Playboy founder Hugh Hefner poses with fiancee Crystal Harris and Playboy bunnies at the opening of the Playboy Club in London last weekend

Excuse me, my son says Mamata is bringing the Playboy Club to Calcutta — along with London Eye and everything else in London...

Do I know you? You haven’t given me your parichay.

You know Mother Superior... and you also know my son.

Not that... very nice boy?

There is a general feeling in our para you have not been a good influence on him. The Hindu Culture Protection Sub-Committee of the Para Politburo met last night and nominated me to talk to you about the Playboy Club.... I mean to request you not to lead our youth astray. Mother Superior has asked us to be non-violent. She said she saw a different side of you in Cannes.

The feeling is entirely mutual... but this Playboy Club business. Yes, it’s true Hugh Hefner is reopening his Playboy Club in London but I don’t see how this has agitated your para’s Politburo.

My son says you told him that Mamata hopes to bring London to Calcutta...

Yes?

She was thinking of copying London Eye...

True.

And if there was a Playboy Club in London, she would be bound to open one in Calcutta, in our para, in fact.

You do the lady an injustice.

You mean we won’t have a Playboy Club in our para?

No.

Model Alessandra Ambrosia as a Playboy bunny

Not even in Calcutta?

No.

No blonde girls running around in tiny, figure-hugging bunny costumes?

No.

No casino, no restaurant, no place to smoke cigars, no cocktail bar where we are served drinks by skimpily-dressed waitresses, no lounge where we can read intellectual articles in back issues of Playboy magazine, no “retro gentlemen’s paradise”, no place where real Bengali men can be real Bengali men?

Definitely not.

You mean we have been fooled into voting for Didi!

To be fair, she made no such promise.

But my son said....

Ah, your son! The most charitable explanation is he slightly misunderstood her when she said she was going to turn Calcutta into London. I don’t think she meant she was going to open Playboy Club in Calcutta.

Do you mean we have to go to London to see the bunnies?

If you want to. Hugh Hefner has just been in London to reopen the Playboy Club. It first started in London in 1966 but closed in 1981 because of some tax problems. It is coming back to Park Lane after 30 years.

My son says Hugh Hefner is 85.

He is. On the issues that really matter, your son is singularly well-informed.

My son says he came with his fiancée?

He did.

My son says Crystal Harris, whom he is marrying on June 18, is 24.

She is.

Twenty four? I am shocked.

Yes, it is shocking but then Hefner does believe in dating older women.

But in our para committee we are relieved she is blonde. It restores our faith in America since we are now close to them and have even signed a nuclear treaty with the US.

Hefner has been married twice before but he has had literally dozens of girlfriends, and, yes, many of them, who have appeared in Playboy magazine, have indeed been blonde. But Hefner has said, “My first wife was a brunette and besides the truth is that most blondes began as brunettes.”

That’s really profound. Can I write that down? Do you have a pencil?

Here you are.

Thank you.

Need not mention.

The cultural sub-committee...

I know — of your Para Politburo.

...would like to discuss this statement. You people in London, especially Bengali doctors, must be thrilled to have the Playboy Club back.

Well, no, not exactly. The feminists protested outside the Club on opening night last week. They brought along a bowl of bunny droppings and scattered them outside the club.

We would never behave like that in Calcutta. We wouldn’t know where to get a bowl of bunny droppings.

Be that as it may, the feminists have been shouting, “Eff Off Hefner.” The story is that Hefner’s mother gave him the money to start Playboy magazine in 1953. It took off.

Bengali mothers are not like that, alas. You should see my son’s mother. No wonder we would all like to escape to the Playboy Club — if only we could. And now Mamata has let us down.

Okay, here’s the history. Hefner opened his first Playboy Club in Chicago in 1960. He opened in London in 1966 at 45, Park Lane. This was swinging London with James Bond at the movies, The Beatles making waves across the world — and the Bunnies making an appearance. Initially, at any rate, the Club was a great success. Glamorous stars such as Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Joan Collins, George Best, Roger Moore, Jack Nicholson, Julie Christie, Rudolph Nureyev, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Muhammad Ali — it’s a long list — were all happy to be photographed dropping in. At its height, there were 30 Playboy Clubs in the United States alone.

Imagine Playboy Clubs in Behala, Baranagar, CR Avenue, Dutta Bagan Mor, Rashbehari Avenue, Park Street...

But the old Playboy dream turned sour. The Playboy symbol is a famous brand to be sure but to many it now stands for degradation of women though Hefner wouldn’t agree. Last week he said that the real sexist era came before Playboy. According to Hefner, Playboy played a real part in changing all that. He argues women were held in bondage for hundreds of years, owned first by their fathers, then their husbands. Playboy helped to change all that. That’s what the sexual revolution was all about, he would argue.

I think the Para Politburo would consider he has a point.

But the feminists think Playboy has legitimised the whole porn industry. Hefner says he is returning to a more romantic era but my guess is that the Playboy Club is an idea whose time has come and gone. I can’t see punters paying £15,000 for life membership of the new Club in London. What was once fresh and different — pretty young women dressed in rabbit ears, fluffy tails and the rib-tight basques that apparently popped open at the slightest sneeze — now seems tired and a bit seedy to many people.

If London doesn’t want the Playboy Club, we would be happy to invite Mr Hefner to Calcutta. But you must excuse me because I have to get to Music World before it closes. I have been asked to get a DVD of Purab aur Pachhim. It’s an iconic movie from 1970, directed by Manoj Kumar. Have you seen it?

I am not sure.

I am reliably informed that it has a scene where a man summons his nephew to an urgent meeting at the Playboy Club in London.

By the way, who are you getting Purab aur Pachhim for?

Mother Superior.

Here, 100 rupees from my side.