Shiney saga: Rape as national entertainment

Mumbai should slap an entertainment tax surcharge on the rest of India. Whether from box office or botox office, its celebrities have been working overtime to serve an important social agenda. They have diverted attention from such potentially disruptive issues as racist pigs, swine flu, and BJP rats deserting the sinking lotus. Thank heaven for big girls with big rocks, and big boys with big uhmm.

And, btw, don’t miss the irony of a Shiney getting tarnished at the same time as the demolition of the party which gave us ‘India Shining’. In both cases, it was an in-house operation.

Sheetal’s bling became just a blip on our attention as soon as her bail took the interest out of her story. After all, what use a high-life crime without the low-life grime? But not to worry. Mumbai entertainers are regular troupers. As soon as one rises out of the mess, another falls with twice the thud.

So, Sheetal’s saga may have become as flat as last night’s Bubbly, but a Bunty in Shiney armour has galloped into the breach. Like ‘Radio Mirchi sunney waley’, our mirch-masala merchants ensure that the greedy janata is kept ‘always khush’. And, you can count on them to have their make up on even when they lose face.

Perhaps the next blockbuster will be ‘Sheetal & Shiney’. It would have all the elements of a super-hit formula. Only one has sex and violence, but both are riddled with the tantalising ‘Did She or Didn’t He?’ Both stories are rife with family drama. And the courtroom variety won’t be lacking either because, while one party for sure got cheap thrills, both need expensive lawyers.

For all the love-to-hate stigma attached to Page Three, it certainly pollinates the imagination. In fact, its butterflies don’t leave much to that entity. They let it all hang out so that our tongues can salivatingly do likewise. Don’t scoff at them. Thank them instead for a twofold favour. They allow us to get away from the humdrum reality of beds unmade and bills unpaid, and to escape into a sanctimonious smugness.

In fact, the undeodorised janata is spoilt for choice every time there is a celebrity outbreak. Take the Shiney scandal. This pop-porn has come in a trio of flavours: caramel, butter, and hot ’n’ sour. There’s the three-handkerchief heartstring-puller of his stand-by-my-man wife, the makhkhan-won’t-melt-in-our-mouths injured innocence of the industry, and the searing atrocity itself. Befitting our multiplex culture you can even have a combo of all three.

Secondly, it has provided the public with n number of choices on what to get enraged about. You can pick from a) violence against any woman; b) exploiting a vulnerable woman; c) violating the sanctity of a marriage; d) turning the casting couch into one’s own living-room sofa. You can hook your outrage on gender or class or both.

And, finally, if you choose to be snooty rather than sensitive, you won’t ask “How could he do this to a maid” but “How could he do this with a maid?” Such snobbery would apply whether it was rape or consensual sex. Yes, there are as many different ways of letting down your class as there are of revealing that you have none at all.

©TOI.