I await good cinema! And I await commercial cinema with a hope they will be good! I love Ray’s Pather Paanchaali and have seen it as many times as I have seen Sholay! And I love Irfan Khan and I adore SRK!
So when the mini-trails of Jab Harry Met Sejal were released, I was very excited. SRK hasn’t delivered something exceptional in a long time. And this looked like it. It’s got the Badshah of Bollywood SRK, the empress of acting Anoushka and the undisputed king of poetic direction Imtiaz Ali helming it. In fact, the second mini-trail was indeed exceptional. It gave a feel that this would be fun to watch!! In the same, Sejal comes to Harry with an indemnity bond stating that in case they were to have any sexual intimacy or full intercourse, Harry would be absolved of all legal charges. Harry obviously finds it very exciting – specially in these days of over the top definitions of date rapes and false accusations worldwide (without trying to trivialize the same – BBC News; Does India have a problem with false rape claims?; http://www. bbc.com/news/magazine-38796457).
But while Harry found it a fun and exciting proposition, some rank idiots sitting at the censor board found it vulgar. What else would you expect with that nincompoop Nihalani heading it? But I think the problem is not just with such rank uninitiated idiots. This over the-top morality is becoming a sign of the new cow-dung worshipping, cow-brained India being lead by anomic non state actors like gauraksha groups, that is slowly but steadily making India a killing field (The Times of India; Accused of carrying beef, teen killed on train; http://toi.in/CR9wlb/a18ag) in the name of culture, cows and religious supremacy. We have no stronghanded clampdown on such madness coming from the top; and at the bottom, we have various gau rakshak vigilante brigades getting a nod from people like even our home secretary (The Home Secretary thinks lynchings are over-hyped. “I think they are over-hyped and over reported,” says Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi on lynching incidents in India; http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/union-home-secretarylynchings/1/987029.html). It is so much so that every 5th case of communal violence in Uttar Pradesh is today linked to cow vigilantism! And it’s all because the powers that are, are hellbent on creating antagonism between religious groups to polarize votes.
Any way, coming back to intercourse. It’s time for specially Indians to really come out clean and relaxed about it. It’s time for people to stop being sanctimonious about it. Definitions of marriages, sex, judging people on the basis of their sexual preferences and number of partners is thankfully becoming totally outdated. But sadly, while the world is moving forward, we are moving coward.
Recently, The New York Times did a path breaking piece on open marriages
(https://www. nytimes.com/2017/05/11/magazine/is-an-openmarriage-a-happier-marriage.html).
And while my views on this are far less apologetic and clearer than the way this rare and lovely article addresses the issue, the reality is that the world is heading towards a far more liberal attitude towards sex than our cow-vigilantes would allow.
The hypocrisy in our society with respect to liberal attitudes towards sex comes out clearly when on one hand a bit arty film called Pink becomes a super hit and an article I write on that gets endless likes and positive feedback (https://www.facebook.com/chaudhuri.arindam/posts/10154973196260016:0), on the other hand, an equally lovely commercial film about the lifestyle that can perhaps lead you to the fate of the lady in Pink is trashed and the praise for it gets back only abuses (https://www.facebook.com/chaudhuri.arindam/posts/10155229900760016:0). We love moral lectures around women’s equality but get unnerved when we see them enjoying life like men do. So Pink is acceptable – after all, the leading lady is crying, is weak and takes help of a man to set the bad guy right – but the leading lady getting an indemnity bond to enjoy sexual intercourse without legal hassles raises eyebrows. We love PK and make it a bumper hit and yet the very next day like low IQ cows stand in front of a cow, worshiping it for better results in our exams or for a business deal to strike or to win elections.
Actually, the problem is also that for far too long, we have stupidly inflated things like the immature and unintelligent virtuousness of being a virgin etc. and tied down women with far too many stereotypes.
