by Subhash K Jha

Have you wondered what happened to the lovely luscious ladies of the movies in the swinging 1960s? ....Grace-personified Waheeda Rehman , the danseuse-actress par excellence Vyjanthimala, the subtle-and-sensuous Sadhana, the naughty and sexy Helen, the cutely tragic Nanda and of course the glamorous go-go-gal Asha Parekh?

To today's generations who think hip means Ayesha Takia, Asha Parekh would just be a known name from the bygone eras who starred in such televised favourite feature films as Love in Tokyo, Teesri Manzil, Aan Milo Sajna and Caravan.

But Asha Parekh and all her colleagues are still around...and rocking!

Nanda and Sadhana don't step out of their homes any more. Nanda always a recluse ,lost the will to socialize even nominally after her fiancé Manmohan Desai jumped to his death. In contrast to Nanda Sadhana was always gloriously gregarious . Her husband, filmmaker R.K Nayyar and Sadhana hosted and attended the swankiest parties in town.

After Nayyar's death Sadhana stopped stepping out of her stone-walled citadel altogether.

"It was very very frightening," says Asha Parekh who turned 64 on 2 October. "All us close actress-friends from the 60s were living lives of self-imposed seclusion and solitude. One fine day, I decided we don't need to do that. Now we meet regularly at one or the other friend's place, chat, catch up with old times, have lunch, maybe watch a movie...

"Believe me, there's nothing more therapeutic in life than companionship. Half the illnesses that we think we have come from loneliness. We actress-friends, Sadhana, Nanda, Waheedaji, Shammy Aunty and Vyjanthimalaji(whenever she's in town) have decided to take stock of the situation. I suggest other retired actors try the same remedy for dissociation. Reach out to your colleagues before it's too late."

Like many of her contemporaries, Asha Parekh never contemplated marriage . "It just didn't happen, not because I was too busy, or because no man was good enough for me. There was just no one that I wanted to marry. I couldn't have affairs with my heroes! All of them were my buddies. But yes, I've been in love. Remember I'm a nice maiden not an ice maiden."

Are the 1990s' actresses heading for a sisterhood of spinsterhood?

While the actresses from the 1970s (Hema Malini, Raakhee, Jaya Bhaduri, Sharmila Tagore, Zeenat Aman) and 1980s (Padmini Kolhapure, Rati Agnihotri, Poonam Dhillon, Kimi Katkar ,Anita Raj) have discovered the joys, perks and occasionally jerks of matrimony, the 1990s seems to be a pronouncedly cursed decade for mariagable actresses.

Kajol, Raveena Tandon, Twinkle Khanna, Sonali Bendre are happily (?) married. Manisha Koirala, Tabu and Shilpa Shetty need to take the plunge. FAST. ...or else they'd be cruising down Sunset Boulevard soon.