Last night I had a nightmare starring Sunny Leone. I dreamt that Sunny Leone was more popular than Sunny Deol, that she was joining politics and that she was doing the Bihar/UP dialect in a forthcoming film.

While the first two terrifying trepidations fortunately turned out to be untrue, the third, I am afraid, is not a horrible dream that will go away when we open our eyes.

Sunny Leone is indeed doing a cowbelt accent for a forthcoming film. I have to hand it to the makers of this film for their imagination and optimism. Please note: Sunnyji can’t yet speak her Hindi dialogues. After five years in Bollywood, her Hindi is as good as Katrina Kaif’s. This, I agree, is not saying much. It’s like saying Rahul Gandhi’s poll prospects in the next elections are as bright as Donald Trump’s.

I don’t understand how Ms Leone can be a Bollywood actress when she can’t speak Hindi. Achcha chalo, koi baat nahin. Language, said a great director, is the least important component of the cinematic experience. What about the success ratio? Which of Ms Leone’s films in Bollywood have been successes? Ek Paheli Leela, Mastizaade, Kuch Kuch Locha Hai, One Night Stand, Beimaaan Love…all miserable flops.

All her hit films came before her Bollywood career started. And I really can’t mention those films here. Ms Leone or her vigilant husband may take deep offence to my recalling of her past.

For reasons best known to her, Ms Leone has been in denial for some years now about her past association with the pornography industry. So much so that when Dilip Mehta (Deepa’s brother) made a wonderfully lucid documentary, titled Mostly Sunny, about Ms Leone’s tryst with titillation and excursion into erotica, the husband and wife pair swiftly disowned the documentary.

The truth is not always palatable to those who make it a point to climb out of karma’s allotted space and create a new life for herself as, giggle, reigning Queen of Bollywood and mother to three beautiful children. It’s an enviable image to have. But one that reeks of hypocrisy. Because a large part of her 23 million followers on Twitter are those who were converted into fans via her adult content.

To believe she is a Bollywood star with a following that accompanies Bollywood actresses is a myth, and a delusion created by her astonishing publicity machinery.

So what makes Sunny Leone a bigger name than Sunny Deol? The power to hardsell an image of a woman who is, at the core, the average net-surfer’s fantasy as a newly-converted family woman and Bollywood star. And now an actress who can do the North Indian dialect in a film that nobody will watch for her acting skills.

Come back, Hrithik. We forgive you your ‘Bihari’ accent in Super 30.

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