The bandh that chloroformed the city and held it hostage for twenty-four hours gave me the chance to watch television after aeons. Flicking through channels I came across a *gem* of a Hindi movie. Unfortunately I couldn't bring myself to watch all of it, but the little I did see was rather interesting

ITEM : Female in a red figure-hugging dress (to be precise well-developed-posterior-end hugging, low cut dress).

The audience knowledgably nods its head : Ah! This must be the femme fatale.

ITEM : Cigarette dangling from her fingertips while the smoke is blown (rather inexpertly) in her father's face.

It is a moment of mass realization : Ah ha!! This is not merely luscious seductress who may prove to be victim of circumstances but is clearly vamp who is up to no good.

ITEM : Language of preference, English (albeit with an accent hardly likely to be approved by the Queen).

The unfortunate audience collapses into a paroxysm of shock : Good grief!!! What debauchery.

And then she attempts to seduce the hero.
By this time the audience has decided this girl is beyond all help (it being an added black mark that she's rather proficient in the use of profanities) and the advent of a fully clothed heroine is viewed with a sigh of deep relief.

By this time of course I was more than ready to throw the remote or preferably something bigger and bulkier at the television set.

The audience and its varied reactions are products of my imagination in the case of this specific movie which happened to be Maine Pyar Kiya. This movie was, if I remember correctly, a phenomenal success. I am not trying to discuss / deny / acknowledge its cinematic merits, the point of my description remains the obvious stereotypes that the movie encouraged. If anyone should think that my description of the probable audience reaction is over-exaggerated, I must beg to differ. Average audiences would have reacted in exactly this manner when the movie was first released. If anyone should doubt it they have only to look around them at the average reaction on the streets to the so-called Westernized women.

This is not to be misinterpreted as a rant against Indian-ness. It's more of a rant against *#^%$ gender discrimination.

When I light a cigarette on the streets of Calcutta, I seem to shock the moral sensibilities of almost everyone around me. Men who are producing credible imitations of factory chimneys themselves, turn to stare and frequently to glare at me. Mothers towing school children hurry their kiddies away from my bad influence although they find nothing unacceptable in the smoking habits of the male population.
I am willing to accept all admonitions to the effect that cigarette smoking is injurious to health but I fail to understand why the world and its neighbour should be so concerned specifically only about the health of women, or indeed how diseases caused by nicotine inhalation manage to be gender discriminatory.

P.S : Actually, me thinks I would have quit smoking ages back if it hadn't been for my decidedly unselfish thought that by doing so I would deny countless strangers the pleasure of sitting in moral judgement over my evident depravity.