Surely by now you have read all about Anil Thakraney’s interview of Pahlaj Nihalani, the chief of the censor board:
Speaking of Spectre, surely Bond would kiss beautiful women he encounters, he isn’t going to say Namaste to them.
So why didn’t people object to the earlier Bond films? There was not a single kiss shown in Skyfall. That time no one thought of the sanskaari thing? We have passed the kiss! We only asked them to reduce the duration by 20 seconds.
I don’t get this logic. A kiss is a kiss. Ten seconds or one minute.
(Gets angry). This means you want to do sex in your house with your door open. And show to people the way you are doing sex.
Nihalani is a buffoon, but that is not the point. Nor is it the point whether the censor board has been more ‘liberal’ under the previous government or under this one. The point simply is that the censor board should not exist at all. The existence of the board is a violation of free speech. Period. Protesting against or making fun of Nihalani is besides the point. Even if the most cultured and intelligent and pro-free-speech people on the planet headed the censor board, they would be as deserving of my contempt as Nihalani is.
Forget the man; examine the principle.
*
And oh, by and by, wtf is ‘do sex’?
*
Update: In an otherwise excellent column, Mitali Saran writes: ‘It is time to have an adult at the head of the CBFC.’
No it isn’t. It’s time to do away with the CBFC. Individuals aren’t the problem; systems are.