God knows that Bollywood, with its casual sexism and perpetuating of stereotype, badly needs all the PR help it can get. The Khans are too busy. One is otherwise occupied in ‘scolding’ colleagues who annoyed him by participating in a public spectacle that skewered Bollywood stars, without having first asked him if they could or if he approved. The remaining Khans are employed in making slightly glitzier versions of the boy-meets-girl/boy-saves-world potboilers they’ve built their careers and fortunes on for about 25 years or so. Yet, no thanks to them, this is the smartest, savviest and most interesting version of Bollywood we’ve seen. In this Bollywood, Varun Dhawan, former loverboy, takes a chance with a dark revenge thriller like Badlapur; Shahid Kapoor, also an ex-loverboy, acquits himself with honours in a role as complex and daunting as Hamlet; almost no film of note is made without either Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui; and a collective of filmmakers with no dynasty clout form Phantom Films, challenger to the mighty Yash Raj Films. However, this is not the story of Bollywood’s heroes but of its heroines, who are no longer voiceless nor confined to the maiden/mother/crone roles both on-screen and off it, that they were once scripted into. Here are 10 of the many Bollywood women who are currently scripting their own destiny.

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