politics of sentiments

Many eyebrows were raised when I wrote a line on Facebook in favour of Slut Walk - a protest march by women to tell the world that they can dress up the way they want and their dress is no excuse for a man to molest her.

My friends lectured me on culture and talked highly of our Indian heritage. They said the Slut Walk was against the Indian culture.

I am surprised that none of those people have uttered even a single line against Delhi Beli - the new movie of Amir Khan. I wonder if they find the content of the movie in sync with the Indian culture!!!

The reviews rated the movie quite highly (maybe people do not dare citicise Amir Khan as for them he symbolises intellectualism!).

Apart from mentioning that the movie is full of swear words, no body said anything else about it. Then there was a little brouhaha on a particular song. But none spoke about the rest of the garbage this film has served to its audience.

I went to watch the movie after reading the reviews. I had the impression that the movie might be about some issue (as Amir Khan is known to have been raising issues) or it would be pure fun movie.

I came out of the cinema hall sick and disgusted. I had taken a friend of mine who did not understand Hindi and it was his first Hindi movie. In some scenes I just kept mum as I didn't know where to look - leave aside translation.

The movie was full of vulgarity, obscenity, cheapness, and of course, swear words (which at places seemed out of place and unnecessary).

Oral sex was not only talked in cheap and vulgar terms but was also shown. The director did not mind showing a man touching a woman's body in a demeaning way.

The movie was literally full of shit. The scenes, which could have been amusing if they were shown once or twice, became sick as the director went overboard with them and repeated them end number of times.

I wonder how the Film Censor Board viewed the movie and what it saw in it and how it got passed without picking up its scissors.

However, now the same Censor Board is raising objections on a Arakshan - a film by Prakash Jha. The film talks of reservation policy of India.

``The film talks about the ramifications of the reservation policy and the commercialisation of education as seen through the experience of a particular group of people,'' in Prakash Jha's words.

However, since it might hurt the political interests of a few, the National Commission for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes has issued a notice to the Central Board of Film Certification. The Commission has demanded to have a preview of the film.

``We want to see whether the film is suitable for screening or not,'' the Commission's explanation.

Fine!

Two different treatments to two different genre of films.

The whole scenario makes one thing clear....

If something is damaging for the political parties it will go through lot of screenings and all checks and boundaries but no one will give a damn if something is hurting the society.