Ranveer Singh is a good actor who takes on unconventional roles. He is unconventional off-screen too, and now he’s in trouble.
Ranveer Singh is interesting and even refreshing if you observe him through a discerning progressive lens. His lack of respect for what our society considers ‘normal’ is refreshing.
Be it his clothes — he wears skirts and shirts with more sequence than his wife. Or be it his complete disregard for cultivating and maintaining the stereotypical image of an Indian hero — a macho man. Ranveer, in his own way, pushes the boundaries of what the typical perception of an Indian male should be, and now it seems he pushed it down too far as he slid out of his pants for a nude photoshoot.
The Mumbai Police registered an FIR against Ranveer Singh on Tuesday for sharing photographs of his nude photoshoot for the New York-based ‘Paper’ Magazine.
I saw the pics; they were sensual, tasteful, and even somewhat artsy. The photos don’t feel dirty or ‘porny’. They are just pics of a beautiful man. At least that’s all I saw. But it seems that’s not what the complainants saw. They saw more!
According to the report in Indian Express, one of the complainants says that when he zoomed in on one of Ranveer Singh’s photographs, he realised that the actor’s private parts were visible!
First, I have to ask, why did one of the complainants zoom into another man’s Central Business District (CBD)? Now, thanks to this complaint, I got curious and found myself zooming into Ranveer’s CBD.
As I started zooming in, it looked like a very dark and shady place. I was scared and alert lest some ‘nuts’ who ‘hang’ around such places suddenly pop up and scare me like they did the complainants.
But alas, after much zooming in and out of the area, I returned disappointed. I guess now the Mumbai Police will have to waste their time zooming in and out of Ranveer’s shadowy crotch to find the private part to present as evidence in the Court.
The question is, should the Police and Courts be wasting time on such cases? As the famous author of Carpet Wars, Christopher Kremmer, put it “In India, frivolous litigation seems to be a national sport.”
Interestingly, the Police have booked cases against Ranveer using laws created in 1925 by the British. But the British themselves don’t have these laws anymore! Then why are we keeping them?
Let’s not forget that the British made us prudish about all things sensual and sexual. The British have left us Indians confused about the difference between nudity and vulgarity.
Ancient Indian culture accepted, appreciated and even celebrated sex and nudity as natural and beautiful. They didn’t call it a sin like most Western religions did and still do.
The truth is, India was never prudish about sex. Hell, we built a temple for sex — Khajuraho. We have a book on sexual positions — ‘Kamasutra’. We had a genre of poetry, ‘Rekhti’, that describes erotic encounters between women. We were a very sexually-liberal race. So liberal that we accepted homosexuality and gender fluidity as part of nature.
Ironically, today the British are liberal sexually and intellectually while we have become narrow-minded religious fanatics! They are what we were centuries ago, and we are what they were centuries ago. Ah, how the tables have turned.
That said, maybe it’s time Indian women got to see some male nudity. We are sure the modern Indian women’s ‘modesty’ is not so fragile that a Ranveer nude photoshoot could outrage it. And here’s news for people who are worried about modesty…
ProHub world’s largest phonographic network, conducted a worldwide survey based on their internet traffic, and guess what? Indian women are the third highest consumer of porn in the world! They also consumed more porn than more American women. And Gleeden, a global extra-marital dating app, surveyed 8 Indian urban centres and reported that 43 percent of Indian wives admitted to having had an intimate relationship outside their marriage!
This being the case, we doubt Ranveer’s butt curve will outrage young Indian women. If anything, they must be outraged that Ranveer did not have the guts to show more.
We Indians are prudes and hypocrites, especially the Indian middle class and upper middle class. These two sections of our society are most worried about ‘what people will think’, and because of this, they lead hypocritical and unfulfilled lives—busy judging and moralising instead of minding their own business and living.
Conversely, the super-rich and the poor don’t care what others think; they live as they choose fit and do what makes them happy.
Meanwhile, the Indian middle class and upper middle class are stuck in the British prudishness era and keep harping about our ‘glorious past’ and ‘culture’ while conveniently ignoring the fact that sex, erotica, sensuousness and nudity were also part of our glorious past and culture.
