Starry Scars of the Mumbai Models: Subverting the Stereotypes in Shobha De’s Starry Nights
Piyush
Kain,
Ph.D. Research Scholar,
Department
of English,
Jiwaji
University,
Gwalior,
Madhya Pradesh, India.
Abstract: This paper aims to critically
examine Shobha De’s novel Starry
Nights as a provocative text that presents the traumatic life of a
Mumbai model Aasha Rani who is thrown in the mud of the porn industry by her
mother and a broker, Kishenbhai. Her mother uses Aasha Rani’s beauty to attract
the attention of the film directors so that they may sign her in their films.
It can be called the survival strategy of Geeta Devi who uses her daughter as a
tool to earn money. Through her character, Shobha De presents a scathing
picture of the commodification of the female body and the manipulative nature
of Bollywood where the exploitation of models remains the main motive of the
directors. This novel narrates how women and models are objectified and
exploited in the male-dominated society. The novel depicts Aasha Rani’s journey
from a child artist to a famous film star. This paper deals with the
protagonist’s psychological scars and her identity crisis. Her body becomes a
site of oppression, suffering and fame which depicts both entrapment and
empowerment. This paper aims to subvert the traditional archetypes of
traditional Indian women. Furthermore, this chapter employs the feminist
perspective to situate Aasha Rani’s character in terms of resistance and
sexuality. Aasha Rani’s bold character has been depicted through her
relationships with other men and women. The novel Starry Nights is a disruptive text that sheds light on the hard
life of Mumbai models who have contrary awareness to subvert traditional gender
roles.
Keywords: Shobha De, Starry Nights,
Bollywood, New Woman, Lesbianism, Commodification, Gender Stereotypes, Patriarchy, Feminist Critique, Subversion.
Shobha De is a
well-known novelist, model, and columnist. Her novels are known for featuring
Mumbai models who yearn for sex. Due to her depiction of the socialite's
sexuality, she is known as the “Jackie Collins of India.” Bijender Singh writes
about Shobha De’s treatment of sex in her novels, “To Shobha De sex is a
natural phenomenon. She elevates the sex to a status of an art or a religion”
(3). She was born on 7 January 1948 in Satara district, Maharashtra, into a
Marathi Goud Saraswat Brahmin family. Her father was a district court judge,
and her mother was a homemaker. She has two brothers and a sister. Being the
youngest of her siblings, she enjoyed more love and liberty in her home, which
shaped her life and preferences. She received her schooling in Delhi and grew
up in Mumbai, where she attended Queen Mary School. She graduated from St.
Xavier's College, Mumbai. She started her career as a model at the age of
seventeen, which lasted for the next five years. She began working as a
journalist at the age of twenty and started writing for different journals,
magazines, and newspapers.
She started her magazine Stardust in 1995, in
which she interviewed Bollywood celebrities and published gossip and
photographs. Since 1980, she began writing for the Sunday magazine of The
Times of India. After this, she started contributing to several other
newspapers. She has also written many television soaps. In 1992, Mark Fineman
of the Los Angeles Times described her as “India's hottest-selling
English-language novelist.” She has received several other accolades and has
attended many literature festivals as well. She was married twice, has six
children, and six grandchildren. She first married Sudhir Vrajlal Kilachand of
the Kilachand Marwari business family after her graduation, with whom she has a
son and a daughter, but they divorced. She later married Dilip De, a Bengali
businessman in the shipping industry. She has two daughters with him, and Dilip
also had two children from his previous marriage. Thanigaivelan
writes about this novelist, “De diligently uses such storytelling technique to
influence the audience and mischievously blends the flaw of decision-making
bias made in real life to score a great success” (16). Dr. S. David Soundar and S. Kalidas also assert:
In her fictional world, Shobha De seems to
suggest that we have not only an urgent need to demolish the mythical and
iconographic images of women imposed by patriarchal structures but also an urge
to conceptualise women as a composite energy of production, protection and
sexuality. Her heroines protest against this massive oppression and
exploitation carried through various patriarchal ideological constructs
manifest in culture. (3396)
Shobha De’s
debut novel Socialite
Evenings was
published in 1989. After that, she wrote many other novels and non-fiction
works, including her autobiography. Her works include Socialite Evenings (1989), Starry Nights (1991), Sisters (1992), Strange Obsession (1992), Sultry
Days (1994), Snapshots (1995), Second Thoughts
(1996), and Surviving
Men (1997), blending
glamour, ambition, and taboo themes. Her non-fiction repertoire includes
autobiographical and reflective works like Selective Memory (1998), Speedpost (1999), Spouse (2005), Shobhaa: Never a Dull De (2013), and Seventy
And to Hell with It!
