Reel feel

MORAL DILEMMA

Some Bollywood films are so bad I definitely feel violent while watching them, but this is ridiculous. Last weekend, 11 people died and 20 were wounded in street battles in Mogadishu, Somalia, between militia controlled by Islamic courts and owners of movie theatres that screened dubbed Bollywood films. The issue? Islamic courts have accused these cinemas of showing “scandalous” films and “fuelling crime, drug abuse and immorality”. A studio where Bollywood films were being translated has also been attacked by the uber-moral police. In a country where they clearly have so much more to worry about than the coy romances and enthusiastic pelvic thrusts of colourfully clad

Indians, this is beyond ridiculous ? it just sounds like the plot of a really, really bad Bollywood movie.

 

Tamil star khushboo, in the centre of controversy recently for suggesting that (protected) premarital sex wasn’t all that bad, has found an unlikely champion — F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan. These fast-lane types, I tell you.

Shorn of porn

NY-based Arnab Ray, blogger extraordinaire (greatbong.blogspot.com) has just entered Indian blogosphere immortality in a hugely popular post where he laments the demise of desibaba.com, the hugely popular website that marked the subcontinent’s first serious stain in the world of Internet porn. He chronicles the socio-cultural history of Indian pornography as a pop-culture phenomenon, from the cable boom of the 90s with late-night movies, from the Playboy bunnies on TV6 to the buxom belles on Sun, ushering in a new world for frustrated Indian men until Sushma Swaraj came along with her scissors. He also discusses how porn drives technology, for both the Internet and now camera-equipped mobile phones in India, and how the pioneering Desibaba was hustled off the Net by new technology, dare-bare heroines and the failure of the all-advertising revenue model. Hilarious. Read it.

lTamil star khushboo, in the centre of controversy recently for suggesting that (protected) premarital sex wasn’t all that bad, has found an unlikely champion ? F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan. These fast-lane types, I tell you.

And justice for all

We’re not in Rome, but in this case we should behave as they do. Rome’s municipal government has passed a law that protects goldfish from unfair treatment, as part of a longer stature for humane treatment for all pets. Among other things, it fines people who don’t walk their dogs daily and bans electric collars.

Fine print

Pet cause

Tough-guy rapper 50 Cent has turned publisher. He’s teaming up with MTV and Pocket Books, who jointly published his memoir, From Pieces to Weight, to launch G-Unit Books, which will publish gritty, urban books which “tell the truth about Life; the sex, guns and cash” , novellas and graphic novels based on the themes he deals with in his songs. Interesting idea, and you have to wonder about the possibilities in India. It might be a good idea to come out with Bollywood/celebrity tales of passion rather than books on contemporary music, though ? ‘Remix literature’ sounds a lot like plagiarism.

AWARD OF THE WEEK

To Nobuo Masataka, a professor at the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute and author of the monster bestseller Keitai wo Motta Saru (Monkeys with Mobile Phones), who argues that mobile phones cause young Japanese to ape the behaviour patterns of chimpanzees.