Ban TV Nudity

(From 2006)

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a confession to make. I am a victim.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am a victim of the worst scourge ravaging this fair land of high morals and pure culture, a curse worse than HIV, poverty, overpopulation, terrorism, and caste divisions put together. I am – or, since I am reformed, was – an addict to nudity on television. Yes! I realise this makes me morally repulsive to you honourable, decent people; but perhaps, because I’ve reformed and am admitting my crime openly, it doesn’t actually put me forever beyond the pale?

Can you believe that I once used to watch swimming contests on TV, with their nubile young bare-limbed women in swimsuits that leave nothing to the imagination? How much more depraved can one get?

You will understand that I am warning one and all of the dangers of nudity on TV. Beware! Your very soul is at stake!

There is no doubt at all of the deleterious effects of an occasional flash of a foreign nipple on the small screen, not to mention other unmentionable body parts. I say "foreign" advisedly, because surely our Indian women are too chaste and decent ever to be seen flashing their, um, boobs. The evidence, as I said, of deleterious effects is overwhelming.

For example, there was this man who was arrested for molesting (the r - word is a no-no, Indian girls don't get, er, raped) a girl last night. Ladies and gentlemen, was it purely a coincidence that a fashion channel showed a nude breast just fifteen seconds before the crime was committed? You may choose to believe that it is, but then how do you account for what happened? It is true that the man has no cable TV in his house, but might he not have caught a glimpse through someone’s window? What was he doing hanging around peeking in windows at that time of night? How should I know? Am I talking of windows or the dangers of nudity on TV?

I remember how I was corrupted by the nudity I saw on TV all through my formative years. Children should definitely be protected from this scourge. They should instead be directed towards those superb teleserials from the Ekta Kapoor stable, where decently dressed Indian women do not work and are dressed up to the nines at all times, even when in bed, in saris and jewellery. What they say or do in those serials is of no concern to me. I’m talking of nudity, damn it!

The Bombay High Court has the right idea when it banned all nudity, as do all those who are so concerned with our moral health. Nudity certainly has no place on TV.

So, let's ban Animal Planet and National Geographic until all those animals are decently covered. "Decently" would seem to exclude jeans, which are Western and hence inimical. So they must wear, if male

Gandhi caps, khadi kurtas, and khaki RSS shorts

And, if female,

Saris and/or salwar kameez (no matter that one is of Greek origin and the other brought in with the Muslim invaders of the late first millennium - you can't have topless female animals, now can you)?

While we are on the subject, ban all visuals of bare midriffs (well, yes, some of them definitely need covering up) and bare faces, hands and feet (so the burqa brigade doesn't get offended). In fact, I’d suggest banning Western music with its suggestive lyrics and its pelvic gyrations. Henceforth, we must have nothing on TV except Bharat Natyam, performed in shoes, gloves, and surgical face masks.

And, most definitely, ban me, because I'll bust my clothes laughing.

Hmm…perhaps I’m not all that reformed after all…