स - सोनम कपूर की चोली (Sonam Kapoor ki choli)

What? Did you think I was gonna leave the cow blouse out of this project?

Coloured pencils and ink on paper.

Sorry if your name uses this letter, but why don’t you just spell it with a श instead? It’s just a plain useless letter.

श - शाहरुख़ खान (Shahrukh Khan)

I hope you read his article, called Being a Khan. Oh fine, here’s a song masterpiece too.

Graphite on paper, pretty sure y’all know the deal by now.

व - विद्या बालन (Vidya Balan)

She is amazing and all that but I can’t really say anything about this now that I’ve noticed that I misspelled her last name. Kicking myself. Here she is in the first movie I saw her in.

Watercolours on printed outline drawn in FireAlpaca with a Wacom Bamboo Pen.

ल - लेनी/चंदा (Leni/Chanda)

Kalki Koechlin was arguably the best Chandramukhi ever. She was also arguably the best portrayal of an MMS scandal victim ever. Not that I’ve seen more than two of each. You should really watch the whole movie, here’s a song to get you started.

Coloured pencils on paper.

र - राज कपूर (Raj Kapoor)

I’d link you to the typed out song, but if you’re following a blog like mine you’ve likely seen it multiple times already. Instead I’m linking you to my all time favourite Raj Kapoor song.

Typed out in an old portable typewriter.

य - यश राज फिल्म्स (Yash Raj Films)

Not much to say about this one. It took no effort to come up with or draw. Here’s their official youtube channel. The latest video at the time of writing is a trailer for Aurangzeb and excuse me, but how dare they make a movie called Aurangzeb and not set it in the late 18th century?

Watercolours on paper.

म - मुग़ल (mughal)

Mughals were sexy. They were all about transparent clothes and hookahs and kama sutra illustrations and astronomy. Bollywood Mughals are obviously a bit more tame (damn you, censor board), but still pretty damn sexy. The sexy mughals above are Shah Jahan (Pradeep Kumar) and Mumtaz Mahal (Bina Rai) in Taj Mahal. Here’s a song from that movie.

Ink on coloured paper.

भ - भोंसले (Bhosle)

Asha Bhosle, shown here with her big sister Lata Mangeshkar. It would have obviously made more sense to put them on the next letter of the alphabet (म), since Mangeshkar is Asha’s maiden name too (and her husband turned out to suck big time), but you’ll see tomorrow why I bumped them from that position. Here’s a song with both of them singing.

Coloured pencils, oil pastels, and ink on photographs.

ब - बहार (Bahar)

Bahar is so deliciously evil. She doesn’t care for that buffoon Salim, she just want’s the throne. And then that idiot Anarkali falls in love with Salim uglypants Jahangir and Bahar is like “curses! foiled again!” and they have a rap battle (ok so not really). But then she probably married him in the end, because he had over 800 wives so why not her too.

Drawn in FireAlpaca with a Wacom Bamboo Pen

फ - फ़िल्मफ़ेयर (Filmfare)

I have never watched filmfare awards in my entire life, neither have I read the magazine. But from what I’ve seen online it’s mostly funny dudes dressed in drag or like mangoes. Please don’t stop following me for that.

Cheap neon watercolours on paper.

प - पदमिनी (Padmini)

Padmini is fantastic. I’m drowning in her crazy eyes. Here she’s having a dance off (and a crazy eyes-off) with Vyjayanthimala, who will sadly not be featured on the letter व because of a more contemporary voluptuous lady. Here’s a clip of her naked in colour too. You’re welcome.

Drawn in FireAlpaca with a Wacom Bamboo pen.

न - नर्गिस (Nargis)

Nargis is my favourite person in Bollywood, as you might know. Here she’s a strong badass farmer, here she’s a totally irresistible mughal babe, and here she’s a literal dream girl who is a lawyer in real life. How can you not love her?

Watercolour and ink on paper.

ध - धूम ताना (dhoom taana)

What’s not to love about Dhoom Taana? It’s a sexy song. It’s kitschy. It’s catchy. It’s possible to illustrate it through little doodles that look like stick and poke tattoos. Not to mention it’s from 2007 but it stars Sunil Dutt, Rajesh Khanna, and Jeetendra. Here’s how they did that.

Graphite on paper.