The stuntwomen of Bollywood who risk their lives to add spice to films

Five decades after Reshma Pathan became the country's first stuntwoman, Ranjita Ganesan takes a look at the lives of the athlete-actors of Indian cinema

Reshma Pathan smelled a rat. The pioneering stuntwoman had been dropped from the Amitabh Bachchan-Rekha starrer Ganga ki Saugandh but the junior artists’ association, of which she was a member, was insisting that she travel to its location anyway, as an extra. The pay for that part was half of what she earned as a body double, the meals came in a box instead of a buffet spread, and the journey was in a second-class train rather than by air. Reluctantly, only because the association threatened to cancel her membership, she had accepted. On the first day of the shoot