Whatever happened to the *** box?

So, we thought the Indian showbiz industry and the audience had come of age when they accepted an adult movie star as their lead female actor, and when the characters in movies like GoW blurted out profanities galore. Yet, all this while, the untiring attempt by the holier-than-thou censor board to shield its tender audience was penetrating deeper levels.

Yes, we were always used to "bad" words being muted (and I was more than made aware of this custom in the one odd season of Roadies that I saw back then!). However, the definition of what qualifies as not-so-discreet only seems to have grown broader by the day. Firstly, it kills my television viewing experience. Also, it perturbs me to see how virtuousness (well, someone's idea of the same) is being enforced on people.

As far as my reading goes, this rule only applies to the videshi channels, because, well, they are the ones contaminating our innocent people, aren't they? This, after a generation of our urban youth has grown up laughing to Friends, and admiring the guy who made the 21st Century Fox logo so majestic!

Now, these days, I am accustomed to switching on the TV on getting back from office, which is rather late. Unsurprisingly, there is hardly anything delectable on the Sony's, Zee's of the world (atleast at that time of the night), and so I prefer watching the sitcoms playing on Star World/Zee Cafe/CC. I believe, these days, all of these channels display subtitles, which I am happy about (though mostly it is distracting, and worst of all, gives out the joke before it has been cracked). The first time I heard a word muted (uh-oh, the maine Mr. India ko dekha paradox) was when they muted and starred the word ***.

It killed the scene, but then ***, however often used by me and people around me on a day-to-day basis, IS an offensive word. I was like, "Stop ***ing around with my TV watching!". And then I realized that every second-third sentence had a seemingly offensive word, like - "I have been working like an ***!", "What a glorious piece of ***" (multiple usage!). And then slapping all advocates of proper *** education for the young, they muted ***. I mean seriously. Every *** movie, they are seeing it. And what is wrong with knowing and/or saying the word ***?

Thinking of a censor-able name, I came up with two!

And then they go about bowdlerizing every other random thing. So, it'll be like - "What are you going to do now?". The other guy says - "Mari***". And the audience goes - "Uh, Marry who?". The worst part is this kind of censorship goes out of the window when it comes to Hindi soaps. Of course, they are allowed to show extra-marital affairs, women being mistreated (yes, yes, I see that disclaimer in the end too! It doesn't change anything). And obviously, gaudily made up women can abuse their daughter-in-laws (For some reason, I have the words kulacchini and kulta in my head). Also, I wonder, doesn't saying bhaad mein jaa a lot like saying "Go, *** yourself!".

And if kids is who we are shielding from these, one must really see the kind of stuff that happens in the cartoons that feature on TV these days. I see my nephews and nieces, and the conversation their favourite cartoon characters have, and I remember Tom & Jerry who never uttered a word, and Hewey, Dewey, Lewy/Louis who were so da- innocent.

Point being, I believe most of it is rather unnecessary. I really don't give two *** as to what the moral police thinks. There is a line post which one will have to trust the young minds from creating their own filters. Growing up, as they say, is an 'immutable' law.