The Censorless Wonder published in www.indiaparenting.com

The Censorless Wonder

By Bhagyalakshmi

My eleven-year-old daughter is very uncomfortable these days. She used to enjoy surfing television, but these days she is very wary of this very harmless pursuit. Once while surfing she spotted the promotional of Kal Ho Na Ho and happily stopped there, but suddenly it was replaced by John Abraham spread all over Udita Goswami!

Another time, she thought she will check out Star Movies, after all just the previous evening she had seen a nice Arnold Shwarznegger movie about the Christmas spirit and what should she encounter. No hunk, but a very personable father figure pushing a cigar into the nose of a young girl in a polka dot dress.

Of course, children should be exposed to the changing times. Of course, they know a lot more then we did and they can teach us a thing or two, but should this be their mode of education? Or should they be exposed to these at specific ages through better media.

Many are the times, when I have found promotional of Hindi films and advertisement clips or commercials of adult films right in the middle of award ceremonies that are being watched by children. As it is, in our society, the issue of imparting sex education to children is ill timed, is scantily or not addressed at all. Combine this with raging pre-adolescent and adolescent hormones, the privacy of a home where both parents are away at work, a social set-up where the difference between being progressive and being permissive is hazy and what we have is anybody's guess.

How is it that the promotional for adult films are screened in a forum where there is no censorship. How is it that the Censor Board finds certain scenes violent or explicit enough to grant the movie an adult certificate but those same scenes find their way into our drawing rooms? Why is it that Hollywood films that are certified as 'Adult' with clearly heavy adult themes are screened at prime time and not at those times when children are likely to be asleep. I had the good fortune of watching, "The Silence of The Lambs" at two thirty on Saturday afternoon.

I would love to know what other parents think of this: "Should not the cable television be subject to some kind of censorship?"