Our past was glorious indeed, with our knowledge of medicine, mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, textile, metallurgy etc. Along with these, we were also excellent with regard to how we viewed and celebrated sex, erotica and nudity.
Maybe this ‘openness’ made our ancestors free thinkers and dared to have a scientific bent of mind. No thinker or scientist in ancient India was ever driven to death for suggesting radical ideas like Galileo in the West or, even more recently, Alan Turing was. Yes, we were a society open to ideas and accepting of different aspects of life. Look where we are today.
It’s time to shed our British-induced prudishness even in matters of sex and live a little like our ancestors, with a sense of sensualness.
While we ‘Make in India,’ we must also stop ‘Fake in India.’ Hypocrisy and lack of humour can stifle a nation. And it is.
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Ranveer looks far decent than the outrageous dresses he is often seen in!
Everything bad is attributed to the British Raj, perhaps even the meritocracy they created where there were no reservations for jobs and professional courses based on how backward the applicant’s caste is!
In India money talks-that is US Dollars or any other foreign currency like Euro. INR is just a waste paper.
More important than the dress is the attitude of the Indian-one finds it full of jealousy, support for nepotism, and full of the adage that what he/she preaches is for only others. Loom at their politicians and their administrators. That is quintessential of India, today.
Everything bad is attributed to the British Raj, perhaps even the meritocracy they created where there were no reservations for jobs and professional courses based on how backward the applicant’s caste is!
In India money talks-that is US Dollars or any other foreign currency like Euro. INR is just a waste paper.
More important than the dress is the attitude of the Indian-one finds it full of jealousy, support for nepotism, and full of the adage that what he/she preaches is for only others. Loom at their politicians and their administrators. That is quintessential of India, today.
One should only hope that such incidents whatever the justification do not lead to an expose of unbridled female nudity and to a permissive society cutting at the roots of the family set up which continues to be largely intact as a redeeming aspect in our India.
Hey Chakravarthy
Interesting about your daft and deluded observation of : “”roots of the family set up which continues to be largely intact as a redeeming aspect in our India.”.
Have you heard about the increasing cases of Dowry-related murders? Demanding brnd new cars for an IT techie coolie husband is the norm in Bangalore. Many young couples have separated as a result, and the incidences of torture of the young wife is hushed in many families.
Drink and drug -related cases are spiralling out of control, so are the increased cases directly resulting from the young men with money in their pockets frequenting prostitutes. Many young men who are homosexuals-lots of them in India-only hidden , trapped into marriages which they did not want.
You sound like your PM Narendra Modi who boasts about the culture in India, having deserted his wife after the marriage..
You have not answered our query we put it you ; Are you from Melkote?
You must have been indulging in excessive amounts of puloyogare, to post this nonsense!
Hey Chakravarthy
Interesting about your daft and deluded observation of : “”roots of the family set up which continues to be largely intact as a redeeming aspect in our India.”.
Have you heard about the increasing cases of Dowry-related murders? Demanding brnd new cars for an IT techie coolie husband is the norm in Bangalore. Many young couples have separated as a result, and the incidences of torture of the young wife is hushed in many families.
Drink and drug -related cases are spiralling out of control, so are the increased cases directly resulting from the young men with money in their pockets frequenting prostitutes. Many young men who are homosexuals-lots of them in India-only hidden , trapped into marriages which they did not want.
You sound like your PM Narendra Modi who boasts about the culture in India, having deserted his wife after the marriage..
You have not answered our query we put it you ; Are you from Melkote?
You must have been indulging in excessive amounts of puloyogare, to post this nonsense!
Hello Chakravarthy
As Vikram ays , just look at the temple carvings in India. If you live in Mysore, take a look at the temple carvings inside in one of the temples in the Mysore Palace.
Indeed in Melkote, scandals involving Iyengar families are norm.
You must be really hallucinating praising the roots about Indian families, where domestic abuse, greedy Mothers in law torturing the daughters in law for not bringing enough dowry are stories one hears very often.
Your deluded observation about Karnataka politics and now about the so called superior family tradition in India, when Vajpayee was living with a married woman still claiming as a bachelor, and Modi deserting his wife after marriage, makes you such a shallow individual indeed. But keep posting your crap meanwhile!