Can Indian audiences handle the beep?

I’ve been propelled towards this train of thought by a film I watched last week. Sudhir Mishra’s Yeh Saali Zindagi has what might be called a profane title,and he had to fight major censorial reproach before he could release it. His characters are a motley bunch,ranging from a handsome jail bird who wouldn’t be out of place on a ramp,to assorted criminals and their cohorts who seem to spend all their time on the street. Their language matches their lives: it’s colourful,racy,and laced with gaalis at every step. Mothers and sisters are cheerfully invoked; other unmentionables hinting at nether regions abound. But what we hear,most often,is a beep. The whole film,in sorry fact,is reduced to a series of beeps.

A beep,may we humbly submit,is more offensive than the word itself. It suggests several things. That the filmmaker is an irresponsible idiot,unmindful of anxious parents,and children with impressionable minds. Or even,horrors,unformed adults,who may never have heard any such words in their blameless life,and who would be scarred for ever post facto. And who would be responsible for the feelings these awful words arouse? See,arousal is itself a bad word,isn’t it?

Whatever else may be Yeh Saali Zindagi’s faults,the bracing lines are not: they leap off the screen,shocking us out of somnambulance. Mishra is not wasting his time sparing our blushes when he writes his characters. He is an adult. He expects his viewer to be the same. What he is saying to us is this: come,be a part of my world for these two hours,hang out with my characters,who speak thus,because this is where they are coming from,and this is where they are going to.

Our horrified reaction to a mild saali,so much a part of everyday street-side lexicon,is symptomatic of how we choose to experience gaalis of a more extreme nature.

I can understand outrage if the language in Cartoon Network turns blue: that is a kiddie zone,and needs watchful protection from any and all predators,even if I’ve never been very sure if Jerry being decimated roundly by Tom every two minutes is such a nice thing for two- year-olds to behold. But we are talking movies here. Films that celebrate,presumably,adult characters with adult motivations,which could presumably,turn towards Violence,and even,shudder,let’s say it aloud,Sex.

The extreme reaction we evince at words which offend (and everything offends us,we are quick-to-take-umbrage Indians) spills out every time a film with robust landscapes and characters turns up. “Picture toh achchi thhi,par usko C—a (you twigged this one,too,right?) bolne ki kya zaroorat thhi?” I got tired of hearing this after Omkara released: I am firmly convinced that the felicity with which he used this cuss word released Saif Ali Khan from terminal wimpishness. How would you expect such a man from rural Western UP to talk,I would ask my interlocutors,with spurious Lucknawi tehzeeb? What I would get in response was mostly a baleful stare.

And when the beauteous Vidya Balan added a “sulphate” after that C-word,she became a genuine woman of substance,rising above the fake low-cut Gorakhpuri blouse her character wore in Ishqiya. It’s funny how we are so sanguine about our kids using the choicest Anglo-Saxon gaalis,and how we blanch at a saali: what would a Marty Scorsese do if he couldn’t get his Italian-American characters to use the F-word (I can see no one’s wincing at this one) every time they draw breath? Stuff me,but he isn’t going to come up with gentle synonyms,is he?

Real grown-ups use real language. And sometimes that language can have words that wouldn’t fit in with coy screen Rapunzels letting down their hair. I’m reminded of a sadly unreleased film called Kabootar which is set in a small town in Madhya Pradesh. It uses a liberal sprinkling of a not-so-well known invective involving daughters: instantly,you are transported to that place,and its people. Instantly,the film is rendered real. And what would we hear if it ever saw light of day? Beep.

shubhra.gupta @expressindia.com