Dagger Drawn

James Bond, as Cubby Brocolli had envisioned for his very first film was Sean Connery and his famous line 8212; quot;I8217;d like a martini 8212; shaken not stirred,quot; still has potency. At sixty-something Sean still makes a woman swoon. Correction: sixteen thousand of the sisterhood go weak-kneed enough to vote him the sexiest man in the world. Sowhat does he have that the average Mr Joe doesn8217;t? Well almost everything, in that it sets him a league apart, as a man of distinction, a man who rules from the heart. As at the very same poll, all the women concurred that as organs vis-a-vis a man go, the heart comes first and the male appendage last, size being irrelevant. So much for all the Cosmo, Elle, She, Woman8217;s Own diatribe on the importance of sex, size and all the other junk statistics they feed women with. It only makes women feel inadequate and insecure about themselves and their partner, if they8217;re lucky to have one.

I was lucky enough to see Sean Connery aeons ago and must admit that he had a devastating effect on me, even for the few moments we met.

In 1988, Vijay Amritraj called to say he was bringing a friend to a dinner party at our home. The friend was Barbara Brocolli the daughter of Cubby Brocolli the man who brought James Bond to the silver screen. A few months later Barbara invited Rajan and I to the premiere of herdirectorial debut in a James Bond film. Having taken over the reins from her father after his demise, she had cast Pierce Brosnan as Bond. At the party afterwards Vijay, Rajan and I mingled and were introduced to the three actors who had played James Bond over the years. Sean Connery, impressed me the most 8212; he was charismatic and seemed very, very intense 8212; smouldering eyes that held one captive like the world had stopped. It was as mesmeric as an animal immobilised by the headlamps of a vehicle. Hypnotised. He had my complete attention. I thought Pierce and 8212; Roger by comparison seemed more like, well, actors! Sean looked like he was the part and thus didn8217;t need to play it. Though his wife was with him and she seemed a normal nice lady, it was his treating each person with total complete concentration and sincerity that set him apart as a special person.

Pierce Brosnan, in comparison, seemed just chocolate boy good looks and Roger Moore seemed a fairly staid gentleman. So Sean took the cake not justthat evening but in the polls published last week too. In Sean8217;s recently released film Entrapment, which I saw when I was abroad, I found him engagingly attractive with a wry sense of humour and a testosterone exploding male presence.

The actors of his era 8212; Marlon Brando, Omar Sharif, Kirk Douglas and Yul Brynner 8212; had extraordinary acting talent coupled with a charisma that made them larger-than-life. In the final analysis, women were attracted to them because they were real men, they were fallible too but bore pain like a stoic, they treated their women with respect and charm, therein lies the secret. Where are these larger-than-life macho, charismatic men? In this metropolis there are more talented, beautiful women than men. Just that statistic is good enough for me to rent Goldfinger to watch tonight, and a new one every other night. Sweet dreams are made of this.