Poonam Pandey
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As of 2020 Nov
In a country which is still prudish about sex, this middle class girl from Thane has unashamedly built a thriving business as an erotic star
Mahatma Gandhi is the name Poonam Pandey thoughtfully picks to suggest who signifies ‘competition’ to her. “He’s possibly the most controversial figure in our country and I’d rather compete with him than Sunny Leone or Kim Kardashian,” she deadpans. If controversies are what she is courting, the 30-year-old is not far from her goal since they follow Pandey like Mary’s little lamb, and have helped turn her from just another aspiring model to an adult entertainer who earns big bucks.
Her lockdown diary in brief: In May, Pandey was booked by Mumbai Police for flouting lockdown rules by taking a spin around the city in her car. In September, within a fortnight of marrying her boyfriend Sam Bombay, she filed an FIR against him for assaulting her during their honeymoon in Goa. Even as they returned on Instagram as “Mr & Mrs Bombay” curled up in each other’s arms, much to the consternation of the Goa police — a complaint was filed and the couple detained — this time for allegedly shooting an obscene video at the Chapoli dam in the coastal state.
“We thought it was a beautiful location to shoot in. I had no clue that it was a government restricted property. I’ve shot in places and temperatures you can’t even think of taking your clothes off,” she says. “But I accept my fault. Goan people are so sweet.”
Born to a father who sold industrial furnaces and a mother who stayed at home “to deal with a girl like me”, the self-proclaimed “kameeni of the family” was shoved into the spotlight of her own making when she pledged to do a full monty for the Indian cricket team if they beat Pakistan in the World Cup semi-finals in 2011. “I was 17 when I started modelling. I was a Gladrags and a Kingfisher calendar model yet why was no one noticing me?” It was a door, she felt, she had to prise open herself.
And then India not only thrashed Pakistan, they also won the World Cup. “But the BCCI did not allow me to strip,” she rues. “Dar mujhe bhi lagta hai. When I made the statement, I did it for fun. How would I know there’d be 25 court cases and mahila morchas after me... It’s like a teenager had ruined Indian sabhyata with five words. I thought to myself, ‘take it easy Poonam — there’s a long road ahead, you can do 500 controversies but this one — go easy!”
She parlayed that burst of notoriety into nearly 10 years of building a pout and-strip empire. As producer and star of her own show on an app that makes her private moments public, Poonam has managed to catapult herself from a oneroom apartment in Thane’s Tilaknagar where she lived with her family of five to a four-storeyed bungalow in one of Bandra’s spiffiest corners, Turner Road.
According to reports, her net worth as of 2020 is estimated at $7 million, that’s Rs 52 crore. Asked if it is true, she laughs: “See, I don’t want anyone coming after me but yes, it’s very close to the kind of money superstars make,” she concedes. Sitting in her plush living room, Pandey comes across as a blend of brash and bashful; of middle class roots and full-on diva as she flutters her eyelashes and takes stock of her life today buffered by “six staff members, three chefs, a husband who isn’t as traumatised by the things I do unlike my parents, a BMW luxury sedan and a Porsche on my wishlist.”
As we plunge awkwardly into her marital troubles after she packed her newlywed husband off to jail, she says without batting an eyelid, “We had a fight but in my case everything becomes big. I can be a volcano at times. We’re good now!”
Has her family come to terms with her sexuality, we wonder aloud. “Pehle bahut maar parti thi and my mother still doesn’t know everything. But even as an irresponsible child, I’m responsible for taking care of them and they love me for that.”
As she shows off her younger sister who has studied law and a successful businessman as elder brother, “I’m a little stupid doing all this silly stuff,” she giggles. But Pandey is remarkably aware of how she managed to build her brand — of barely covering nor actually showing any of her lady bits — to appeal to people’s sense of voyeurism. What started as amateur videos with titles like ‘My Bathroom Secrets’ and ‘Jingle Boobs for Christmas’ that she calls “kindergarten stuff” shot on her phone graduated to a personal app in 2017 that now has a “70-member crew” working behind the scenes. “In my first video I was topless,” she chortles. “It went viral, I saw the numbers growing and now it’s turned into a business.”
Entering her app which, she claims, has 2.5 million subscribers, is almost like stepping into a virtual playboy mansion that invites you into her “private room” with a horny camera on the loose. At first glance you see a gallery of short films with curtains pulled back on Pandey in various stages of undress — clutching her bare breast, leaning on a broken kitchen sink in a garden, or simply lying naked in bed caressing a guitar — all cheekily behind a red filter. The game plan is smart. She uses “native currency” in the form of hearts to seduce followers into membership tiers — classic, royal and private club — which could leave one poorer by Rs 9 to Rs 9,999 but would unlock these lurid fantasies. “Indians make up 60% of my fan following, 30% are in the US and the rest global,” says Pandey who refuses to be labelled a porn star. “What I do isn’t porn, it’s erotica. It’s the difference between an android phone and an iPhone. I’m an iPhone.”
For someone with an ability to court attention with anything she does including one of the five movies she starred in — Nasha, playing Mrs Robinson to a teenage boy and angering political outfits who burnt the posters — Pandey has barely appeared (no pun intended) on the silver screen. “I get offered web series. A lot of sex scenes is not a problem because I understand what people want from me. But there has to be a story, no?”
So what goal has she set herself ? “To be like salt!” she says, cocking her head to one side. “See, you can add any masala to your food but if salt is missing, it’s tasteless. But if you add too much salt, it could ruin your food. I want to be that right amount of salt in people’s lives,” she chuckles.
