Lemony and the moral police

I watched yet another movie yesterday, Lemony Snicket : A series of unfortunate events. More or less worth the Rs 150 I paid Ajjay Bijli's company to watch the movie. I seriously hope those new multiplexes come up soon in saket, I demand cheaper movie tickets. Not as bad as the $8.25 (actually since I paid for Hep too it was $16.50) I paid to watch a Harry Potter movie in Boston, but pretty bad nonetheless.
Anyway, I was made to attend a debate today morning on broadband. And though, I am a big votary of high-speed internet, that is primarily because I can download tons of highly illegal stuff onto my hard drive. Mainly pRon. Lots of it. Well, actually I am downloading more music than pRon but that still is no excuse.
Anyway, Kiran Karnik today became the first person, or at least a semi-important person, to point out that pornography will drive broadband penetration in India. He's right y'know. Why? Remember that MMS story - you know where the schoolgirl is giving her classmate a BJ. Well, I know people who owned phones that were GPRS (thus MMS) capable who had never sent an MMS in their lives, forget that, they didn't even subscribe to MMS, who all wanted a bit of the action on their phone. And after NDTV constantly played (mosaiced) clips of the video every hour on the hour, demand skyrocketed. Airtel and Hutch should pay those schoolkids for the revenue they generated - profit sharing.
Similarly with computers. Most dudes will type in 'Sex' in Google and wait for responses, or just type the webdress of some shitty site, download ten-second fuzzy clips, crap like that. I did that in 1997, this is the high-speed, high-quality age. There are enough free places to find high-qulity DVD rips online. However, there is little or no Indian pRon online, and seeing women with a melanin overdose is not my cup of tea. Other than Sunny Leone, the Canadian Punjabi, and she only does softcore, there has been no big-time desi talent. There is a business plan here. The internet will give, or rather the expected boom in broadband in India will give, someone the chance to become India's Larry Flynt. Hmm, an alternative career as a pornographer.. sounds interesting. Let me see the modalities.
But, this is India. And therein lies the rub. You see, a Congress government (what? I thought politicians had no MORAL values, especially the Congress) has banned dance-bars in Mumbai. My sole experience of one of these places, was a very drunk night in Bandra where we blew some 7k on god knows what from 2-7AM. Some of the girls were really pretty, by that I mean hot. And I think, one of my friends from that night got lucky with one of those girls too. But, it wasn't as if he went up to her like a hooker. I don't even think he paid for the action. It just happened, and well since he was the only sober one and possibly the only guy to have been able to do something. Because, I know I passed out around five.And when we left at seven, I was bundled into a cab, cause I had a flight to catch. Which wasn't much fun, because the last thing your body needs after a flight is to deal with air pressure changes and a hangover 35,000 feet above the ground.
Anyway, as usual I am digresing from the topic at hand. Which is moral policing. Now, moral policing by politicians, ironic as it might sound, is not a good thing. Because, this is a very debauch country. Also, who the hell would be liable for the porn. Will Google be liable because a image search for 'hardcore XXX sex' turns up well, hardcore XXX sex images. Will the woman who poses for the porn or acts in it be liable, or will the government drive the industry underground and make it worse. Because, driving it underground might well increase chances of sexual exploitation and paedophilia. And maybe even HIV/AIDS. Which is why I even believe that prostitution should be legalised. If you wish to argue with me on that, drive through GB Road at night (which I have done when I've ostensibly been out on dates, ex wanted to go there once), it is quite a sad sight. Young girls forced into something they really don't want to do, disease and poverty are rampant, and the girls doing the job hardly get any money out of it. Just look at some of the dailies - see the ads for escort/massage services. What do you think they are?
The Maharashtra government has done something stupid, driven things underground, making them more expensive for consumers and losing tax ravenues. Something that Maharashtra, despite being a '#1 business destination' could do with, considering they are some Rs 10,000 crore in debt.
Anyway, enough of blog blog bloggity blogging for now.
Will try and catch up with movie maniac and maybe even chaddi buddies tonight. In fact, a chaddi buddy and I need to have a long overdue talk. On life, and how I've been a Grade-A asshole. Well, at times.