Of T*ts and D**ks!

Oh, the Indian arty-farty crowd is embroiled in another controversy. This time it is an exhibition of paintings, poems and sculptures called, “Tits, clits and Elephant Dicks.” Not, joking, this time that is the title, honest. I did a search of the Internet and came up with 8,40,000 results. I am amazed. Are we so sick in the mind? Someone said that this mirrors the state of our society. Yes, it does. And the very words, American slang, no less. Why not Bombay slang like c****h, and l**d, etc, which tumble out every other second from a Bombayman’s tongue?

Frankly I am amazed, no, dazed, no, amused. After suppressing a chortle or two I can go into the dissection of this. Apparently it features poems, too, “In Search Of The Best Fuck Of His Life” and “My First Piss In The Morning.” Is Indian art so depraved that it has to hunt for crude vulgarisms of American Slang to describe women’s body parts? Again, why “Piss” why not “Urine?” It’s the puerile use of these slang words that offends me the most. Or, is it a way of currying favor from the firangs? This is the sort of writing you get on toilet walls, not in prestigious art gallery of Bombay. If I walk into the gallery with my wife and son I would naturally be offended.

For your information the exhibition, sort of shortcut to fame for its artists Sanjeev Khandekar and Vaishali Narkar who put up statues with gigantic phalluses on show. But should it have been such a drastic short cut? Society has a responsibility to protect its vulnerable sections in which I include women and children. But the exhibition was open to all even children. What impressions would they carry out of the gallery? No wonder Pushpa Vijule was offended and lodged a police complaint. The police asked the artists to take away the exhibits, and I think they are right to do that. If it offends the

And the literati have come out in defense of freedom of expression and all that bullshit. Among them a prominent film director and poet, who rants against the police’s high-handedness. Oh, come on, (I am not saying “Aw, c’on) drill some sense into your brains. Don’t know where this straining at the leash of prurience comes from. But aren’t we a society where mothers and sisters are respected and even worshipped?
Tags: Bombayman, American Slang, Sanjeev Khandekar, Vaishali Narkar, Pushpa Vijule, art, exhibition, India, Indian art, Indian sculpture