Admit it, sometimes there’s nothing more entertaining than watching a man being grilled, roasted and smoked on prime time news TV, like Censor Board chief Pahlaj Nihalani was on Tuesday night by Times Now’s Arnab Goswami.
Nihalani was on the show to defend the cuts the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) made on the latest James Bond movie Spectre. The censor board chief appeared on Newshour after becoming the subject of a hashtag: #SanskariJamesBond, and after having been torn apart by AIB in their recent show.
Things began quietly enough, but soon escalated when Goswami targetted Nihalani’s record as a producer of films like Andaz.
Arnab Goswami: Anil Kapoor, wearing a lungi, and chasing Juhi Chawla singing a song with double-meaning. That wasn’t vulgar?
Pahlaj Nihalani: At that time, I was the producer, not the censor board chief.
For those who don’t know the song, it’s called Khada Hai. All puns intended.
There was more to come.
Arnab Goswami: Would you, today, as India’s ‘sanskari’ censor board chief have passed movies of yours that are vulgar to the core, such as Andaz and Ankhen?
Pahlaj Nihalani: Had there been anything wrong in those movies, they wouldn’t have been passed by the censor board.
As the argument got nosier, one was treated to incoherent and hilarious sentence fragments such as: “it was a just a touch of the lips” (Nihalani), “you said that with age you became a sanskari, why then are you imposing sanskar on the younger generation?” (Goswami), and “it was the most crude, vulgar film in Indian cinema” (Goswami, speaking of Ankhen).
After a point however, the debate, as most such TV debates tend to go, became incoherent and repetitive.
And what was lost in the all the noise was what could have been Prahlad Nihalani’s best argument, which is: If a film wants a ‘U/A’ rating, the film’s producers should be ready for cuts. If not, the film should have an ‘A’ certificate.
The entire debate wasn’t news, and it certainly wasn’t journalism. Still, just for sheer entertainment, it was precious.
On 16 February 2015, The Quint put together a clip of the censor board chief’s raunchiest films. Check it out.
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