"You're Too Indian for Nudity!"

I was catching up with a friend of mine at Anokhi recently, and was all excited that The Constant Gardener was still playing in Madras. Ralph Fiennes is one of my stage and screen idols, and I had been stupid enough to miss the movie in London, last October.

"Do you want to go and see it?" I asked my friend.

"Nah...," he replied, "I'll buy the DVD."

"Oh come on, the quality's so much better on the big screen!"

"It's censored...and I believe a lot of important dialogue happens when they're making out."

"Huh?"

It took me a while to remember that everything in India is censored, having watched over a hundred movies in England, where censorship, if it exists, cannot be perceived. What is it that makes people censor every movie? What is the point of shooting a scene only to have it snipped out of the film? Most of the Indian population has seen live nudity. So what is wrong with seeing it on screen? Are we too Indian to be exposed to it?

People complain about a thriving piracy market. But what is the way out, if we are to be able to see a film as it was intended to be seen? The same friend told me that American Beauty, as sold in India, does not have the scene where the weird guy's dad kisses Kevin Spacey. Isn't it completely absurd that a moment which defines the film is cut out because it is not in keeping with Indian "morals"? Who defines these morals, anyway? Should it be left to conservative individuals in the Censor Board? It makes me think what qualifications these people have. Are they certified film aficionados? If they were, they wouldn't be slashing films just because something that would be perceived as amoral by certain sections of society appears in those clips. Sometimes, I think, if outright pornography were allowed, you probably wouldn't have this phenomenon of eve-teasing.

This obsession with censorship reminds me of the padre in Cinema Paradiso, and the beautiful rush one feels when the grown-up Salvatore watches the reel Alfredo has left behind for him as a gift - the moments of passion from each film, strung together in a sequence that evokes heightened emotions from every heart. How many of us were dry-eyed as we watched that sequence? It is the most poignant moment in the film - a gift from one true fan to another.

But we - oh, we're too Indian for nudity...so thank heavens we have a piracy market that doesn't censor the best moments in a film!