Rocking in the Free World

After four posts of travel blogging, which would be appreciated by a limited audience only, yours truly is back with something arbit.

The recent furore created over the movie version of The Da Vinci Code has confounded many a normal person. The almighty censor board, that has been so successful in stemming the blooming libidos of many an adolescent by passing indiscriminate ratings that prevented most of us from viewing titillating material in movie theatres, resulting in private VCD store owners making huge profits, had requested the distributors of the movie for a special screening, following which the movie received an A certification.

The Times of India, which we all know is the ‘best’ newspaper in the country, came up with this fraud article portraying teenage angst at not being able to watch the movie. I’ve tried searching far and wide on the net for the article, so that I could give you the link, but I don’t want you to end up cursing me more than is necessary.

The heart of the matter is that the teenagers wanted their names to come in the paper, and wanted to sound as though they were the literary types that are also so hep and cool. The TOI, as usual, did not have enough semi-nude pics of some vaguely known celebrities to put up, and hence hosted the article.

The theatre guys will admit whoever invariably shows up. This is true. My friend and I had seen True Lies in the theatre in class 7, despite it being A rated. Much to our chagrin, the movie was dubbed in Hindi, but because we went to check out a movie so much earlier than most (or so we’d like to think), we made even that sound cool in our narratives. The Jamie Lee Curtis dancing-in-her-lingerie scene was something we watched while simultaneously looking around to see if anyone else was watching us watching her. Phew!

Punjab, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Nagaland (who thought it had movie theatres!!) and as of yesterday, Andhra Pradesh have now banned the screening of the movie, stating that it would harm the religious sentiments of certain sections.

WHAT THE FUCK were these people doing when the book was selling like hot-cakes all over the place, and the pirated book vendors on the roadside made so much money out of it that they stocked only that book?

Blatant hypocrisy rules the roost once again in our country, which is plagued by the grim spectre of reservation looming large in an attempt to possibly destroy the hopes and aspirations of a lot of bright students.

The complaints somehow were not around when the book was revered by pulp-fiction enthusiasts all and sundry. I must confess that I liked quite a whole lot of the book when I read it myself, quite some time ago, and my virtiolic rhetoric is centered around anything but that.

News reports go on to state that Christians have requested for a ban. Quite understandable, given the fact that it shakes the very foundation of their savior’s celibacy, and celibacy is something held in high regard. Jewish Rabbis are allowed to marry and have a family, while serving their duties towards God, while Christian priests were perpetual chastity belts, or so it is rumoured.

There are additional reports that go on to state that now “certain Muslims” also want the movie banned.

That was possibly the biggest “D-uh!” moment of the month for me.

Don’t you see it? Can’t you figure out why they too want some movie based on a book revolving around Christianity banned? Its as plainly evident as the Emperor’s New Clothes were.

A whole lot of people are extremely enthusiastic about the movie version, despite having read the book. Sure, catch the movie for Tom Hanks, Ian McKellan and Audrey Tautou. I will too. But if you want to watch the movie to know what will happen in the end, after having raved on about how fascinating the book is, you should maybe watch Forrest Gump instead. It is a movie about people like you, save for the fact that you’ll never get that lucky. In addition, I would be extremely surprised if you’ve even come this far in the post, but I thank you for your perseverance.

It pays to have a short-term memory for a lot of things, though learning valuable lessons about how a movie can screw up a good book should never be forgotten. The exceptions are miniscule.

I leave you with two interesting pieces of trivia that I saw on the IMDB webpage for this movie -

To protect both the fabric of the building and the works of art it contains, the production’s use of the Louvre Museum in Paris was carefully controlled. For instance, no equipment was allowed inside the Louvre during the opening hours, so filming took place at night. Since the crew were not permitted to shine light on the Mona Lisa, a replica was used to film instead. No blood or mysterious writings were permitted on the wooden floor of the museum so these scenes were shot at Pinewood Studios outside London.

Dan Brown appears in a cameo when Robert Langdon is talking with the police in the cocktail of his book.

Now, I’m off to see the movie!