“Chinkni chameli, Fevicol, Munni, Shiela”….

I have no problems with item numbers in movies. Some movies have pre-release jitters that they can’t make “Enough” money without these songs. So its a competitive market place. Film is a product. How one sells or packages their product speaks about its content.

Besides if people can watch mujra, strip tease, or nautanki then they can watch item songs as well. But cinema, especially its songs, has a wider reach & influence as popular media. Some songs with their extremely vulgar lyrics are not only a major cause of irritation for school and college going girls facing regular harassment on the streets, in towns and villages, but also it promotes a culture of debasing women and making a mockery of their body or desire or sexuality OR expression of sexuality & all such things.

I find such lyics in bad taste and sometimes really offensive.

I often wonder what these item numbers really want to portray — “A woman who expresses her sexuality, attracts 70-80 odd drunk, good for nothing, salivating villainous men falling on her.”

There were portrayals of girls selling liquor, villain’s molls or women dancing with dacoits or in bars and pubs earlier also. Remember Mungda, Mehbooba, & several other such numbers.

The men would probably be sitting or standing around, they’d be watching the women, maybe with desire or curiosity. Most of the times the woman would be far away from the crowd, as a performer on a high stage, for eg. An evening in paris, or any number by Helen, Bindu, Padma Khanna etc.

But the men would not drool, leer, jeer or grab her, touching her, grabbing her body parts, her clothes, salivating and almost molesting her on screen. Not one or two but hoards of them.

Are today’s item number the real time portrayal of what is happening in bars and pubs in reality. I have never been to any such place, or in the hinterland, or with dacoits in the jungles. So somebody has to enlighten me. But when you see, similar songs of 1950’s, 60’s or 70’s and see the civil behaviour of the actors and then cut to any present day song, there is huge shift in the man’s behavior.

Is this the real portrayal of what is happening around women singing and dancing in bars and pubs? If it is so then it is really sordid.

Or is it something that the director, script writer imagine as a fantasy?

Are they projecting a fantasy of one man or several men?

Or is it an indirect portrayal that a woman comfortable about expressing her sexuality or desire is NOT a good girl, she must be a nautch girl or a ‘bazaaru’ aurat in lay terms. Which is in a way reinforcing the stereotype that a woman who asks a man for sex, must be a slut. Or vice versa. And if she asks for it she will have to make do with hundreds of men ready to pounce on her.

She is not the heroine BTW. She is the vamp, the bad girl, the cheap one who, drinks dances in public places, with men & strangers around her & makes vulgar gestures at several men. She is public property. She is also in very revealing clothes. Another stereotype is how the camera pans on the body of the woman. If her cleavage shows, her shins are exposed, her shoulders or back is bare she is a certain type of woman…. AN ITEM NUMBER.

You don’t need to see her face. One look at a part of her exposed body and the ogling men around, will tell you, what or who she is.

Does it not ring a bell, why moral police keeps attacking bars, and pubs and women in skirts, or women who are drinking, or with other men around her, who she is not related to?

Does it not bring to your mind the viciously leering face of that man who attacked the girl in a pub in Guwahati, and he gave the excuse that she was with other men and drinking. They tried to disrobe her.

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I don’t want to ban songs, but I personally don’t listen to them. There are many men & women who agree with me.

So on Wednesday a radio station had thrown this challenge to their listeners, when a man called them up and asked them to stop playing the number “Fevicol”.

Sharing a friend’s update with you — “104 Fever has thrown a challenge, if most of Delhi does not like “Fevicol” song from Dabang 2 due to its vulgar language and portrayal of women they would take it off air, forever. They want us to sms “fever (space) no” to 54242. Worth a try?”

The radio station’s FB page has a wide range of mixed views. So I have some points I want your opinion on.

■Now why not take the song down if it is objectionable?
■Why do cheap and vulgar songs become so popular that in-spite of knowing that it is cheap and vulgar the radio doesn’t want to take it off air, while at the same time airing big lectures on women’s safety, dignity and integrity?
■Is it because a large band of same ogling, salivating, leering men love to listen to it and maybe when the girls pass his small shack shop, he will raise the volume of the radio?
■The radio doesn’t want to lose his listeners?
■Many people will doubt the radio station’s integrity as to — Why make money out of the SMS?
■Is it so easy for us to brush off such matters under the carpet of comedy, as in what we saw in the Oscars function?
■Is comedy about debasing the female actors in the movies?
■Why do we pass of misogynous portrayal of women saying, movie hai chalta hai, freedom of expression, satire or need of the script?
■How important is it that an item number cannot be edited from a movie?
■Are movies without item numbers failing at box office?
■Why is this excuse — It happens, we are showing reality, it’s a part of hinterland culture?
■Isn’t hinterland the worst affected region when it comes to violence on women?
■Isn’t KHAP, child-marriage, feticide, infanticide, Gangrape, rape+murder, witch hunting, stripping & parading, stoning & killing, caste based gang rapes & pogroms, sati pratha, dowry deaths, ALL part of our HINTERLAND culture?

Isn’t such portrayal of our so called CULTURE — making patriarchy, like a bird of prey, that feeds on a decaying, regressive Indian culture that’s violent towards women?

Are we making a culture that is a breathing, fresh, free-spirited space, where every human being can live, laugh, love, dance and sing without fear and oppression.

Or are we making our culture a dark, deviant, rotting, quicksand, full of poisonous, noxious theories, rules and stereotypes, which kills our freedom of spirit.

What are we actually promoting?

Finally do we have any other CULTURE which is not DEBASING & VIOLENT TOWARDS WOMEN?

If so then why are we not PROMOTING THAT?

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What are you going to do? Are you going to send an SMS if something like this comes to you? I did. TO hell with them making money, if it means I am voicing an opinion so be it.

This actually shows that people are somewhere, bristling under the surface. Although they are bombarded with such a culture attack on their faces, thanks to Bollywood, but yet they are trying to voice their objection.

I also know that many people won’t object, because somehow there is this little tug at the back of their minds, “you know I don’t want to appear stupid, by saying I don’t like such a popular number.”

Also there is this innate longing of belonging to a cultish or nasty culture as it makes one appear formidable, one of a kind, or dark, deviant and sometimes even admirable, unusual, bewitching, sexy or very brave, rule breaker, norm breaker kind of identity. Many people do crave for such an identity. Something of a DABANG.

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But sorry if dislike for such songs or movies, makes me look stupid, or ordinary then I’d rather be stupid than anything else