A famous bollywood star urges the parents to teach their sons to respect women. No doubt his advice is logical and has to be considered, but is bollywood respecting women folk??? While our mothers are teaching their wards to respect women, is not the film industry using woman as just a commodity to sell their product???
The male dominant film industry has to take the blame for using female artists to benefit monetarily. Our producers believe that without a salacious storyline the movie will not fetch them good at the box office. There is a misconception that they are catering to the likings of the audience, but the reality is that the audience are force fed with B-grade obscene scripts.
I am not arguing that the Indian film buff is circumventing sensual subject. We should not forget that ours is a land which is filled with those connoisseurs who have grown up reading the romantic classics of Kalidasa, Bhartrhari and Jayadeva. Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhavam, Abhignana Shakuntalam, Raghuvamsham, Meghadutam and Ritusamharam are elegant poetry filled with romance. Unfortunately our moviemakers do not know what Shringara (Romance) is and which is Asheela (Obscene).
Amazingly both Shringara and Asheela depict the same Kama (Eroticism) in different dimensions. Kama cannot be narrowly interpreted as mere erotic urge, since all the Rasas (Emotions) proceed from it. Shringara springs out from the relationship between a man and his woman relating to the fullness of fantasy. When this Shringara is distorted in the interpretation then a degraded version of Kama sprouts out which is Asheela. This Asheela is branded as “glamorous” by our so called “intellectual” filmmakers.
There is huge difference in portraying a woman from a Shringara point of view and Asheela perspective. We Indians have the knowledge of this difference though the Westerners accept both as same. Hence they erroneously use the word “love making” for physical relation in their movies. Kalidasa in his plays conveyed much deeper sense to this term; he depicted Shringara to “Beauty” not just “Lust”. So in all his kavyas it meant enjoying the company of the opposite sex in a very lovely and romantic manner. This concept is lost now. It needs a fantastic creative flow of thoughts to bring out the Shringara dimension of Kama by a director or writer, if he is unable to do so he replaces it with the cheap version of it, which is Asheela.
Our sculptors sculpted naked or scantily clad statues of beautiful damsels on the walls of the temples and there are also erotic sculptures where a man and woman are shown taking part in “Srishti Yagna”. This was never obscene or provoking but the creative images of recent times are disgusting, immoral and obnoxious. Why??? The simple reason is that the intention behind making it as well as looking at it is weird. There should have been the innocence in creating as well as fantasising an art which is gone now.
When a Shringara Natya (Romantic Dance) is performed on the stage, the initial gesture by the dancer is meant to purify the atmosphere of all sexual instincts. The dance Guru checks and corrects the dancer to bring out the delicate movements of the hands, hips and limbs which are graceful. This is Natyakala. The indecent Adayein (pose) which our heroines perform being insisted by our moviemakers is of poor taste. The intent here is to make money and hence it is not a Kalaseva at all.
I miss the directorial class of Satyajit Ray, the thought churning Shyam Benegal, natkhat style of Hrishkesh Mukarjee, the artistic Guru Dutt, the subtlety of Basu Chatterjee, the patriotism of Mehboob Khan, social responsibility of V Shantaram, realistic and socialistic touch of Bimal Roy, the masala of Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra, the romantic fantasies of Yash Chopra.
Jaane Kahan Gaye Woh Din.....
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