On the verge of stepping onto the wrong side of 30, many memories flit by, not all pleasant. Of the memories that are pleasant, the ones from my days in school, standout.
I passed my 12th Std in 1991… from one of the not quite leading schools of Calcutta…sorry….Kolkata. It was a Kolkata without today’s multiplexes and shopping mall. For better or for worse, Lindsay Street, Chowringhee, Park Street were still the most happening places in the city and school days were much different from what they would be now, at least in one aspect.
The difference was pornography…or more accurately, the availability, sharing and quality of it. Yes, the wonderful, stimulating and informative world of pornography was different then.
Those were the days when the internet was unheard of…a VCR (or the cheaper VCP) was a possession of pride… to be found in only a few privileged households in the neighbourhood or for that matter in our circle of friends… and the colour TV….though catching on was still a novelty.
Schools were strict (guess they still are) and in movie theatres an A certificate meant you really could not go in (do not know the situation today).
The PG grade did not exist then….and what does it mean any way??? Parental guidance!!…does that mean your parents guide you through the x scenes….give me an A certificate any day!!!
Pocket allowances were inadequate when compared to the price of a People, Penthouse or Playboy.
However….as has been proved through the course of history ….human ingenuity always finds a way of overcoming infrastructural inadequacies….and any vacuum gets filled… (that certainly sounded tacky…where did I hear that…or did I actually make up that crap!!!).
So what did we have….to satisfy (certainly not satiate) our unending quest for knowledge of the sexual kind?
Well there was the friendly neighbourhood video cassette parlour, which would rent out not just the cassette…higher the number of Xs, higher the rental, but would also help with a VCR/VCP and a color TV for the right rental. However this proved a challenge as you cannot quite smuggle in a couple of video cassettes, a VCR and a Color TV!!! You could do it only when your parents and all your neighbours were away. This had its challenges…but considering the rewards that waited at the other end of the picture tube…many did risk it and several perished….or if you want a simpler word….were caught.
Then there was the burgeoning South-Indian adult film industry (someone told me they were all Malyalee) which churned out dubbed gems with names like Jawani Ki Kahani, Khuli Khidki, Kachhi Jawani, Kachhi Kali etc.
Highly progressive cinema halls like Pradip – on Tollygunge Circular Road, (the temple of early sex education which ran on a philosophy of permissiveness that was far ahead of its time), Tiger (which was a late convert but failed to sustain itself) and who can forget the champion of liberal cinema Jamuna – on the crossing of Free School Street and Sudder Street. This titan of liberal thinking straddled the corner and ran classics like My First Wife, Sex Lies and Videotape and greater hits like Gwendoline, Barbarian Queen, Sirocco…the list goes on. Often the films will have inserted in them a couple of minutes of hardcore porn….that would bring a welcome relief to most audiences and not to mention…finally giving them what they had come for.
However the one that was the greatest help and most accessible too was the printed stuff (hardcopy if you will). While the Playboy, Penthouses were prohibitively expensive, there was cheaper printed stuff available as well…mostly this cheaper stuff meant business, unlike the better known magazines which kind of did not take you through the whole journey. This cheaper variety of printed porn brings me to a stalwart in its class, Human Digest.
If there ever was informative literature then this was it. A low risk indulgence, there was so much focus on the printed word that it had no pictures!!! (there may have been one on the cover….but we rarely got to see one, as it would be covered in some newspaper or brown paper to give it the innocuousness it demanded but did not deserve) Rich with words we did not understand…and words that the guys at Webster are still to discover…this was sexual literature in its rawest form…and some would add, at its best.
In today’s world of easy availability of pornography…the excitement of a group study of Human Digest, the awkwardness of running into your neighbour at Jamuna cinema, the fear of getting caught by your parents watching porn at home, the pride of possessing a Penthouse, the recognition of being one who has access to blue films, the euphoria from watching one’s first 3X not to mention the ecstasy, the thrill of leafing through pages of porn held below the desk while the teacher explains the difference between mass and weight…all these have become a thing of the past….
Our generation was probably the last that enjoyed that privilege. Even as we carry this legacy….a legacy that we can no longer pass on… we rejoice in the awareness that it is the pornography that binds us.
I passed my 12th Std in 1991… from one of the not quite leading schools of Calcutta…sorry….Kolkata. It was a Kolkata without today’s multiplexes and shopping mall. For better or for worse, Lindsay Street, Chowringhee, Park Street were still the most happening places in the city and school days were much different from what they would be now, at least in one aspect.
The difference was pornography…or more accurately, the availability, sharing and quality of it. Yes, the wonderful, stimulating and informative world of pornography was different then.
Those were the days when the internet was unheard of…a VCR (or the cheaper VCP) was a possession of pride… to be found in only a few privileged households in the neighbourhood or for that matter in our circle of friends… and the colour TV….though catching on was still a novelty.
Schools were strict (guess they still are) and in movie theatres an A certificate meant you really could not go in (do not know the situation today).
The PG grade did not exist then….and what does it mean any way??? Parental guidance!!…does that mean your parents guide you through the x scenes….give me an A certificate any day!!!
