Wednesday 7 December 2011

Cut off our tongues...our fingers will still type.....

A new drama emerges with certain politicians demanding censorship of sorts, on public platforms such as Facebook. Indian cinema, as across a lot of countries has a censor board with ready scissors in their hands.every where you go, you have to be politically correct to remain in the good books of people. No one wants honest opinions any more. As long as no one has a radical or different opinion everything is good. Religious leaders are the most paranoid, instigated, supported and encouraged by politicians. Family members want polite niceties, colleagues and bosses want you to make the correct noises and back their decisions mindlessly.

A few days ago an actor from the Indian film industry spoke out against the ban on showing smoking in films, he asked isn't murder illegal, so should we stop depicting murders? I take his question further, what about rape, incest, child abuse, slapping, rude and obscene language, why make films at all?

I was watching Schindler's List on television a few weeks back with my friend. I had first seen it in Germany, uncensored, I had wept at the poignant film, it had driven me to read up more and more on the subject. Germans, greatly ashamed of their history, carry their cross, still, everyday. There, there is a lot of written material that they have in order to be a constant reminder of their shame. I had told my friend a lot about the film. I was left gaping like a cod fish as I saw a butchered version on television. It was shown way past the children's bedtime. I did not understand how that poignant film turned into this frothy bit of film. The complete impact was lost.

Do a handful of people who decide on these matters think Indian adults are morons, or ,that we do not understand the difference of nudity that titillates or horrifies? How do these few people become representatives for a whole nation where even languages change every few miles....

We can drink, drive,vote, have sex get married ,all after the age of 18, run businesses, run families, handle finances yet, we cannot decide for ourselves what we can watch? Are we Indian adults a bunch of nit-wits that need a shepherd to guide us constantly so as to preserve our own soul's moral integrity??

I then rented dvd of the film hoping that would be unedited, to my dismay that too was a hacked version. Are Europeans more mature than Indians? wasn't this the land of Kama-Sutra and Ajanta Elora? Didn't our very Gods learn the art of love making? Aren't our religious scriptures, Purana's and sutras full of descriptive, vivid love making stanzas. Indians, since history can go back, have believed in tolerance and non judgement, call it religion if you will ( I agree with Vivekananda on this one, Hinduism is not a religion, its a way of life), have we become so paranoid as to oppose freedom of expression in every walk of life.Have we all become puppets and lost our will. Do we not think for ourselves.

If a man thinks, he will have opinions, there will be some who concurs, others who don't. Witches have been burnt at stake, here in India ,they are still branded and paraded naked in their villages, were they witches wouldn't they fight back and turn their oppressors into toads or weasels that they are??

Coming back to what I was saying, India is supposed to be a democratic country.The only democracy I see is animals having the same rights as human, to loiter on the roads. A human here is a mindless zombie. His opinions are formed by others, his lifestyle dictated by society, his level of maturity decided by a bunch of people, with narrow minded approach, who have decided sex and smoking is" bad", and slapping is humour.We have been threatened by a bunch of hooligans never to speak our minds or else we would be killed on roads, our properties destroyed. Illiterate, lazy and greedy people,( epitome of the 7 deadly sins) who run our country will now decide what we should post on our facebook and twitter about. Maybe we need to stop twittering and muttering and start a screamer interface.

Mr. Sibal a mind is not a newspaper that you can buy. It is not a film you can censor, it is not a book you can ban, it is not a rally you can disperse, as long as the human mind exists, they will be opinions, there will be various ways of expressing them, new platforms to express them from... and man will always find some way of sharing it.Cut off our tongues...our fingers will still type.....our minds will still work!!!

2 comments:

  1. .... A very potent and a very fiery piece with ire in the right direction ... these self appointed moral police are a bunch of greedy hypocrites who censor as per their vested interests ... for example when the film , full of rabid expletives, OMKARA, was passed by the censors without any cuts , the mother of the protagonist was heading the censor board .... it is an open secret that all the members of the censor board has to be bribed heavily to get even a slang passed .... now , with this kind of "moral police" where does one draw the line in ethics... KApil SIbal and his stooges are just paving way for some more controversies and money scrapping ventures to deviate the people from the potent issues like the jan-lokpal and the rising inflation... a typical "WAG THE DOG " syndrome ...

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  2. the summation has it all. restraints are for people who try to think they can ably enable or disable as per their job description. human beings are more, and like you ve said in the mind rests a seamless desire to journey into the unknown, on occasions as rational, reasonable and responsible routes, at others on cruel, complex and self-centred. thankfully, we bear the choice, we choose to live the choice...

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