Senseless restriction

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Statutory warning: This is not a case for or against cigarette smoking. It’s just that I can’t figure out what the fuss is all about, and it’s been going on ever since former minister Anbumani Ramadoss got a bidi in his bonnet about the on-screen display of tobacco consumption.

This was as weird as the proposed ban by another lobby about the portrayal — or even presence — of birds and animals on screen, leading Kalpana Lajmi to tear her hair when sparrows, crows and pigeons just flapping around merrily in Chingari, were sought to be deleted.
How come? Since there was no animal protection rights present during the shoot — so who knows how the birds were treated? The objection to birds and animals has been relaxed, but suddenly it’s back to the obsessive-anti-nicotine-Ramadoss regime.
Leela Samson, censor chief for over a year, has been progressive and liberal, especially when it comes to the NOC granted to expletives and abuses when used relevantly (examples: Delhi Belly, Gangs of Wasseypur). So what’s with this return to the smoke-screen? Or the fresh diktat that any film which shows a character smoking will be awarded an UA certificate.
This would imply that even in a children’s film if a villainous sort is shown smoking, it would be denied an U certificate. Things really are getting quixotic out there at Central Board of Film Certification located in Mumbai’s seafront Walkeshwar office, which also housed a finishing school for girls. The Victorian morality was abating but today, confsion rides again — the way it did during the Emergency era when guns and booze could not be shown in the movies. A huge hoarding showing Dharmendra brandishing a gun for Charas, had to be repainted. Gun missing. And a Film Institute graduate’s debut effort showing a beer spree was banned, never to resurface.
Also much ado is on about blocking ‘adults only’ films on satellite channels, irrespective of their time slots. More: much negative energy is being expended on issues which develop yet another pretzel-like twist in the plot. Okay, so actors must read out the statutory warnings against cigarette smoking at the film’s beginning… and after the intermission. That’s doable.
Mahesh Bhatt’s teeth-gnashing voice-over for Raaz 3, incidentally, is more entertaining than the rest of the horrorflick. Ever so courteously, Karan Johar’s Agneepath had inserted the warnings even mid-scene. And now Kareena Kapoor’s ciggy act in Heroine has come under the scanner, only to bestow free publicity to Ms Kapoor’s puffs-n-huffs.
Truly, when ‘don’ts’ are officially imposed, these titillate the viewer, and serve in making the act of smoking taboo and tantalising. Surely the audience today has to be dealt with maturely.
There has been no decrease in the number of smokers following the statutory warnings on screen. And it’ll be pretty odd that a nation which produces the highest number of films in the world, should be associated for an extreme, sanitised form of neo-censorship. What will be affixed with warnings next? Unsafe sex? (which might put Emraan Hashmi out of business). Daredevil stunts (super-injurious, aren’t they?). And rock music (grievous to the ear buds). Doesn’t make sense, at all. Of course, filmmakers could be prevented from ‘glorifying’ or ‘glamorising’ smoking, but not when it’s intrinsic to the plot.
And yup there’s another factor: Humphrey Bogart’s dangling cigarette, Gregory Peck’s pipe, Ashok Kumar’s style of lighting his weed and Rajinikanth’s filter tip acrobatics. Guys, all of us know we’re watching a movie. But at the rate things are going, 3-D spectacles, multiplex sound blasts and over-cheesed popcorn may be also considered injurious to health. Nothing’s safe anymore.