Of censors and bans

So I was watching "Enemy at the Gates" the other day. For people who have not seen it, the plot revolves around two sharpshooters in opposite camps in the world war, trying to kill the other and win the proverbial bout. Well, for a such a movie, there is bound to be a sizeable number of shots fired, people bloodied and killed. Saw it a while back and sat down to watch it again, to relive the moments. But all I got to see were dialogues. All the shooting scenes were cut from the script. All the murders and killings removed. Even innocent kisses failed to get past the censor board. I was left with a feeling that was a concoction of fury, amazement and disappointment. I was ready to take a gun and kill the editor point blank, wouldn’t even need the scope.

Not to be undone are my society people. Now mumbai is a city of immigrants. It’s a city where young people out of colleges and universities come to work, earn and burn. When I first came to mumbai, the thing that I liked was that there are every strata of people here, from the poorest to the vulgar rich. Also all ages, from all regions of india with the same objective, make a living. No doubting that this is the financial capital of india. So first there was this tomfoolery about marathi manoos, as if they were rightful owners of the state and jobs should be reserved for them. Well, if that does become their stance, there is no doubt jobs will move elsewhere, bases will shift to other avenues. Good then that this died down. But the more perplexing trend is of no flats to be leased to bachelors. This reason alone makes a more compelling argument for marrying than anything else. But again a higly skewed perspective of the bygone generations. Anywhere else I would have accepted this conservatism, but to witness the same in mumbai is disheartening to say the least. Then there is the gunda mentality of the ruling polity that mandates the name of shops and organizations to be spelled in marathi or hindi. While we yearn to give an outlook of an open society, such censures, bans and diktats just accentuates our hypocricy. Time will only tell if people here truly open up or implode under the weight of all the rules it puts up under various pretexts. And im surely hoping that it is the former rather than the latter that happens.