After the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) asked for 89 cuts in Udta Punjab, the Mumbai High Court told them to do their job (of certifying, not censoring). I wish someone had given the Manager of DT Cinemas Saket the same advice.
I finally managed to watch the movie last night, during a viewing that was punctuated by not one, but two crying babies. The first one stopped quickly enough, but the parents of the second one took much longer to react, by which time the audience was palpably impatient and irritated.
I decided to complain to the Manager at the end of the movie, asking him how people were being allowed to bring children to an Adult movie, and why, at the very least, they weren’t being asked to leave the theatre when their child started crying. At this point, one of the parents in question decided to intervene in our conversation, telling me very aggressively that he had an infant not a child, that I should look up the meaning of an Adult certification, and that I should get my priorities straight (my priorities, when he brought his infant son to a movie full of violence and gore at 11pm). He ended by telling the Manager to take down his number and call him if I created any issues (oh, what a helpful sort).
Once he left, I was given the very same baffling argument by the Manager – that he was an infant not a child, and so was allowed in the movie. And besides, he was too young to even understand anything. Did I somehow misunderstand the definition of an Adult certification? Is there an asterisk next to the A saying ‘infants excluded’ that I can’t seem to find? I explained to the Manager that infants surely don’t qualify as above 18, and by the end of it, he agreed with me and apologised, saying that he had in fact told them they couldn’t bring their child in but they insisted, saying he was an infant and they had nowhere to leave him (I’m sorry, if you don’t have someone to leave your child with, don’t come to a movie and inflict his cries on 100 odd movie-goers). Seeing how quick the man had been to turn his aggression on me, I could understand why the Manager had struggled to tell him something sternly enough for him to follow it.
I had a lot of obvious issues with last night: bringing a child to a movie because you have nowhere else to leave him, sitting through the movie even when he’s crying, showing a child that much gore when it’s really not known how much he can understand or internalise, bringing a child to a movie at 11pm (and then questioning my priorities) – all of which are irresponsible and insensitive but, at the end of the day, personal parenting decisions and not strictly breaking any rules. My biggest issue, though, was that children (sorry, infants!) are being allowed into an Adult certified movie, and such a controversial and hotly debated one at that. And that is most certainly breaking some rules. In these situations I almost want the CBFC to expand its job description and interfere. Given the increasing degree of censorship from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (just notice how many words are bleeped out on television), and CBFC’s gross perversion of power with Udta Punjab, I’m the last person to take ratings too seriously. But perhaps theatres need a slap on the wrist for such blatant disregard for ratings.
The unfortunate reality, however, is that the issue goes deeper than that. The Manager had tried to stop them, but they didn’t listen. In a city that seems to be fuelled by aggression and itching to whip out guns for the slightest misdemeanours, there’s only so much that rule enforcers can and are willing to do. I experienced that for myself last night, when the man in question turned his aggression on me in a hurry, leaving me extremely reluctant to even try to reason with him. I can almost understand why the Manager was unable to enforce the rules on them.
The larger issue is that we are used to flouting rules, from ignoring film certifications to running red lights. And the ecosystem is such that it allows us to do so, with jugaad such an ingrained part of Indian culture. Rules are neither followed nor enforced, so much so that when someone tries to enforce them, we are enraged and bulldoze our way through with aggression, so accustomed we are to breaking those rules for so long. We take it as a given that rules are meant to be broken. And so the cycle perpetuates.
The irony of our utter lack of respect for rules cropping up during an Udta Pubjab show wasn’t lost on me. Besides learning more of Punjab’s drug problem, I got to experience first-hand our blatant disregard for rules, India’s ‘Udta Punjab’ problem, you could say – possibly as deep-rooted, as wide-spread, as systemically encouraged.