by Subhash K Jha

What's it about looking like a Plain Jane, if not plain frumpy, that attracts our moder-day classique beauties of Bollywood? Every diva from Urmila Matondkar to Bipasha Basu and from Aishwarya Rai to Kareena Kapoor is going into the de-glam mode.

Urmila, known for her ultra-chic appearance and attitude in Rangeela and Daud has been doing a series of makeup-less roles. The process culminated for Urmila in Jhanu Baruha's Main Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara where Urmila played a simple straightforward middleclass girl.

Says Urmila, "According to me it's far easier to play deglamorized parts where you don't have to focus on your makeup and other paraphernalia . It's just you and the camera."

A sentiment shared by Kareena Kapoor who during Govind Nihalani's Dev ... "Did nothing to my face except splash it with water...and that was it.I was ready for a shot." Dev is Kareena's most acclaimed film and performance to date.

So is there any connection between deglamorization and recognition? "I wouldn't really know,"says Bipasha Basu. "But once I got into a simple salwar-kameez for Prakash Jha's Apharan I felt I had transformed into a simple working-class girl."

Rani Mukherjee who has played the scrubbed no-frills working girl so many times agrees. "It's amazing how clothes can change the way you feel. De-glam isn't so much about getting the gait and the speech right feeling comfy in the clothes and the look.I was completely without makeup in Saathiya and Paheli."

Aishwarya Rai considered by many to be the ultimate glam-goddess is all set to be seen in a totally deglamorized avatar in Jagmohan Mundra's Provoked where she plays a battered wife. The role requires Rai to be totally removed from her glamorous persona.

"But I've made no conscious effort to look battered and bruised. It's just the way one feels when one is put in a certain traumatic situation," says the actress, following in the footsteps of other glam goddesses who stripped off all war paint to be raw and real....

Hema Malini in Gulzar's Khushboo, Rekha in Jabbar Patel's Musafir, Madhuri Dixit in Nana Patekar's Prahaar, Raveena Tandon in E Niwas's Shool and Juhi Chawla in Nagesh Kukunoor's 3 Deewarein are some other actresses who dared to remove all elements of vanity from their performances by appearing utterly make-up less on camera.