Perspective

Mr & Mrs Morality

Quite recently a famed boutique hotel down South of India faced indignation on account of young couples getting cosy at a party. Sometime earlier in the year, self-professed saints from the commercial capital city put a ban on all Indian cultural evenings promoted at restaurants and bars. And not so long ago, people in India's silicon valley were asked to take-off their dancing shoes and retire to bed after 11.30 pm. 'Morality' - that's what they are all screaming. I wonder if any of them actually understand the true meaning of the word.

Let's take the incident down South as an example. Some couples kiss and a ruckus was created about proliferation of our Indian culture. I'm sure even the moral police know that that's a human expression.

Let me ask you a question, Mr & Mrs Morality. Have you all ever watched the Mallika Sherawat movie 'Murder', which went on to become a huge hit in our country? Were you all lost in sheer character portrayal of the actress or something else? Nobody seemed to think about our culture then or even when reels of soft porn plague our cable televisions all day.

Do you know what’s the logic behind the self-professed saints of the commercial city banning entertainment at restaurant and bars?

Dance bars abet prostitution.

May be they do and may be they don't. But if prostitution needs to be eradicated, there are famed prostitution places in the city that traffic in men, women, transvestites and children. What are you doing about that Mr & Mrs Morality?

It is a wonder, how such people function in the government offices - How does it benefit to ban night-clubs, discotheques or close restaurant and bars just when the night is young? In fact, any loss to the hotel and restaurant industry is something less in the government coffers.

What's surprising is that it is normally the hotel and restaurant sector that becomes sitting ducks to the morality brigade; the film, television or media, for example don't face the hot end of the rod. Take the instance when some anti-tobacco minister wanted to ban smoking on screen and made a big hue and cry about his crusade. Nothing happened, because the film industry lobbied firmly, constructively and effectively. But when our hotel and restaurant associations lobby against the government on the grounds of moral policing, they are normally asked to tow the line or shut shop.

So let us brace ourselves for the future moral policing that our industry will face. And believe me, new grounds and the logic behind their reasoning in the days to come will leave even a person-like Archimedes tongue-twisted. No 'eureka' for the industry.

-Savio Rodrigues

ehc@vsnl.com