Grandmother of these hit 90s' actress-sisters was first Indian to wear bikini on screen; not Sharmila, Zeenat or Parveen

When you think of actresses wearing swimsuits or bikinis in Indian films, one asumes it’s a recent phenomenon. Apart from the odd Sharmila Tagore or Zeenat Aman sashaying in swimsuits in the 60s and 70s, the trend is indeed recent and gained prominence only in the last three decades. But it began in Indian cinema almost 90 years ago.

First Indian actress to wear swimsuit on screen was…

Back in 1938, it was a satirical Marathi film called Brahmachari that shocked audiences by including its leading lady in a swimsuit. The film starred Master Vinayak and was also directed by him. A sequence involved the heroine Meenakshi Shirodkar, dressed in a swimsuit, seducing the leading man. The film was a satire on celibacy and the sequence – part of the song Yamuna Jali Khelu Khel – was part comedy, part sensual. As per a Filmfare report, audiences were shocked at the scene, considered quite bold and ahead of its times.

Meenakshi Shirodkar’s connection with Shilpa and Namrata Shirodkar

Born Ratan Pednekar in 1916, Meenakshi married Dr Shirodkar at the age of 19. It was after her marriage that she began her film career. Brahmachari was her debut and it was for this film that she adopted her screen name Meenakshi. The actress had a son, whose two daughters both became successful actresses themselves. Shilpa Shirodkar was an actress who worked in films like Khuda Gawah while her sister Namrata worked in hits like Vaastav. Namrata was also a Miss India finalist, and is currently married to Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu.

First actress to wear bikini in a Hindi film

Meenakshi’s bold choice did break the glass ceiling for actresses and and Nalini Jaywant became the first actress to wear a bikini in a Hindi film in the 1950 release Sangram, which also starred Ashok Kumar. In the 1960s, Sharmila Tagore famously donned a bikini in films like An Evening in Paris and Aamne Saamne, breaking the taboo that ‘top heroines’ cannot wear revealing clothes.