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Up to the 1970s, Bollywood often relied on the figure of the vamp, usually a cabaret dancer, or a tawaif ( prostitute ) or a gangster's moll, to provide sexually explicit musical entertainment.

While the heroine too did sing and dance, it was the vamp who wore more revealing clothes, smoked, drank and sang in bold terms of sexual desire.

She was portrayed not as being wicked but as the naughty, sexually alluring, immodest woman, erotic in her dance performances.

The trend was started by Chuckoo in films like Awaara ( 1951 ), Aan ( 1952 ) and Shabistan ( 1951 ).