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10 Films That The Censor Board Did Not Pass
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1. Atal Behari ki amar kahani: Cinemaphiles were spared this biopic because of the potentially fatal ennui it occasions. The story of how a humble country boy donned a pair of shorts and rose to become a nation's saviour is so long that it makes The Sorrow and the Pity look like an MTV video. Though it is full of mystery - did he infiltrate the RSS to become Prime Minister, or did it use him to appoint thousands of medievalist school-teachers - it lacks suspense. The problem is Vajpayee's eternal pauses - the dialogue just takes forever and ever...… 
2. There's something about Sonia: Innocent girl who is sneered at by her peers and lands up at a party where everyone is too drunk to fuck - this plotline of countless recent American movies aimed at teen-aged audiences has been updated for the politically savvy Indian masses. Sonia Gandhi plays the innocent girl, the party is the Indian National Congress, and everyone indulges in cheap vulgar jokes that characterise American movies. Until, of course, the arrival of the villain, Pramod Mahajan, who is such a cheap and vulgar joke that the film ends up permanently on the producers' shelves. 
3. M S Gill to Pagal Hai: The story of how a unobtrusive sardarji takes over the Election Commission in the world's largest democracy, and faces innumerable obstacles from those treacherous, lusty, cutthroat villains - that's right, the candidates. Despite the intensely spiralling plot full of intrigue, the censor board objected to a scene where Gill studies a map of India with the para-military deployment for the five phases of the election, on the ground that it compromised the nation's security. 
4. Bombay Fantasy: Like the earlier film of the same title, this is a porn film, where the stars dress up in costumes from different regions of the country (and then undress to move the plot forward). The difference is that it stars Sharad Pawar and Bal Thackeray. Naturally, it was banned. 
5. The Dirty Dozen: Originally intended as a documentary about the Indian cricket team, it comprised clips of performances so pathetic that a censor board certificate was denied. 
6. Mughal-e-Azam: The story of how L K Advani and his son Jayant fight over daughter-in-law Jyoti. Masterful depiction of Pakistan-born Advani suffering silently while watching his lifetime of hard work go towards the fulfillment of Vajpayee's ambitions. Jyoti is a metaphor, but for what, is unclear. Banned for the scene where Advani confronts Vajpayee, lifts his dhoti, points to his testicles and says: "Yeh Hindustan nahin jis pe aapki hukumat chal sake." 
7. Curious George Flies a Kite: Did you think this was a film about the famous monkey who is brought from the jungles to civilisation by the man in the yellow hat, and whose curiosity leads him into all sorts of messy entanglements? Well, you were not far from wrong. It's about George Fernandes, who is brought from the jungles of socialism to the civilisational project of the man in the khakhi pants. His desire to join the mile high club with the perenially middle-aged Jaya Jaitley lands him in a mess when the country is taken by surprise and invaded. Censors objected to the scene where he changes into an ironed kurta, revealing that his deformed body was the reason his attire looked so crumpled all these years.
8. Godzilla versus Rodan: An update of the 1960s Japanese film where two men dressed in rubber suits trample on a miniature model of Tokyo while battling each other for global supremacy. In the new version, L K Advani and T N Seshan slug it out, wearing rubbers, trampling on the feelings of the good folk of Gandhinagar. Censors refused to pass the scene where Seshan takes off his rubber. 
9. Aap Aaye Bukhaar Ayee: A film about an extended family whose members start fall sick one after the other, following some nuclear tests in the neighbourhood. Censors objected to the scene where Prime Minister Vajpayee visits the family's village to bask in the glory of India having attained nuclear status: when he shakes the family's patriarch's hand, it falls off. Censors called it unnecessary and gratuitous violence of the American sort. 
10. Aye Din Bihar ke: A fantasy about how a messiah from Bihar takes over India and leads one billion people to paradise. McDonalds is forced to serve sattu ka puri, and the government is closed for chath festival. Corporate he-men start to chew khaini, and bel ka sherbet replaces coca-cola as the national drink. India becomes an economic and military superpower, and then heralds a global era of spiritualism by forcing the UN to adopt advaita vedanta as the world's official religio-philosophical system. Censors banned it on the ground that it contravened the official secrets act. |
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