Jesse Zell
Professor Perez Tejada
English 1102
February 21, 2009

Indian Sex in Cinema: hold the Kama Sutra

When people sex and the Asian Country of India are mentioned together, the Kama Sutra comes to mind. Even though India’s culture brought us one of the most sexually progressive texts on sex the contemporary culture of India considers sex and sexuality for the most part to be taboo. Merriam-Webster defines taboo as something that is “banned on grounds of morality or taste.”(Merriam-Webster)
At a time when the emerging culture of modern India is beginning to grow away from its British Colonial imposed beliefs on what is taboo, beliefs on sexual taboos are still alive and strong in daily culture. However, some film directors in Bollywood have chosen to defy these taboos in their films. They do this for many reasons ranging from the simple such as to allow for a more interesting film through a closer interaction between his main characters, or to get press for the movie and further stir up interest for a movie. This second reason is especially important because it is “perfectly normal for fans to see these films twenty-three times, especially for the pleasure of reciting the dialog.”(Shedd) I will focus on two specific examples of directors using taboo sexual premises in Bollywood films. These two films are Sanjay’s Gadhvi’s Dhoom 2, featuring Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Uday Chopra and Hrithik Roshan, and Shaad Ali’s Bunty Aur Babli also featuring Abhishek Bachchan among many other famous Bollywood stars.
In Dhoom 2, the exciting and faster passed sequel to Dhoom, the movie centers on the exploits of a very talented thief and the super cop who is trying to catch him. The plot of this film includes a very large ensemble cast among who are characters who include love interests, two assistants to Jai the cop, and a third stunningly beautiful cop who works as a mole in the thief’s life. The director of Dhoom 2 chooses to shoot taboo scenes throughout the film. One method he used was to set nearly half the film during Brazil’s carnival season complete with all the necessary revelry for that time of the year, However, even in such a promiscuous setting, two scenes in particular stick out as being especially taboo for the culture of India from which this film originates. These two taboo scenes are the now famous (or infamous) kiss between Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan, and the various scenes at the beginning of the movie that pay homage to the first Dhoom installment when Uday Chopra’s character Ali spends time with Jai the cop’s wife and makes passes at her.
Of these two scenes in Dhoom 2 to be considered taboo, the more explosive and scene shot with more obvious disregard for what is considered taboo in India is the kiss between Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan. This is because in India it is taboo for a man to kiss a woman who is not his wife. Though this is taboo in India, it makes sense that the director put this scene in the film. It allows the audience to see that Roshan’s character (the thief) truly puts no stock in what is or is not taboo.This adds credence to his character’s claim that he is his own person and a “Lone Wolf” of sorts. Furthermore, it also allows the audience to better understand the level of attraction he has for Aishwarya Rai’s character. She portrays a mole that is out to bust the thief she may be willing to forsake the social mores and face the ridicule of her friends and family to convince him that she loves him, especially when he is willing to do the same to show his attraction to her. It seems this scene also was put in by Sanjay Gadhvi to say something about sexuality in India. Perhaps Jayaji Drishna Nath and Visltwarath R. Nayar said it best in their paper about sexuality on the sub-continent:

“Adolescents in India today face a number of problems related to changing value systems and social expectations. The sexual world of adolescents is becoming increasingly complex. In traditional Indian society, adolescents were initiated into their sexual roles, more or less, in a clearly defined period and by a series of ceremonies and rites. As in some other cultures, these included instruction on their sex roles, marriage customs, sexual morality, and acceptable sexual behavior. But with the influence of Western culture, the present generation of youth is facing a number of problems that are ultimately forcing them to violate the traditional norms as laid down by the society.”(Nath and Nayar)
The other scene in Dhoom 2 that really breaks taboos is actually a series of short scenes in which Jai Dixit’s wife spends lots of time in her house by herself with Uday Chopra’s character. In most of the world it is simply a common courtesy not to overtly “hit on” someone else’s wife or to spend unavoidable time with her alone, but in India this is taboo. This stems from centuries of British colonial culture. Subhash Thottiparambil better explains this in the paper “Sex Workers of Kerala, India” by saying that “The Victorian morality introduced by the British portrayed sex work as a sin and relegated sex and sexuality to the darkness of bed rooms.” (Thottiparambil)
Another Bollywood film that came out recently is Bunty Aur Babli. Bunty Aur Babli is a movie that roughly draws on the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde. This film is about two rather young and easily lovable crooks. In the course of the film, they run off together in order to find themselves, make money, become famous and ultimately fall in love.Naturally, the whole premise of this movie plays on the taboo. The very idea of an unmarried man and woman running off together, sleeping wherever the night finds them, and taking advantage of many innocent people while grifting them for money goes against the morals of the sub-continent of India. The director goes a step further by having the two protagonists get married. This is considered an irregular marriage in India, and while such relationships are taboo they do occasionally actually happen. “In one form of irregular marriage, the two lovers run away and stay away until they are accepted by their families, which are done as a matter of course.”(Nath and Nayar) While they are no longer living in sin. This very premise is still taboo for the culture. The director of Bunty Aur Babli not only chooses to make a movie that showcases characters that make light of breaking taboos such as scamming people and living together, but the director also chooses to shoot them in a flattering light. This sign of changing times has been commented on heavily and here is an example of the consensus: “It is really funny that India has a population of more than one billion. We add a new Australia every year, and still sex is a taboo subject in our society. Premarital sex is considering to be a sin.”(Sex, India and the Taboo) Perhaps Bunty Aur Babli is a sign of changing times.
It is surprising that India, with one of the longest active civilizations on the planet, could go from having one of the most progressive sexual cultures in the world to being a very “victorianesque” culture that relegates sex to the dark bedrooms of the nation after only a few centuries of British occupation; but this is exactly what has happened. Today the culture no longer has the sexual acceptance that the people of ancient India: “In ancient India, sex and sexuality were not the taboo subjects they are today. Evidence of this is seen in the explicit portrayal of sexual intercourse on the walls of some Hindu temples”. (Thottiparambil) This era has passed and sex is considered a delicate and overwhelmingly taboo subject. Looking at some of the films coming out of today’s Bollywood, it is possible to postulate that with the influence of the mainstream film industry as well as many talented Indian film makers the sexual taboos of India will slowly change.
While I am not commenting on whether or not sex and sexuality should be taboo, I believe it suffices to say that directors in India are beginning to follow the cinematic trends of both Hollywood and the European production houses by including sexual scenes in their films. Evidence of this is Gadhvi’s Dhoom 2 that has two unmarried characters not only living together but also kissing on screen. It is also shown in Shaad Ali’s Bunty Aur Babli. The latter film has two young people run off, live together in a partially nomadic lifestyle, and live off of the money that they manage to grift off of people aw well as each other’s love. It is going to be very interesting to watch the future of the Indian Culture as it relates to taboos on sexuality; perhaps if directors continue to use these taboos in their films the very things put in to shock the audience will no longer hold any taboo shock value.

Works Cited:

“Taboo.” Merriam Webster. Online Edition. 2009
Shedde, Meenakshi.. Bollywood Cinema: Making Elephants Fly. Cineaste. Summer 2006.
Nath, Jayaji Krishna, Vishwarath Nayar. “India (Bharat)”. http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/india.html> march 2009
Thottiparambil, Subhash. “Sex workers of Kerala, India: Moving beyond HIV/STI prevention” <> march 2009
“Sex India and the taboo”. <>