“Only sex and Shahrukh Khan sell in India” is what actress Neha Dhupia had famously said 15 years ago and repeated 10 years later. Khan has since struggled to retain his Shah-like regality, but sex shows no sign of abdicating its pink velvet throne. Not the bashful bird-and-bees type you knew from old Bollywood narratives. Rather less covert or allegorical, quite a bit more denotative than connotative, and—pardon the phrase—very in-your-face. Multiplexes have been shut for months, and frankly, smut is grabbing more eyeballs than any tinsel supernova. Indeed, the word ‘smut’ still carries a tinge of the guilt-laced old world. ‘Porn’, on the other hand, is shedding a lot of its value-loaded infamy as it emerges, unquestionably, as the mother of all bestsellers. Or, as many among those who take India all the way to the Olympic podium in viewership rankings and au fait with the vocabulary may choose to rephrase that…MILF.
Something is indeed cooking on the Indian tawa. What are the ingredients...