(2017), culminating in more recent titles such as Lockdown Liaisons (2020) and Srilaaji: Diary of a Marwari Matriarch (2020). Shobha De has been commended
for her powerful themes. She has been ranked among “India’s 50 most powerful
women” by DNA newspaper and Verve magazine, named among Reader’s Digest’s
“most trusted” Indians, and honoured internationally as a bestselling and
influential English-language novelist from India.
The fact
cannot be denied that Shobha De often stirred controversies for her frank depiction
of sex, extramarital affairs, and lesbian themes. Shivike Verma writes in her paper “The Novels
of Shobhaa De: A Feminist Study,”
“Shobha De has raised sexuality as a weapon and as a problem for women
in traditional Indian society. She feels that most of the problems of women are
sex-oriented and sex-centred in the male-dominated society” (192). Shobha
sparked major backlash in August 2016 during the Rio Olympics by labelling the
Indian contingent as “going for selfies” and returning “empty-handed.” Sports
icons like Virender Sehwag and Abhinav Bindra also criticised her, and she
later openly expressed regret in a tweet, stating that she bore no malice
towards anyone. Her bold feminism, sharp realism, portrayal of lesbianism,
Hinglish-inflected language, and extramarital affairs generally remain the main
themes in her novels.
Shobha De’s Starry Nights is a bold, unfiltered,
and psychologically layered portrayal of the dazzling facade of the Indian
glamour world and the harsh reality lurking beneath it. This novel has been
written in two parts and all the chapters are based on different characters. Its
protagonist, Aasha Rani, is not just a ‘product’ of the film industry but a
symbol of a society that objectifies women. The novel is not merely a tale of
glitz, sex scandals, and broken relationships, but also a powerful narrative of
a woman’s journey toward self-realization and her inner psychological struggle.
Simone de Beauvoir’s claim in her seminal text The Second Sex is that “she is defined
and differentiated with reference to man... he is the subject, he is the
absolute, she is the other” (16) is relevant here. The novel begins with the
character of Kishanbhai who wants a movie “Tera Mera Pyar Aisa to be a box
office hit. Not so much for himself. But for Aasha Rani. His Aasha” (1). He
wants to see her at the ladder of success. He is called “the son of a bitch”
(1) i.e. a director with bad reputation under “K. B. Productions” (2). He gives
her a break in her movie and before that she was nothing. Shobha De also writes
about it, “When Kishanbhai discovered Aasha Rani she has been nothing” (3).
Aasha Rani’s journey begins not by choice but under
pressure. She is a woman who is thrown into the film industry, and she comes to
know that the directors and heroes get their success in the film industry due
to heroines. They merely become a tool behind their success. Shobha De writes
about it, “Aasha knew the nature of tinsel industry as heroes will always
consolidate their career with heroines.” (70) Aasha Rani represents all those
women who stagger from one place to another in search of love, glamour, and
prestige. Finally, she is broken by the patriarchal society because she is
exploited by all. She has no control over her decisions, emotions become a
joke, and her body is made a marketplace object. Premalatha and Dr.
T. Deivasigamani observe, “What Linda and Aasha Rani, Minx and Amrita share are
manifestations of the new woman who seeks fulfillment within her own sex”
(233).
She also knows that this world does not care for human
emotions. She knows the world closely, still she falls in love with Akshay
Arora, who later cheats her and reveals her past in the media. She tries to
commit suicide as well. Aasha Rani wants to shun Akshay for revealing her old
life to the showbiz magazine. “Her first reflex was to reach the phone and call
Akshay cheap, bloody bastard...he probably want her to make this mistake...God
! oh God...her big romance with Akshay was off as suddenly as it was on”
(70-71). In the scenario, everyone in the showbiz know Akshay as man of
questionable moral “spiteful bastard...he told the press on the day to wed her
‘i want a homemaker, someone who will be a good mother to my children. I don’t
want to marry a painted doll; some cheap filmy girl who will flirt with all my
friends” (53). This incident shows how many heroines know the stark reality of
the film industry, yet they step into the glamour of this industry. It can be
called her self-deception. Nisha Trivedi rightly examines that “The glittering
world of cinema is in reality so ruthless, so miserable that it can shatter the
moral values and innocence of any human being. But Aasha survives and achieves
success” (186).
