Once upon a time, there was a poor little girl named Shakeela Khan. She knew zilch about sex. Then one day, when offered a role in a "sex education film" while still in Class VIII, she knew all about sex. Suddenly, the little girl, seduced to film sets every bleary-eyed morning with a bar of chocolate by lusting producers and a goading father, was not so little any more. She grew to play a sex toy and became the cardinal celluloid pinup girl in soft porn land.

"I am blessed," says Shakeela-the Khan appendage has been dropped-25 now, and the south Indian film industry's uncrowned sex queen. Last year, the unlikely seductress-by her own admission "fat, dark and buxom"-notched the maximum number of films, all soft porn and big grossers, in Malayalam cinema, figuring in 30 of the 97 films released. The mainstream stars have had only a handful-actor Mohanlal had two films and Samyuktha Varma four. For the industry, the sheer fecundity of the "Shakeela film" was a reminder of the smut brigade that overtook mainstream Malayalam cinema as its alter ego in 2001.

Blowing rings of cigarette smoke into the sultry afternoon air, Shakeela is unrepentant. Looking up endearingly at her father's photograph on a peeling wall in her grubby living room, she mutters between puffs: "He would have been proud." For a high school dropout, Shakeela speaks flawless English, Hindi, Tamil and Urdu. As she flops into a sofa, like an overfed cat on a throne, you ponder: on film, she could have easily been a brothel proprietor. But Shakeela has played that and more. Her first shot at success-R.J. Prasad's Kinnarathumbikal (Love Birds) in 2000-vaulted her into box office league as she unleashed herself. "There's always a Ravana raping the hell out of me," she says. No meaty roles, only covert erotica. It's all body, no soul.

With roots in war-torn Kabul-her grandfather was an Afghan-Shakeela has been living in a two-room tenement in Kodambakkam, the Tamil film industry's home in Chennai, for over 20 years now, paying a monthly rent of Rs 3,000, because her mother "refuses to move out". Assistants and out-of-work relatives hover around to attend to every puerile holler. She is used to the trappings of a star-a mobile phone, a Ford Ikon and a Maruti Zen in the parking lot, and an attitude to boot. She doesn't succumb easily to interviews, though not hesitating to show her plunging eight-inch cleavage-consequently, a good part of her bosom-for photographs. Sex is not a dirty word in her lexicon.

The year 2001 was an itinerant one for Shakeela. She scooted from one location in Kerala to another, pocketing Rs 2-2.5 lakh for a 15-day shoot. But January 2002 has been quiet. She has been finding time to file her spear-like fingernails-the sex kitten has claws-look after Ma, smoke to cinders four packs of Wills cigarettes a day and down four pegs of brandy with friends after nightfall-her favourite haunt is the car-park of Hotel Residency. When sober, she pulls out in her Ikon in a burqa, shops at Spencer Plaza, lets her hair down at a disco. If Drew Barrymore is a favourite, so is Manisha Koirala. "What am I doing that they aren't? Whether you are a glam actress or a porn star, they call you a prostitute anyway."

For over a month now, Shakeela has not been doing too well. "Some actors in Kerala don't want me to work because my films make more money than theirs," she rasps. "There's a lot of political pressure to ban my films. So producers are not coming forward. My money is running out." But penury is nothing new for Shakeela. At times, she has sold jewellery to support the family. Her first film, Playgirls, with then reigning siren Silk Smitha-who taught her to wear double-padded bras and tights for bathing scenes-fetched her Rs 20,000. The day she got her first pay, she couldn't sleep. Today, she is an incurable insomniac, "bored" to bits with her life. The "doting" daughter, sister and aunt-she admits to reading the Bible before bed every night and visiting the Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry on weekends-wants to try something else now. She's dating a police officer's son. "Marriage? Mainstream cinema?" But can she ever? If she's losing sleep, it's also because for the past few months, there has been a lot of pressure to shelve her genre of films in theatres. Films like Mami she did last year were box-office shortcuts made by crafty producers on shoestring budgets of Rs 12-20 lakh-the cost of making a single set in a Bollywood film-but collecting three times the amount.

The protests have had some effect. Shakeela's obituary is already being written. Says film critic M.F. Thomas: "Even ministers throw barbs at her in public fora." And T.P. Madhavan, joint secretary, Association of Malayalam Movie Artists, who had once donned a bit role in a Shakeela film "out of curiosity", asks, "How is she so popular? She's nice, but with Amazonic proportions. How can anyone be attracted to her?" Yet, in Kerala, vendors peddle Shakeela ice creams. There are restaurants named after her in Bahrain and Dubai-proof of a huge overseas market for her films. Her films are being dubbed in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi and "going to suburbs in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh", according to director Priyadarshan.

"Many people don't admit that they are my fans. People who put money in my films get it back," says Shakeela. But Malayalam actor Mammootty will take none of it. While he admits to having met a Kerala minister to address the issue, he's certain "the Shakeela era is over". Retorts Shakeela: "They're insecure. They don't want my films to be released the same time as theirs."

In the quagmire, the Shakeela syndrome is inescapable. The film glossies haven't abandoned her. She even has competition now: names like Reshma and Maria crop up. But the Shakeela genre looks set for a hard time. A sex track may run parallel to the film industry, but, says John Paul, founder general secretary of the Malayalam Cine Technicians' Association, "Sleaze film directors will have to get more imaginative or perish." The sleaze factory may have quietened for now, but Shakeela refuses to alight from her throne. She puffs long and hard at her cigarette, narrows grey (lens) eyes and drawls: "People who mess with me can f#^* off." This kitten has claws. And it's showing.