Truth is, of course, that neither is there any virtue in those stereotypes and, more hilariously, nor have women ever been like that. I have been telling everyone for more than two decades now: get married only if you want a/another sibling to share your life with… Not if you are thinking of having the initial feeling of crazed up attraction forever. If some people manage to retain that, my respects. But it’s necessarily quite unnatural – scientifically and logically.
it’s time to give up trAditionAl RELIGION-BASED concepts of mArriAge; we cAn love someone or hAve intercourse with them without getting mArrie
As The New York Times’ piece suggests – and I strongly believe – to get that feeling of attraction, which is a natural desire, perhaps you need to realize that you need to look beyond the concept of marriage. For we need to understand that a marriage is a creation by the society to legalize something which never needed any legalizing. It was a creation to dominate women and brand them as one’s personal property. While officially men were also supposed to become the same (barring in Islam where women had to possibly share them with three more women officially), the fact is they never cared. But men failed to realize the other reality. Women also never really cared. Men only lived an illusory life thinking that their women remained their personal property. Because for every man looking for a relationship outside his marriage, there was an equal number of women. It was never one woman satisfying the needs of the rest of the 3.5 billion men (assuming all men have been looking for relations outside their marriage, as all women like to point out)!!! So while men, being dominating, were non caring, women, being raised up to be careful and protective of themselves in general, thus became more sly and secretive and thus became better liars. So, many more men got caught, while women only charged their men and cried victim, while hiding their relations nicely (and often using these tears to get into newer and more secretive relationships). That’s all. While men know that someone else’s wife is having a relationship (with him or his friends), they generally had less idea about their wife and some other man had more!
In a nutshell, it’s time now to give up traditional religion-based completely irrelevant concepts of marriage. We can raise children without getting married; we can have children without getting married; we can live happily without getting married; and most importantly, we can love someone of the opposite sex as deeply and have intercourse with them freely without getting married.
In fact, the obsession with being the sole sexual right holder of your partner is the reason behind breaking down of love and relations. Getting to realize that, respecting each other’s independence, and giving each other space is the only way to have gender equality. It’s sad that parents proudly talk about their son having many girlfriends. But when it comes to their daughter, they limit themselves to praising her dancing skills or music abilities. Well, the truth is that she is being introduced by different boys in their homes as their respective girlfriend. Just that she is good at lying in her own home. Let’s not make liars out of our daughters by making them feel that they lose their purity if they have a boy friend or if they fall in love. That’s a shame.
The concept of marriage, like religion, is dated. It can only make a world of 7 billion liars. After all, is it not so farcical to cry hoarse about feminism and women’s rights and then get dirtily legal to get moneys from your partner during a divorce? Be independent and live in your own merit and as per what the society can provide for all.
No wonder in the film PK, PK was so amused at why everyone was in general so secretive about sex, and yet gave a massive marriage party to announce to the world that tonight they would be having sex with each other. PK was never a movie about religion alone. It was about the shame of treating sex as a taboo, and about gender equality… Sadly, not many people realized this.
As more and more people stay without getting married (less than 50 percent of adults in USA now live with their spouse compared to 75 percent plus in 1960s), let’s cheer this generation of forward-thinking adults, boys and girls, who are slowly but steadily bringing about gender equality more than anything else. In any case, as the average age of healthy living for the next generation hurtles towards upwards of 100 years (and perhaps lot more soon) as per each and every research, to declare yourself the sole property of one person for 75 to 100 years of your life sounds really immature and absurd. For the first time in a public forum – apart from with my students – I touched upon this in the forum for equality that we organized recently in London. And am glad that it was well received.
To summarize, let’s cheer the new generation that can freely talk about intercourse without becoming liars and even sign an indemnity bond before having intercourse!
Down with the censors who on one hand enjoy making songs like Khada hai, khada hai, khada hai; Le lo, le lo mera; Ye maal gaadi, mujhe dhakka laga, and on the other hand try to get sanctimonious on the topic of intercourse. Shame.
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