in A Altruistic Blog
Well.... I don't want to be establishing myself as this immoral or unethical character of the century by talking about this, and also, I don't think I am a victim of censorship here I believe no one is a victim unless you accept defeat. I am not accepting defeat. Never!
Well, I got my first taste of censorship when "Buds Film Fiesta" was censored by the film development board of Nepal.... Let me rewind a bit....What happened was, we made this film called "LUST" which translates to "Wasana" in Nepali and "Hawas" in Hindi. All the three words have sexual connotation. Literally it means passion... immense passion... You'd have to watch the film to know why we kept LUST as the main title.
Anyway, We entered the film in Buds Film Fiesta: presented by Gopi Krishna Movies, (I am reading the flyer now); organized by "Creative Intranational Production Arts, Nepal" (CIPA); the television partner- Sagarmatha Television, Radio Partner- Radio Filmy. So, In the middle of the festival, Buds Film Fiesta was CENSORED, by Film Development Board. This happens only in Nepal, you see, no film festival in the world is censored. Organizing a film festival means investment of a lot of funds, and people and time; everything seemed like it was going to waste, but CIPA and friends, made this possible by gathering established film makers and completing the Fiesta in Gurukul, School of Theater. There was Unity against the common enemy- CENSORSHIP, very similar to the February 2006 story.
Now here is the history from our perspective. When newspapers wrote about Buds Film Fiesta, Most newspapers had LUST's picture as the Artwork of the Film Festival's Coverage. Pictures of our female lead, Manisha Bista was in almost all newspapers. We were rejoicing. Why wouldn't we, our first film, and its getting all the publicity. But, almost immediately... we heard that the festival was cancelled. Complete shock!Some of my friends pointed out that the people from the film development board must have read newspapers which had the words, VAASANA, LUST, HAWAS in them; and thus, they thought its a "sexy" film. So, they censored the whole festival. Made us feel bad.
Ok, maybe it happened that way... maybe not, but its not a far fetched idea. But come on people!! we planned to show the film in KU and we would have to be crazy to be including sex scenes of KU students to show it to KU students.
Anyway, it ended quite happily I guess... the film festival concluded... there was this huge event in Gurukul and everyone opposed censorship; and LUST won the best film of the festival. We're supposed to get a loads of prizes and other stuffs; haven't had that yet.
Case 2 Now,
Recently, Nepal Telecommunications Authority googled "sex", and blocked 60 sites which appeared as "Sex ful" to them. Along with some genuine porn sites were sexpistols.com and youtube.com, and all the subdomains of the blogspot.com... But later, someone told them of their stupidity and they reinstated blogspot.com where you are reading this piece... which is exercising its freedom of speech HA HA! (Nelson Style)
But the scenario could be worse. Pradeep Bashyal in his Youth Column in Hello Shukrabar (KANTIPUR) quotes Aakar Anil, a Blogger of aakarpost.com saying that one day these people will block emails because they think that we are exchanging dangerous informations over it. Indu Nepal from Nepali Times has predicted that one day Newspapers will be censored because the newspaper editorials "threaten stability".
Where there is a will there is a way. See, They tried blocking facebook in China, I facebook chat with my good friends from China everyday. I guess China is a stronger in IT Nepal... and I am not saying Nepal is incapable. But Internet my friends can be taken over from a teenager- were you too young to remember the Y2K bug?? For now, lets just say, You can't really block porn-sites. You can use so many proxy sites. Which I am sure NTA knows about, and will try to block them in future.
Why Block Porn? The NTA says its because Porn excites young people and will lead to violence against women. Well, and have they done research to prove that? I dont know, Indu Nepal, says they haven't. And she also adds that sex crimes in Denmark has decreased since the legitimization of Porn in Denmark- back in 1969.
So, let's calculate for those of us who are weak in Mathematics:
1970-1980= 10 years
1980-1990= 10 years
1990-2000= 10 years
2000-2010= 10 years
10+10+10+10= 40 years...
40 years of legal porn films. Porn is censored in Nepal after 40 years of legal porn history of the world. Can porn be made into an industry? We will talk about this;
Does Porn excite people? Yes it does. Should Porn be controlled? Well yes. It should.
Young children should not be allowed to see porn.
However, Communication against porn should always be targeted to parents and/or guardians; let them have a free competitive advertising campaign in Prime time Nepal TV or Kantipur TV news saying "PARENTS CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN, THEY MIGHT BE PERVERTS FROM WATCHING TOO MUCH PORN".
But you don't control the adults. If adults are wise enough to think about which corrupt politician to vote for then, they are wise enough to follow the rules and live in a lawful state. Now having read all that, please don't argue with something like "DUDE, PORN BRAINWASHES PEOPLE INTO HAVING SEX WITH EVERY THING THAT MOVES." I cant say anything to that.
Now, Can Porn be made into an Industry?
I was really devastated when NTA blocked every blogspot.com pages.. really angry. I wanted to start this campaign called "GOD SAVE THE QUEEN" because Sex Pistols website was also blocked.... and which would go on for about 2-3 phases.You See, After a long discussion with friends, we concluded that this campaign should end with a grand "SOUTH ASIAN PORNOGRAPHY-FILM FESTIVAL" where porn film makers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal can come together, and talk about how much their lives has been affected. Talk about films, film form, film structures, contents in their films... And basically communicate, and share. You know, Deal pornography as an art.
Of course, the government has to legalize porn first, and create avenues to block children from viewing pornographic materials in that festival, and take stern actions against any film makers that uses minors in their films...
In the end, it became a beautiful GUFF...
But its still a dream... you know, imagine watching porn in one of those cinema halls with great sound effects something like Jai Nepal... wait... didn't Jai Nepal used to be a Porn Film showing film (B-Grade Hindi film, softcore porn) hall before Quest took over and changed it completely. And I know Ganesh Hall in Suryabinayak used to show porn. Also Paramhansh Hall of Kalaiya showed porn. Men came to the halls, shagged off, and walked out. Simple as that.
There has always been a culture of eve teasing in our society... even before porn you know, and its not because of porn that there are violent crimes against women, its because of the PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY... PITRI SATTA... You know, men in power?? YES!! There are examples where Women have taken a stance against eve teasing; and won. And there are women who oppose this confined society by following fashion that exposes more skin compared to 10 or 20 or lets say 40 years ago.....
And ALSO, We are as ugly a society as all those 1980s Hindi Films... that showed Red Light Areas of Mumbai...
You know we have red light areas in Kathmandu. I am not telling you where... But you get to read about them a lot in Newspapers, and investigative stories in Magazines and have seen them in documentaries. Take for instance all those sex workers in Kathmandu. Well, there are sex workers in Kathmandu, and all those nude bar dancers.... you do agree on that right. How much do you think are they paid? Its not like if they are unhappy they can quit. Its an imperfect system. I know that. And shoving everything away into a corner has never served purpose. These problems will not go away unless you devise a system. Come on people, prostitution is the oldest profession of the world... If its legitimate, and legal, you can control more crimes. That's what I think anyway.
Its very similar to try to make marijuana illegal. Seriously!...........Yeah... too much bichars at once... sorry to overload you like that..... Ok. I should conclude now.
Before I conclude, Here is a list of porn sites provided via a press release by Nepal Telecommunications Authority.
Which I think was a great help from the NTA because Now Nepali people have more options to visit porn sites... i call it the NEPALI STYLE OF PROMOTING PORN in young people...
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