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The one thing that I did not know about Pahlaj Nihalani, all these years, was that he happens to be the younger brother of Govind Nihalani.
Otherwise, I have been familiar with his name as long as I can remember: some of the best-known movies he produced were released during my teenage years, when movies interest you more than anything else. And those were the days of Vividh Bharati , when you often heard his name being dramatically announced by the inimitable Amin Sayani during pre-song promos, and it was impossible to forget the two words — Pahlaj Nihalani — until your dying day.
Soon I forgot all about him, but I never forgot the name. About a quarter of a century later, when one thought he would have long faded away, Pahlaj Nihalani made another dramatic entry into the world of cinema, this time as the chief of the Censor Board. Memories of those days, when Amin Sayani would pronounce his name with a flourish, came gushing.
This time, however, I discovered a truth I had been foolishly ignorant of back then: that Pahlaj Nihalani did not direct all those films that defined my teenage years, he had merely produced them. And that he made his debut as a director as recently as in 2012, and that film is yet to see the light of day. And that his only directorial venture known to the public so far is the amateurish promotional video he made on Narendra Modi (some reports suggest the video will soon cost him his job).
Even though he has been at the helm of the censor board for nearly a year now, he is in the news of late for turning into a ‘ sanskari ’ censor — slashing scenes and deleting objectionable words in keeping with the "Indian" value system: basically another Hindutva man trying to paint films with the Hindutva brush. The nation’s biggest grouse against him, it seems, is that he has cut two kissing scenes in the latest Bond film Spectre by half.
Ever since the news of the kissing scenes being reduced by ’50 percent’ came out, Nihalani has been mauled by the media, not to mention the social media, for acting holier-than-thou as a censor when his own films, the ones he produced, had their fair share of titillating scenes. But I found all my sympathies channeling in his direction when I found him being hammered by India’s noisiest anchor — sorry — interrogator. That’s when it struck me that amid all the noise generated by the 50-percent-cut, one vital point has been completely swept aside.
No one from the censor board did, at any point, say that they were against Indians watching the kissing scenes — in full. All that the producers of Spectre were told is that if they wanted to retain the kissing scenes in their entirety, they would have to make do with an ‘A’ certification (adults only). But since the producers were keen on a ‘UA’ certificate (parental discretion required for children below 12 years), they were asked to reduce the kissing scenes by half. Now, is there really anything wrong with that? Why the noise?
Even liberal Indian parents, who keep themselves miles away from the Hindutva ideology, were they on the censor board, would be more inclined to delete, rather than retain, prolonged kissing scenes, knowing that their 10-year-old son or 12-year-old daughter is going to watch it. Don’t think of the 50 percent of the kissing that was deleted, think of the 50 percent that was retained — by itself quite liberal by Indian standards.
And it is not as if the audience in Britain gets to watch Bond films without censor approval. Here’s what the British Board of Film Classification had to say about Spectre :
“This film was originally seen for advice in an unfinished version. The company was advised it was likely to be classified 15 but that their preferred 12A could be obtained by making reductions in a scene of violence and in another scene showing the aftermath of a violent act. When the film was submitted for formal classification, acceptable reductions had been made in both scenes and the film was classified 12A.”
And about Casino Royale :
“The BBFC advised the company that the torture scene placed too much emphasis on both the infliction of pain and the sadism of the villain for the requested 12A category. When the completed version of the film was submitted for classification, reductions to the torture sequence had been made, including the removal of lingering shots of the rope, close shots of Bond's facial reaction and the substitution of a more distant shot of the beating. This re-edited version was acceptable at 12A, where the Guidelines permit violence provided there is no dwelling on detail or emphasis on injuries.”
Finally, it observations about Skyfall :
“[It] contains a single use of strong language, which is uttered when a character states they have "f***ed up". The use is resigned rather than aggressive and is not directed at another person. There is also some moderate and mild bad language, including uses of ['b**ch'], 'bloody', ['bu***red', 's**t',] 'hell', 'damned', 'Christ' and 'God'.”
Ah, ‘bad language’ in Britain sounds so sanskari when compared with a lot of the stuff we hear in Hindi films.