Aasha starts
hating men since her childhood. She had seen that her father exploited her
mother badly, which germinated the seed of hatred and insecurity among women
for men. She contemplates, “She remembered father as a heartless and lustful
man, who exploited her mother…” (308). All this happened in front of her eyes,
and her father stopped supporting her mother. Then her mother, Geeta Devi, had
to sell her body to men. She saw everything in front of her eyes. After that,
she started thinking of men as only selfish and hungry for women’s bodies.
There is
another sad state of Aasha Rani’s mindset—she has lost the ability to see the
pros and cons of things. Amma and Kishanbhai govern her life. She goes to other
men also in search of her self-respect and salvation, but every time she feels
defeated. She wants love and peace in her life, but she is surrounded by
dishonour, illusion, and mental struggle. In whatever relationship she enters, she
becomes a product. Her life becomes a series of constant exploitation. Her lust
drives her from one man to another, but all the time what she faces is pain,
depression, and humiliation. Kishanbhai is the first man who exploits her. She
was merely a child, but he descends her into filth. In the name of progress,
Aasha Rani does not know when she has been dragged into a porn industry. Her
lover is Akshay Arora with whom she is quite serious. She was so happy in her
love that she gets ready to leave her career, but Akshay takes her only as a
thing of commodity. “Akshay Arora has started ‘Screw Aasha Rani campaign’”
(71). A major emotional blow comes from actor Akshay Arora. Aasha falls deeply
in love with him, even willing to abandon her career for the relationship. But
he turns out to be a married man using her for pleasure. Here, she becomes a
victim of Heuristic Emotional Response—blinded by love, she loses rational
judgment. When Akshay publicizes their private moments in Showbiz
magazine, she breaks down. Her anger and helplessness erupts at that time.
Aasha Rani is betrayed repeatedly—by Sheikhji who sends her to Dubai, by Suhas
who is impotent, by Abhijit who manipulates her, and by Jay who, despite being
her husband, has affairs with her sister and nanny. These episodes depict the
Regression to the Mean fallacy—she keeps hoping that life will improve, only to
face the same cycle of pain again.
Shobhaa
De symbolically uses several cognitive biases and heuristic errors to explore
Aasha Rani’s mental world. She exhibits focalism, fixating on individual people
or moments—like Akshay’s betrayal—while ignoring the broader reality of her
life. Despite moving across cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Dubai, and New
Zealand, Aasha displays change blindness, undergoing no significant internal
transformation. Through the availability heuristic, repeated trauma and
betrayal become her norm; she gradually stops resisting and begins accepting
these events as the default condition of her life.
Shethji also
crosses all the limitations of humanity and even cruelty. He sodomizes her and
then sends her to Dubai. Aasha has some expectations from Suhas, but he emerges
a eunuch, and gradually, this relationship also comes to an end. She finds
Abhijit also a traitor because he marries his beloved Nikita. Finally, Aasha
gets married to Jay and has a daughter, Sasha, but this relationship also comes
to an end. All this shows that Aasha becomes a tool for exploitation—sometimes
in the form of a beloved, sometimes in the form of a wife, and sometimes as a
commodity.
The darkness
behind the glittering world of cinema is starkly revealed through Starry Nights. Aasha knew that this world was
deceitful, yet she fell in love and that became her greatest tragedy. She is an
innocent South Indian girl thrust into the film world by her mother, Amma, and
a broker, Kishenbhai. She starts with B-grade and adult films, reflecting her
vulnerability and helplessness. Here, she becomes more an object than a person.
When she is called for any interview by Linda from showbiz, she hesitates.
Linda gets attracted by Aasha’s dashing beauty and she exclaims, “You are so
young. So, beautiful and so successful. Had I been a man I would have wanted to
marry you” (75). This is the way how women are exploited easily. Bhaskar A.
Shukla remarks in his paper “Shobha De voices against the malist culture and
strongly detects the marginalization of women. She does not believe in
describing her women characters as love-slaves or bitches or mere helpmates at
home. In her novels she presumably mirrors her own feminist and sexist mindset”
(Shukla 115).
