India quite consistently behaves bewilderingly. It’s one of its key attributes. India, like it or not, is a prudish nation. For all the ‘freedom to be free’ advertising jingles and its ‘Incredible !ndia’ campaigns, it annoyingly shows its hypocrisy when it comes to creative expression.
The culprits can vary from right-wing fundamentalists to the Censor board to the left wing mavericks to the pseudo-intellects harping on the TV studios in a zero-sum debate .People raise a hue and cry and cloak their objection with the argument that it doesn’t fit the ‘Indian culture’. Just for instance is the song DK Bose from the upcoming adult comedy Delhi Belly.
There have been some songs recently that have taken that lyrical liberty and cut around the bush to include swear words like the title track of Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey , FO FO wordings in ‘I can’t hold it’ soundtrack from Love ,sex aur Dhokha and radically now comes DK Bose. In each of the 3 cases above,there is a certain stylistic flourish . Infact, the suggestive thrusts and all the heaving, thrusting and heavy petting in item-songs is much more vulgar. And while the general degradation in quality of lyrics is lamentable, India have long been prudish in letting expletives in a film or a song .
What the heck is wrong if you curse once in a while. Nothing ,we all curse. Some openly, others under their breath .You talk to some grannies and they often swear with that rustic charm, but that cuss has no malice, it rolls off the tongue effortlessly. It’s the cuss that is peppered in a daily conversation that makes the language colourful and exciting. If everybody took a cuss seriously , then a nation would never stop fighting . Just like there’s time, places and situations for using parliamentary language, there should be scope for the expression and depiction of the local lingo in arts and entertainment .
Mouthing expletives lewdly is and can be offensive to any or many. Singing DK Bose on the streets loudly is a lame attempt to look cool and many kids might be doing so too. But that doesn’t mean that cuss words aren’t used in daily communication. Some examples used in films that i can cite from back of my mind are the opening scene of Black Friday and Omkara, the granny in Peepli [Live] and chutiyam sulphate dialogue from Ishqiya. And you are kidding yourself if you say you haven’t heard of the bhenchod sutta song even once during the college days.
Martin Scorsese’s The Departed had the f word mouthed more than 200 times. Nobody bleeped that out. Lots of Indians listen and sing the rap of Eminem which is as offensive as it can get .
Why should then the language be sanitized ? Why to let go the realistic touch and rawness of language in a creative field? Indians have been quite creative to have made Hinglish a working language. India has to let go of its compulsive desire to censor everything that it doesn’t find to its liking. This means that most adult content - not just sex, but anything 'considered unwholesome' is expunged.
So where’s the freedom now?
Is India open enough to allow that kind of culture?
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