Short and sexy heroes!!!!

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Rahul Bose (TOI Photo)

So can short really be sexy?



Dark and handsome doesn't have to be always preceded by 'tall'. Tom Cruise has just been voted the sexiest pint-sized star in Hollywood. In Bollywood too, there are good-looking men who come in small packages. Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman Khan, Govinda, Uday Chopra, Rajpal Yadav and Rahul Bose are all five foot-something and proud of it. They don't cringe at not being a few inches taller and refuse to resort to camera tricks or wearing heels while romancing a taller actress on screen.

So can short really be sexy? Absolutely, says TV presenter Maria Goretti, whose husband Arshad Warsi falls in the 'short hero' category. Some of them are sexier than the tall men. With the exception of the Bachchans and Hrithik Roshan, all the talented actors in Bollywood are short. My favourite short actor is obviously Arshad. Aamir and Salman Khan come a close second and third, she says.

But the long-legged ladies of Bollywood like Tabu and Sushmita Sen have a different take, finding it tough to be paired with heroes who match their height. And Bipasha Basu had once refused to work with Emraan Hashmi because she found him too tiny for her frame. Sushmita once jokingly said she liked working with Salman because he always looks up to me.

But the ones who aren't complaining are the petite heroines like Gul Panag and Koel Purie. Aren't all our heroes short? asks Purie. Koel, who dated Rahul Bose, says, Look at all the short actors we have today; they all look very sexy. Since I too am short, they work well for me. However, they might pose a problem for someone like Sushmita Sen. Who's the sexiest of the short heroes? I don't have any personal favourites, she says, diplomatically.

Bollywood's short and sexy brigade certainly doesn't suffer from any complexes. Actor Rajpal Yadav who, at 5'3, is probably the shortest hero in Bollywood, says, I'll turn down a film if the director asks me to stand on a stool because I have my own identity. Today, none of the short heroes has a complex. Height se kuchh nahin hota, dimaag lamba hona chahiye, he says. He picks good friend Salman Khan as his favourite short hero. He's a real hero, says Rajpal.

Most vertically challenged heroes feel it's best for scripts to be framed in a way that the hero's stature is part of it. For example, in Pyaar Ke Side Effects, Rahul Bose was paired opposite a much taller Mallika Sherawat. But the script accommodated their difference in height. Bose, who was once quoted as saying that he doesn't understand why women find him attractive since he's short and ugly, says players in his rugby team call him 'pygmy' for his 5'6'' stature.

But I refuse to wear heels while shooting with a taller heroine; I may die of vertigo. Instead, I make my heroines take off their shoes. Besides, why can't a short guy have a tall girlfriend? I personally feel attractiveness doesn't lie in one's height. Al Pacino's and Aamir Khan's screen presence impresses me in spite of their lack of height, says Rahul.