Pocket allowances were inadequate when compared to the price of a People, Penthouse or Playboy.
However….as has been proved through the course of history ….human ingenuity always finds a way of overcoming infrastructural inadequacies….and any vacuum gets filled… (that certainly sounded tacky…where did I hear that…or did I actually make up that crap!!!).
So what did we have….to satisfy (certainly not satiate) our unending quest for knowledge of the sexual kind?
Well there was the friendly neighbourhood video cassette parlour, which would rent out not just the cassette…higher the number of Xs, higher the rental, but would also help with a VCR/VCP and a color TV for the right rental. However this proved a challenge as you cannot quite smuggle in a couple of video cassettes, a VCR and a Color TV!!! You could do it only when your parents and all your neighbours were away. This had its challenges…but considering the rewards that waited at the other end of the picture tube…many did risk it and several perished….or if you want a simpler word….were caught.
Then there was the burgeoning South-Indian adult film industry (someone told me they were all Malyalee) which churned out dubbed gems with names like Jawani Ki Kahani, Khuli Khidki, Kachhi Jawani, Kachhi Kali etc.
Highly progressive cinema halls like Pradip – on Tollygunge Circular Road, (the temple of early sex education which ran on a philosophy of permissiveness that was far ahead of its time), Tiger (which was a late convert but failed to sustain itself) and who can forget the champion of liberal cinema Jamuna – on the crossing of Free School Street and Sudder Street. This titan of liberal thinking straddled the corner and ran classics like My First Wife, Sex Lies and Videotape and greater hits like Gwendoline, Barbarian Queen, Sirocco…the list goes on. Often the films will have inserted in them a couple of minutes of hardcore porn….that would bring a welcome relief to most audiences and not to mention…finally giving them what they had come for.
However the one that was the greatest help and most accessible too was the printed stuff (hardcopy if you will). While the Playboy, Penthouses were prohibitively expensive, there was cheaper printed stuff available as well…mostly this cheaper stuff meant business, unlike the better known magazines which kind of did not take you through the whole journey. This cheaper variety of printed porn brings me to a stalwart in its class, Human Digest.
If there ever was informative literature then this was it. A low risk indulgence, there was so much focus on the printed word that it had no pictures!!! (there may have been one on the cover….but we rarely got to see one, as it would be covered in some newspaper or brown paper to give it the innocuousness it demanded but did not deserve) Rich with words we did not understand…and words that the guys at Webster are still to discover…this was sexual literature in its rawest form…and some would add, at its best.
In today’s world of easy availability of pornography…the excitement of a group study of Human Digest, the awkwardness of running into your neighbour at Jamuna cinema, the fear of getting caught by your parents watching porn at home, the pride of possessing a Penthouse, the recognition of being one who has access to blue films, the euphoria from watching one’s first 3X not to mention the ecstasy, the thrill of leafing through pages of porn held below the desk while the teacher explains the difference between mass and weight…all these have become a thing of the past….
Our generation was probably the last that enjoyed that privilege. Even as we carry this legacy….a legacy that we can no longer pass on… we rejoice in the awareness that it is the pornography that binds us.
As a brother in arm of Comrade Chara, I still recollect the election day (by this time we were in college and something called VCD had replaced the Video cassettes and more number of ‘X’ were available at cheaper rates) when we had rented a VCD from the para Video library. Instead of standing in the queue for exercising our democratic rights (sic!) of electing another human trafficker we found a better option of enjoying human flesh on screen. What a generation! And I still believe that ours was a better option. When cadres from from both the booths (the TMC and CPM booths were just opposite to each other) cajoled us to cast our votes, we just showed them the disc (obviously it was covered in paper packet) and went away.
ReplyDeleteSociety aka Samaj...how can you forget the greatest and the best known cinema house in both North and South Calcutta
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ReplyDeleteThanks a lot dude.
ReplyDeleteYou reminded me of my own childhood and teenage. All of what you have said is familiar. I knew it all along. But I couldn't have expressed it so well. Cheers!
:D
there's this friend of ours we call 'Batman'. I live in a chawl in Mumbai. It's an apartment building with one long common veranda for each floor. In the nights, some of us used to sneak out to go to our adda and have a bit of chai. We used to walk up to everyone's window and call out their names in hushed voices. One night, we went to the window of this friend's house and peeped in and what do we see! His TV was in the living room and his parents used to sleep right under it. He was watching something questionable on JAIN TV (if you know, you know). Just so that the light of the TV screen doesn't fall on his parents' faces, he had draped his blanket over his shoulders and was holding it like a cape!
ReplyDelete:D
@Ashish - yes ofcourse Jain TV...it had a short but eventful stint...I always wonder...the guys who named the channel...did they really have their toungue firmly in cheek or they actually believed they were rendering a service to the deprived and destitute
ReplyDeletewell finally the writer in you has decided to emerge...i'm glad. looking forward to more of your observations. and yes you couldn't have been more articulate...for among the strange male bonding factors, pornography does play a significant role.
ReplyDelete