Sara Loren in FHM

The loveliest import from across the border, by far!

Her first movie opposite

that man with the nasal

voice was the greatest

disservice to her, but

Mona...err Sara Loren is

now coming into her

own. Just about.

One year and two months ago, her country cousin dropped her shorts, undid her clasp and gave creative inputs on a temporary ISI tattoo for the FHM cover. We all know what happened after that, but before we can even bring up the topic, our March cover girl chimes in, “Don’t worry I won’t sue you”. “Aww, you poor

thing – don’t worry not all Pakistani women are like that.” Or at least, that’s what we imagined the conversation with Sara Loren was supposed to go like. It didn’t.

The original plan was to include as much conversation about her Pakistani background, why she seemed driven to change her parent-given-name from Mona Lizza to Sara and why she stole Sophia Loren’s last name. Ogling was to be a much smaller part of the mix. Those plans, of course, crashed and burned like

the alien mothership in the last scene of Independence Day.

This wouldn’t be the case if you’ve seen her in Murder 3 – a movie that managed to wrap in itself, the biggest disservice to cinema as well as to Sara. Miss Loren though went through the whole publicity campaign with the precision of a brain surgeon – she has talked about sex scenes being okay in Indian movies, and answered more questions about kissing than Emraan Hashmi and Mallika Sherawat put together. She also talked about how easy it was to get hot and heavy since her co-star Randeep Hooda looks like he does and she even achieved the inevitable – managing to get through the whole media circus without making fun of his haircut. And now, nestled in a small one-bedroom apartment close to the sea in Versova, Miss Loren has arrived, or at least is beginning to. And the getting used to India part has been far from difficult – her father was from Udaipur while it’s her mother who hails from Pakistan.

“You know the idea you have about women in Pakistan isn’t entirely true,” she explains, “there are parts of Pakistan that would feel like Dubai – there are women in backless dresses, drinking and socialising… 

Did you think everyone wears a burqa?” she laughs. As far as she is concerned – she is clear which side of the burqa she is on. But even then she likes India better because she could never really adjust to living in Pakistan (the family lived in Kuwait before they moved there). “Plus, people in India are a lot more open about the sexuality of women and you can see a lot of shades of that sexuality in Bollywood.” “We are a generation that has moved so far ahead and moved so fast that simple things are boring for us now. People are

open about their relationships and as an actor you show what’s happening in real life. And of course, in real life people do kiss and have sex – and as an actor you have to show that.” “Anyways, how many innocent girl roles can you do?” We think about bringing up the point about headlines in newspapers talking about ‘XYZ actress wearing a bikini in another movie that begins with a K’, but we don’t and somehow the conversation has taken a right turn and we are discussing sipping cocktails on a beach. “I know you would ask me if I would wear a bikini on a beach and obviously, I would. They spend so much money making such colourful, expensive bikinis that it would be a terrible waste if I didn’t. In fact, I say

if you have a good body you should wear the sexiest bikini you can find.” She’s also very particular about her underwear and is proactively hung up on Victoria’s Secret because it makes her feel sexy. So can we expect her to be the one in the smallest dental floss bikini on a beach? “Sexuality isn’t about taking off your clothes. There will be 50,000 girls in bikinis on a beach, but I am a 100 percent sure I’m the one you will be attracted to.” We agree except for the fact that she is single, but not willing. “Who has the time to tell someone where you are and what you are doing all the time? It’s the time to work, not date,” she says. Since the beginning of the conversation till now, she has managed to talk about her sun sign about 30 times. “You know I am unpredictable, maybe because I am a Sagittarian...”

We tell her we really don’t know the difference, but she believes in all this and numerology too. In fact, numerology was responsible for the change in her name. You see Murder 3, even though it might

be built-up as her Bollywood debut, actually isn’t. Her cinematic debut was in a positively dreadful movie called Kajraare opposite the man who always wears a baseball cap and ruined half a decade singing out of one nostril. She thinks dumping the Zs will turn things around. And from the looks of it, they seem to be working too. “I believe my star sign has a lot of effect on me.” We try and ask her what ours would mean after going through 29 years of being told, “Oh, typical Leo,” and she takes a brief pause before continuing, “I have a lot of mood swings, sometimes I want to just sit on a beach and sip a drink, sometimes I want to drive in the middle of the night to Niagara Falls. Sometimes I want to go to a beach with loud music and dance and then there are others in which I would just sit at home and eat dal chawal.” Restlessness transcends into her choice of music too. She hears everything from Shakira to the Pakeezah soundtrack with bits of mad Punjabi pop and Jagjit Singh thrown in. Sadly, she reads books only at airports when she is travelling and thinks there aren’t any good friends around anymore.

We deviate and ask her who makes the dal chawal? She does, of course. She fancies herself as quite a chef with grilled chicken and salads being her speciality. Tell her salads can’t really be called cooking and she offers up “chicken or mutton kadhai then. But you are a North Indian boy right, so I will learn to make Butter Chicken and send it for the FHM team. Tell me how it tastes, okay?”

 We have half a mind to ask her if she can feed it to us right after she finishes emerging from the sea in slow motion, but we don’t. Butter Chicken isn’t too good in the summers though, apparently. Still, if you are fortunate enough to meet her for a cup of coffee, you would realise Miss Loren is one of those hotter than hell girls who you’d want to take out to a vacation by the beach and make a sport out of picking up dropped jaws as she gets out of her hammock to get you a beer (if she is feeling affectionate), yet at the same time she is the sort of girl who will drive you up the wall, just a little bit.

FHM March 2013 (India) Download