video of Cheeni Kum.