DesiDabba - Boss, Thoda Sa Roomani Ho Jaye

Watching Omkara on Sony Television this Sunday last was the most hilarious experience I’ve had in quite a while. I’d made a note in my diary to catch Omkara on satellite television at any cost. After all here is a film that takes pride in its profanities and whose language is as much a character in the film as any. Given the outdated censorship laws that our I&B ministry enforces, and the recent bans on English channels viz. Star Movies, HBO, AXN (thanks to Priyaranjan Das Munshi and a certain professor at St. Xavier’s), I was very curious to see how Omkara would be edited to make it innocent for Prime Time.

Well they bleeped out the cuss words all right, but they also missed quite a few, simply because there were just too many; some so rustic that they didn’t realize it to be a bad word at all.

In the very first scene, the word ch*t*y* was bleeped out twice but overlooked once. Later something as obscene as pettich*d sneaked in while a seemingly harmless saala wasn’t allowed. The whole exercise reminded me of those secret interviews that news channels conduct of spies, bargirls, prostitutes, gangsters, etc. where the face is pixilated to hide his/her identity only to have the pixels dancing all over the screen and letting us a peek here-there to see actual person.

But this whole ban got me thinking on morality and vulgarity. Vulgarity, like beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder. As with all cases, it also depends on the intelligence and character of the person involved. Nothing can stop a pervert from imagining his favourite actress naked even is she’s covered in nine rolls of Kanjivaram. A culturally inept man will find the nudity in the political Malena vulgar while overlooking the heaving cleavages of K3G served in the garb of tradition. The line between that which is vulgar and that which is not is a very thin one and those who understand it are better off while those who can’t, will never do. To the misinformed, the nudity of Seema Biswas in Bandit Queen and the numerous metonyms for the male genitalia in Kya Kool Hain Hum are equally vulgar. He/she is simply incapable of making out the difference.

This brings me to vulgarity that goes unnoticed thanks to the obtuseness of the audiences and/or of the powers-that-be. I have been subjected to saas-bahu serials ever since my mother got hooked to them – like countless other countrywomen. I have noticed that these seemingly traditional soaps about family values, ethics and morality are in fact the most subversively vulgar stories that I’ve seen on television.

For example, women in the Virani family of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi are passed around the household like concubines. Sahil was married to Ganga who was married to Gautam who is married to Damini who was in love with his half-brother Karan who was in love with Nandini who was raped by Karan’s half-brother Ansh whose son Eklavya is in love with the KT who loves Krishna whose father is Sahil! Sigmund Freud would’ve given anything for an opportunity to get into the minds of borderline incestuous family.

And yet, week after week, women continue to watch this inanity. Chutiya doesn’t sound as vulgar now, does it?