Aasha
is also quite impressed by Linda’s rich experience in the film industry. They
develop a deep relationship when they go on a tour to Manali. It was a cold
night and Linda suddenly embraces and starts kissing Aasha Rani, saying, “You
are a real iceberg, yaar” (78). Aasha yields to Linda’s warmth and passion.
Prabhat Kumar Pandeya writes about their lesbian relationship, “Aasha Rani’s
lesbian affair may not be central to the novel and she cannot be called a
lesbian, for she does not show much preference for it, yet it does have bearing
on her character” (207). Linda is strangely obsessed with Aasha Rani. She is
hungry for her love. That’s why she says, “I’ve been dying for you all these
months. And you are mine at last” (80). In this way, the novel narrates Linda’s
physical intimacy and her emotional longing for Aasha Rani. Their lesbian
encounter does not only depict erotica in the novel but also has some
psychological implications. Linda promises, “Let me do to you what no man could
have done... This is love-making, not what those bastards do to our bodies”
(117).
It
is also noticed that Aasha Rani also feels gratified and contented from this
intimacy, and it may be due to her physical desires or perhaps personal
motives. It is explicit from these words, “Yes, she thought, this is what it
should be, tender, beautiful and erotic. In a way it could never be with a man”
(137). Aasha Rani has been quite veteran, and she had such kind of experiences
with Thai girls in Dubai, “She had experienced some of the greatest orgasms of
her life” (112). As Aasha ascends the ladder of fame, her personal life becomes
increasingly lonely, confused, and emotionally fragmented. In the very world
that celebrates her, she is repeatedly deceived, exploited, and used in
utilitarian relationships. Umesh Nana Wamane writes:
In actuality, Shobha De draws out the general
mental truth that the woman is the adversary of woman. The women in this novel
are identified with the universe of films. Aasha Rani, 'sweetheart of the
millions', breaks every single progressive and social norm by her strange and
deviant behaviour. Nothing controls her willingness to live her own life. Her
sexual experiences with various men highlight her sexual aggression. (20)
Aasha’s
sister, Sudha, becomes her emotional mirror—another woman walking the same path
but in silence and submission. Sudha’s later affair with Jay, Aasha’s husband,
shatters her completely. It not only destabilizes her external world but also
erodes her self-worth and deepens her inner void. Her relationship with her
father, once filled with hatred, moves toward reconciliation. Initially
portrayed as a greedy, abusive man who wronged her mother, he later confesses
with remorse, saying that she always prioritized money and ignored her. This
admission reflects a moment of self-awareness and softens Aasha’s long-held
rage. When he bequeaths his art studio to her, asking her to revive it, it
marks the first genuine emotional connection in her life. Narender Kumar Neb
writes in his paper “Shobhaa De: To Read or Not to Read”:
De’s treatment of female sexuality gives the
impression that she propagates free sex and macho female behaviour as a means
of women’s emancipation. But the reality is different, and De’s real concerns
are rather otherwise. Her prime concern is to expose the futility and
meaninglessness of such pseudo-feminist behaviour. (163)
At
several points in the novel, Aasha Rani could have escaped her toxic
circumstances, yet she does not. This psychological inertia—referred to as
status quo bias—keeps her tethered to the identity imposed by family, society,
and men. She says, “You’re all the same... But now I’ll show you—what you men
do, I’ll do to you.” This line captures both her simmering rage and helplessness;
she wants to revolt, yet is unable to break free from the mental and societal
confines around her.
Starry
Nights employs psychological concepts not only to shape
characters but to provoke deep reader engagement. Through the identifiable
victim effect, readers connect intimately with Aasha’s personal struggles
rather than with abstract social injustices. Her rise from a small-town girl to
a celebrated star embodies the dreams and disillusionments of many, engaging
the principle of self-relevance. Furthermore, the novel’s portrayal of moral
ambiguity, social hypocrisy, and sexual exploitation creates a processing
difficulty effect—the content is not easy to digest, but this very complexity
draws the reader in more deeply.
