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ShareGul Panag is fuming after dialogues from her movie suggesting safe sex have been axed, reports Soumyadipta Banerjee
At a time when ads on TV are advocating the use a condom, the Indian Censor Board has chopped off a scene from Atul Agnihotri's upcoming film Hello where Gul Panag asks her co-actor (Sharman Joshi) whether he is carrying a condom before they have casual sex.
In the past the Censor Board, headed by actor Sharmila Tagore, has been extremely critical about lovemaking scenes and nudity. An angry Gul says that she is going to dash off a letter to the Censor Board as she finds the decision 'ridiculous'.
Gul says, "The scene has me and Sharman making out. Like any educated woman I ask Sharman whether he is carrying a condom before we get into the act. Though the lovemaking scene will be retained, the 'condom' dialogue has been chopped off. While we have ads running all over television urging people to use condoms, I fail to understand why the dialogue was deleted. The decision speaks of the Censor Board's double standards. I am planning to write a letter in protest," says Gul.
Interestingly, this is not the first time a 'condom' dialogue has been deleted from Gul's movie. In her last outing with Abhay Deol titled Manorama Six Feet Under, a similar dialogue was hacked by the Censor Board. "Yes,the scene had me pulling up my husband (Abhay) for not using a condom and getting me pregnant. The dialogue goes like this, 'Agar tumne us raat condom use kiya hota, toh aaj yeh din nahin dekhne padte' (had you used a condom that night, we wouldn't be facing this plight). I was shocked to learn that the Censor board had objected to the dialogue," says the actor.
An irate Gul thunders, "Don't we all make out? Didn't our parents have sex? If we don't find that odd then why are we finding it odd here? Condoms promote safe sex and deleting dialogues that actually encourage people to use them during casual sex ishypocrisy."
s_banerjee@dnaindia.net
