Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Nefarious Wardrobe acquitted - Again

Once again that dastardly Wardrobe has been acquitted of all charges. How it manages to continually evade prosecution is beyond me ! Must have quite an amazing legal defence team.

Now, I have all the respect for our honorable Deputy Chief Minister, Mr. R R Patil and his zealous efforts to protect us from such a travesty of our morality and I have to tell you, I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out that it was not some chota mota cop investigating this shameless act, but Mumbai Police Comissioner A N Roy and his crew. And I must quote GreatBong here -

A brilliant use of our policeforce’s time and taxpayer’s money as roomfulls of hyperventilating men shall watch and rewatch (in super slow motion) the offending video clips late into the night and try desperately to find hidden clues, exercising the mythical “kanoon ka lamba haath”. (long arm of the law) for the good of the people.


But I do believe that there might be more to the story than what has been reported so far. Why, despite all the problems plaguing the state of Maharashtra, would he chose to ardently go after the relatively obscure societal evil, Wardrobe Malfunction (WM)? I mean, (pure speculation), could it just be that R R Patil is jealous of WM. After all, a simple google search will produce 806,000 results for WM as opposed to a mere 189,000 for the DCM.

Now, having been inspired by Rajdeep Sardesai's CNN-IBN, I shall now proceed to don the role of a Citizen Journalist.

Ha ! Those of you who think that WM is a low-life and chota crook are gravely mistaken. Let me proceed to give you a little background on WM's past. WM is actually the illegitimate progeny of Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson born during the half-time show of the 38th Superbowl, all the way back in Feb '04. Suggestive dance moves, two gorgeous individuals - come on now, don't blush ! We all know what happened next.

In fact Justin used his amazing originality in coming up with the name. Perhaps if R R Patil had been the governer of Jacksonville, Florida, the dynamic duo would have been behind bars, where they belong! Hmph.

Now interestingly, "wardrobe malfunction" was also named by the Global Language Moniter as "Hollywood's Top Phrase for Impact on the English language". Damn..what a way to start off one's career - in Hollywood, rubbing shoulders with the biggies. WM had the most impact on the English Language in its very first year of creation!

In the US, the Federal Communications Commission levied heavy taxes on Viacom. Thankfully, we don't need an entire federal commission. Who needs all that extra beauracracy when we have our very own moral brigade ! This time it was Social Activist, President of the Stree Aadhar Kendra and deputy leader of the Shiv Sena, Neelam Gorhe. She was reported as stating -

... two incidents of 'flesh flash' owing to defective designer wear had taken place during fashion week, and alleged that these were not accidents, as claimed by the models and fashion designers, but stage-managed incidents. She went on to allege that three more such incidents had been slated to take place, but did not. She also said offences against the organisers should be registered under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Down with the conspirators !! Hang them All !!!

Again, as a Citizen Journalist and swearing by my guru Rajdeep Sardesai, I shall leave no stones unturned. Which brings to me to my next point - the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. I quickly perused through my favorite web-site and after a quick search for the word "obscene" I came across a very lucid section 294. It goes as follows -

141[294. Obscene acts and songs

Whoever, to the annoyance of others-

(a) does any obscene act in any public place, or

(b) sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place,

shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three months, or with fine, or with both.]

Ummm.... Ok. Is it just me, or is that as vague as it gets ?

Now, I'm definitely not a student of jursiprudence and perhaps there is a more detailed definition of what is obscene and what is not in our great country. Well there better be. Or god knows, the next time I'm walking down a street whistling, "teri chunari sexy lagti ve" while listening to my Ipod, I get slapped by two girls (who I was obviously looking at for longer than 2.345 nanoseconds), have my picture taken and flashed across the internet for being a lecherous thug, get accosted by all of her brothers who magically materialize in the crowd, get arrested under section 294 and 268 of the IPC and get imprisoned for three months.

[Afterthought: ]
Somehow I don't think Rajdeep is going to be offering me a job at CNN-IBN anytime soon.