Toward
the end, Aasha Rani’s daughter, Sasha, emerges as the “Golden Girl of the
Silver Screen.” Yet De deliberately leaves the ending suspended—will Sasha be
caught in the same exploitative cycle, or has society genuinely changed? This
open-endedness makes the narrative symbolically layered: it poses a critical
question—are we moving forward, or merely repeating the past? Ultimately, Starry Nights is not just a fictional
account of Bollywood’s dazzling yet deceptive world. It is a profound
exploration of a woman’s psychological journey through love, betrayal,
rebellion, and a striving toward self-awareness. Aasha Rani represents every
woman who walks into a dream world only to find it riddled with illusions,
exploitation, and solitude. The novel critiques Indian patriarchy, consumerism,
and the fragile emotional lives of women. Through its blend of narrative force
and psychological realism, it compels readers not merely to read—but to feel
and reflect. Vijay D. Songire and Kamalakar Gaikwad write in their paper “Quest
for Identity: A Study of Shobha De’s Starry Nights” that this novel “unfolds the ugly reality of Bollywood” (94).
Though
Aasha never finds lasting happiness or inner peace, her decision to live for
her child and settle in New Zealand signifies the first step toward
self-actualization—the peak of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It is the moment
she finally chooses herself.
In conclusion, Shobha De’s Starry Nights is a
bold and unflinching novel that peels back the glittering veneer of Mumbai’s
film industry. De presents this world through the complex and troubled journey
of Aasha Rani, whose relationships with various men reveal the deep scars of
emotional manipulation and objectification. The novel explores her trauma,
sexuality, fame, survival tactics, and the selfishness that surrounds her.
Additionally, it delves into the themes of identity crisis, female commodification,
the illusion of success, and the psychological cost of ambition. Together,
these elements make Starry Nights a compelling exploration of the
feminine psyche. Prabhat Kumar Pandeya in his paper “Tender,
Beautiful and Erotic: Lesbianism in Starry
Nights” claims, Shobha De in Starry Nights has graphically depicted
the Bombay film world, and how could Bollywood be complete without sex and
fleshy pleasures (200).
Works Cited
David Soundar, S., and S. Kalidass.
“Feminine Quest for Identity and Self-Assertiveness in Shobha De’s Starry Nights.” Psychology and Education, vol. 58, no. 4, 2021, pp. 3392–96.
De, Shobha. Starry Nights. Penguin Books, 2013.
Neb, Narinder Kumar. “Shobha De: To
Read or Not to Read.” Studies
in Women Writers in India, vol. 5, edited by Mohit K. Ray and Rama Kundu, Atlantic Publishers,
2006.
Pandeya, Prabhat Kumar. “Tender,
Beautiful and Erotic: Lesbianism in Shobha De’s Starry Nights.” Indian Women Novelists, edited by R. K. Dhawan, vol. I, set III, Prestige Books, 1995.
Premalatha, M., and T. Deivasigamani.
“Image of Lesbianism in Shobha De’s Starry Nights
and Strange
Obsession.” The Criterion: An International Journal in
English, vol. 5, no.
4, Aug. 2014, pp. 2228–34.
Shukla, Bhaskar A. “Shobha De: The
Writer and Feminism.” Indian
English Literature,
edited by Basavaraj S. Naikar, Atlantic, 2007.
Singh, Bijender. “Naked Image of Sex
and Lesbianism in Shobha De’s Novels.” Research Scholar: An International Refereed e-Journal of Literary
Explorations, vol.
1, no. 4, Nov. 2013, pp. 1–6.
Songire, Vijay D., and Kamalakar
Gaikwad. “Quest for Identity: A Study of Shobha De’s Starry Nights.” Creative Saplings, vol. 3, no. 10, Oct. 2024, pp. 89–98.
Thanigaivelan, S. “Disseminating
Shobha De’s Starry
Nights through
Cognitive Bias Limited to Decision Making Process.” GAP Bodhi Taru: An International
Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journal of Humanities, vol. 1, no. 2, 2018, pp. 12–16.
Trivedi, Nisha. “Search for Identity
in Starry
Nights.” The Fiction of Shobha De: Critical Studies, edited by Jaydipsinh Dodiya,
Prestige, 2000.
Verma, Shivika. “The Novels of Shobha
De: A Feminist Study.” Indian
Writings in English,
edited by Binod Mishra and Sanjay Kumar, Atlantic, 2006, pp. 191–204.
Wamane, Umesh Nana. “Lesbian Feminism,
Eroticism and Sexuality in Shobha De’s Starry Nights
and Manju Kapur’s A
Married Woman: A
Critique.” The
International Journal of English Language and Literature (IJELLH), vol. 4, no. 2, Feb. 2018, pp. 18–29.