Superstars Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan and more recently Salman Khan are being roped in as ‘item boys’ to hardsell a film,reports Prithwish Ganguly

Think ‘item number’ and you visualise hip-swaying, skimpily-clad women doing the song and dance routine in Bollywood.

While Helen, Bindu, Faryal and Aruna Irani were the frontrunners in the past, later heroines doubled up as ‘item girls’.

There are examples galore including that of Ek do teen girl Madhuri Dixit , Chamma chamma star Urmila Matondkar and UP Bihar lootnewali Shilpa Shetty. What’s more recent in memory is Aishwarya Rai’s Kajra re (Bunty aur Babli) and Mallika Sherawat’s Maiyya maityya act in Guru.

The true blue ‘item girls’ list also includes Malaika Arora Khan, Yana Gupta and Rakhi Sawant.

However, the ‘item’ portfolio today does not solely belong to the girls; the boys of Bollywood have stepped in the arena and with much success. It all started with Abhishek Bachchan when he danced his way to fame with Bipasha Basu in Rakht (2004). His song One love was a roaring success. Then Shah Rukh Khan was used to pull in audiences through numbers like Kaal dhamaal (Kaal), Mast kalandar (Heyy Babyy), the six-pack flaunting Dard-e-disco (Om Shanti Om) and Break free (Krazzy 4).

It must also be mentioned that Hrithik Roshan flaunting his dancing skills in Dhoom 2 and Krazzy 4 upped the film’s box-office pull.

While SRK has said that he would do anything to ‘promote’ his film and ‘item numbers’ are one such effort, Hrithik also defended his effort of doing the item number for his father Rakesh Roshan’s production Krazzy 4.