'Fun' in my life

The past couple of days have been extreme 'study' days. I categorise these as days when I think about nothing other than studies. My life begins to revolve around my books, modes of transporting them to and from the College library and the selection of sweets that must be acquired during lunchtime to keep me going till evening. These days also produce boring blogs, but I shall endeavour to keep this as fun as I can.

Speaking of fun, the producers of a movie called 'Fun' have been arrested for obscene posters being put up all over Bombay (at least). I must say that I find this a pretty ridiculous state of affairs. First, the State doesn't set up a Committee to whet all these posters.

(For information's sake.. and this is information I gather from these obscene posters... 'Fun' is about 3 wives who 'dared to swap their husbands'. 'Fun can sometimes be dangerous' is the punchline. All this is coupled with a few photos of semi nude males and females, who I presume are not each other's spouses in the movie)

Now back to the moot point- there is no Committee which can actually go through these borderline posters and declare them obscene or not..at least not to my knowledge, and I would usually know about these things. (Not to be misinterpreted, kindly) Second, the Indian Penal Code, under Section 292, doesn't quite define obscene although putting up such posters is a crime under 292.

It says (and I cut-copy-paste relevant parts) that something shall be deemed obscene if

1. it is lascivious; or
[lascivious - wanton; lustful; inclining or tending to lechery] - Chambers Dicitionary

2. appeals to the prurient interest; or
[prurient - itching; having an unhealthy interest in sexual matters; arousing such interest] - 'do'

3. its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely to read, see or hear the matter.

Criteria 1 and 2 are very vague. First, I sincerely doubt that an interest in sexual matters can be declared unhealthy. Second, wanton or lustful are very individual-centric terms and what is 'lustful' to one sad heterosexual need not be the same for a happy homosexual. The State, or more importantly the Police Force, is certainly not, in my opinion, qualified to interpret whether or not a poster turns me on.

Being rather subjective (note lack of sarcasm - I do not joke in some matters) and the present young generation being inherently corrupt before reaching the well accepted (and now disputed, I may add) puberty-conferring age of 12, it is difficult to see how Criterion 3 is applicable.

There is an interesting facet to this case here: the posters have been up for a month or so. This would imply that a young boy frequenting his neighbourhood railway station has been exposed to this 'corruption of the mind'. Therefore, he and the major proportion of young boys frequenting railway stations are already corrupted thanks to 'Fun'. So the next time some sex-ed-friendly producer decides to put up posters akin to these, the young boys mentioned earlier would not fall prey to Criteria 3. Would this then give the lust-promoting producer immunity from prosecution?

I think that this is where the progressive loss of morals in society would prove to be an effective argument to show that something like these posters can no longer be considered obscene. Don't get me wrong here - I don't defend such posters. I only enjoy looking at them while waiting for my train to arrive on platform 2 and second, I believe that once the flood gates have been let loose, nothing less than martial law is going to revive the relative conservativeness that existed when I was a kid. As an alternative, a Censor boardesque Commission can be set up which will have the opportunity to closely examine lustful, lascivious and wanton materials and deprive others from doing the same.
(NB: If any representative of the appropriate Government is reading this blog - please consider this an official application to be a part of that Committee if and when it is set up)

There currently exists a state where I will not, or will be reluctant to use sex-based posters and ads to market a movie which is centred around a sexual theme because it is possible that the Police Force is likely to interpret 'obscene' under Section 292 differently from me. It seems quite a burden to put on a producer who has spent some six months of his life dreaming about the scenes in his movie.

LEGAL NOTICE:
1. I own the copyright for all my blogs. Any unauthorised use of the same is subject to legal action being initiated against that user. (I always wanted to put this down in my name someday)
2. None of the above legal interpretations is necessarily accurate and should not be relied upon consequent to producing a sexually-explicit movie unless the contents of the movie are first screened and ratified by the author of the said interpretations.

I end this blog, listening to this song called 'Tourette' by Nirvana, with this truth about our lives today:

"All things can corrupt perverted minds"
-Ovid