The veil's slipping

Hindi cinema has come a long way since the era when directors had to zoom in on a bee hovering over a flower to suggest the onset of amorous emotions. The revolution has gathered steam especially in the past 12 months with former models daring to drop their clothes. See Pictures

Commercial Hindi cinema has come a long way since the era when directors had to coyly zoom in on a bee hovering over a colourful flower to suggest the onset of amorous emotions. The revolution has gathered steam especially in the past 12 months with a bevy of former models and beauty queen daring to drop more than just their clothes.

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The expression of sexual desire has come out of the Bollywood closet. Over the past year, Hindi films have dealt with lesbian lovers, gay men, oversexed priests, cuckolded husbands, spouse-swappers, nymphomaniacs and other perceived deviants. And all this has happened in the comfort zone of the usually status quoist mainstream cinema.

Until recently, such characters would pop up occasionally on our movie screens as butts of ridicule. It is not that popular Hindi cinema has fully come to terms with the sexual orientation of these aggressive character types - they are still essentially objects of suspicion - but definite progress has been made in the matter of giving alternative sexuality and nonstandard behavioural traits full play in the movies.

Is that a sign that Bollywood is maturing at last? It probably is, but only to the extent that both the censors and the audience have become far more blasé about the show of skin on the big screen. Much more needs to be done before these skin flicks can rise above the limitations of the genre and move beyond the realms of mere exploitation.

The censors routinely hand out "adults only" certificates to films that have more than the normal share of sexual titillation and the filmgoer, on his part, does not recoil in self-righteous horror when he sees a woman shedding her clothes on the screen. If only Bollywood knew exactly how to present erotica in the cloak of art or sociology, films like and might have been elevated to a completely plane.

There are cultures around the world where erotica is accepted as a legitimate art form. Cinema is, after all, a voyeuristic medium and the camera's eye is all seeing.

There was a time when sex would have to sneak into Hindi cinema through the back door - in the form of sex education films (remember Gupt Gyan of the 1970s?) and Z-grade exploiters. Today, a society weaned on in-your-face music videos featuring the likes of the Shefali Zariwala and Deepal Shaw has acquired far greater tolerance levels.