Sunday, December 11, 2011

Things that need to be screened / censored in India..

In today's times when people are not shy to name a movie 'The Dirty Picture' and is well appreciated by the audience, a certain Mr. Kapil Sibal hit upon a noble idea to pre-screen social networking contents. You can read my article on this topic here (which, by the way, was well appreciated, contrary to my perception). Anyways, here I intend to write a light-hearted post. Mr. Sibal has actually given me and our fellow countrymen an idea on things we think should be screened / censored before being out in the open. You can think of anything under the sun and can comment on the same. Here's what I thought under the sun - 
Image: redbubble.com
1. Innumerable chair shots in Parliament: Not that we don't like watching it!! See, the thing is, today's kids watch TV all the time. And apart from watching TV, they also like to surf. Once in a while, they might bump onto Lok Sabha TV (which we thought never existed). Chances are pretty high that they will come across a WWE'sque match with a referee (chair-person) who cannot even ring the bell to call off the match. Watching is fine for kids, and there's no problem till now. It becomes a problem when they blindly follow the leaders their parents have voted for. We Indians don't have too many chairs in our house and unlike the parliament, we buy our own chairs. 

2. Daily Soaps: Most of the Indian women will object to this, but I have to write this. As was explained in the first point, watching is fine. It's a problem only when the same stuff is replicated in real life. You don't want to compare two (or more) bahu's and start judging them. You don't want a saas to think that she was a better bahu than her bahu. Writing the previous line made me sick - I can only imagine what my readers are going through!! I can understand that this is the favorite topic on which Indian house-wives have a viewpoint on. And they are ready to watch repeat telecast of the same serials they watched a night ago - maybe to see if they missed a line or an expression that can define the next episode!! Who knows - I am just speculating.

3. Reality shows: It started with a bang. I must admit -  I used to follow reality shows like Roadies, Khatron ke Khiladi (because I loved Fear Factor), Emotional Atyachaar (because I knew it was fake and characters are models who intend to be future actors), Bigg Boss (because I genuinely liked the concept till I realized all this was staged). Though these shows are different, it became more of a repetition with different characters doing the same role again! No new story-line, you see. Reality shows have come as a huge market for stars who have lost in the movie / serial market and want to re-invent themselves. So, effectively, we are watching a bunch of people decide who's the loser among the losers. Hey, am not judging - this is evident by what we see on TV.

4. Bollywood songs: Technically, I don't see this happening. Gone are the days when lyrics used to be the soul of the song. A song used to be loved because of the words / phrases used and the meaningfulness. Now-a-days, no meaning is fine. We only want some dhin-chak in a song so that it can be played in pubs and our i-pods for us to look cool. I feel bad for lyricists like Gulzar sa'ab and Javed Akhtar who were instrumental in revolutionizing the music industry with their content. We are now living in a "Kolaveri" age where the actual soup boys are the poets and lyricists.

5. Social Media screening: We should seriously consider screening the content we share on facebook and Twitter (and blogger). 

PS: While publishing, I had mentioned only 4 points. I have no idea who included the 5th one. Maybe this post was pre-screened and found objectionable. Blogger might have updated the post to make sure the government is happy. I tried deleting the 5th point, but when I publish it again, it appears out of nowhere.

Sarcasm totally intended. Take it with a pinch of salt.

22 comments:

  1. Hahaha... yup, the 5th point keeps showin up..Sibal's work here seems to b done :)

    Nice pint Binu.. ya man.. so totally agree tht music today is just a buncha sounds n nt like the gud ol' days.. wish thr wr many more of the 'dil to bachchai hai's..

    nice one dude ::)

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  2. """unlike.......we buy our own chairs""". started laughing here at this line & kept smirking throughout

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  3. Nice work Binu....loved the sarcasm ;)

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  4. @Raj: Thanks man, am glad you liked it.. Of the blogging world, I've found your sarcasm the best :)

    @Sujatha: Fact!!

    @Aditya: Thanks man, glad to see you here yaar :)

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  5. Salt and pepper:-)
    Yep, for screening. I am tired of reading what people do every minute..

    Have a blessed evening!

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  6. The PS part just cracked me up! Nice take!

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  7. LOL... Icing on the cake; the 5th point... However, points 1-4 will never be screened. They are the very things that keep us distracted and away from the daily happenings and pressing issues of life...

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  8. interesting post...

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  9. I agree. I agree I agree.
    And the most important thing to be pre-screened is MPs and MLAs. They should have some criteria atleast. Not just the age! Even donkeys get older.

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  10. You forgot to mention the overly sensationalizing news channels like AAJ TAK, INDIA TV etc.
    They present the news as if the world's gonna end tomorrow.

    Probably they are compensating for the shortage of overacting in horror shows like AAHAT and all.

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  11. totally agree with point 4!..although i do agree with the others as well..:)

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  12. Thank you guys for the wonderful comments!! :)

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  13. LOL for the fifth one, blogger surely has a mind of its own...Great picks BTW.

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  14. Enjoyed your critical analysis!The bogey of censorship is difficult to buy!

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  15. he just tried to change focus from corruption to freedom of thought.

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  16. You think you have it bad in India. try watching and listening to a lot of the rubbish that should be censored over here in the UK. You'll be screaming for some Bollywood non-lyrics!!!!!!

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  17. @Jason: Guess the grass is always greener on the other side :D

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  18. Observed well everything under the sun, I agree earlier lyrics used to be soul of the song and in today something else is happening. I like any song which compel my body to move so sometime I ignore melody and I just like to listen beat song. Overall nicely observed everything:)

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  19. well written!! now a days even news channels like India Tv need to be monitered!!!1

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  20. Only thing to be screened is the censored parts :P :P

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  21. exactly on target.....Nice take on the happening around..:)

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All yours..

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