know friend-of-the-blog Banno from Banno, Dhanno and Teja in Bumm-Bumm-Bhole-Land
And while you’ll have to keep wondering about the blog for a little longer, I’m happy to share that I interviewed Banno for Women’s Web and we discussed things like how awesome she is and how difficult it is to be an indie filmmaker in India. No, seriously, check it out! And once you’ve read it, come back to read the outtakes.
Yes, of course there are outtakes! The interview was done in my usual expansive style, after all. I have been away a long time if you can’t remember how I like to go on and on.
Thanks, Banno!
***
Amrita: Let’s talk about India Reborn.
Batul: India Reborn was a series for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. One of the episodes was on the Indian economy, and I worked on that as the Indian producer. An international documentary crew is typically very small, a director, a cameraman, a sound recordist, and a local producer like me. This one had a producer their end as well. My job usually is to help with finding stories, research, interviews, apart from the logistical co-ordination. I loved this job because after a long time, I worked with people who were still old-school journalists, we travelled through the country, and I learned so much about the Indian economy.
Amrita: I know from your blog that one of your British documentaries affected you deeply on a personal level. Batul:The Slumdog Children of Mumbai came in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire‘s success. It was part of a year-long programming by Channel 4, UK. This was one of those jobs where we worked for long months, also the only job I did which was entirely during the monsoons. We had the tiniest crew: Nick Read, who was the producer, director, cameraman and sound recordist and me, working as an associate producer, conducting the interviews, etc.
It was physically grueling, the combination of rains and slums made things very, very difficult to bear at times, and I did come out of this experience traumatized.
Amrita: Any war stories? Batul: I think the day I landed in Bhuj after the earthquake on Day 2, is the single most devastating day of my professional career. The dead bodies, the smell, the destruction of the entire city, people’s homes, and in the midst of it all trying to get a story. At that time, I was working as an associate for a cameraman who was shooting the International Rescue Corps.
I learned the gruesomeness of news in that one day, and in many ways, my own docu-feature 150 Seconds Ago was a back answer to that.
Amrita: Tell me about that experience. Batul: 150 Seconds Ago was based on the lives of a few people in Bhuj, over the span of a year after the earthquake there in 2001. The people I followed included a rickshaw-wala, the erstwhile Maharajah of Bhuj, a doctor, a school teacher, and so on. It was very observational and exploratory, with no fixed narrative. The film travelled to many prestigious festivals including the Cinema du Reel, Paris, and the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Japan. The Yamagata Festival curators then included the film in their traveling festival package and showed it around Japan for a year.
My, what big ears you have, 2010! All the better to let all that awful Bollywood music escape, I bet.
Maybe I’m showing my age but this was the year when my head actively hurt almost everytime I loaded up a new soundtrack. I live across the road from a school with a marching band that insists upon practicing right under my window and at one point, I swear to God, I switched off the latest round of cacophony (Action Replayy, I think?) and basked in the blissful sound of an off-key tuba huffing along to an enthusiastic-if-sadly-untalented drum.
The good ones, therefore, were all the sweeter when they showed up. Here’re my favorite tracks from 2010. As with all lists, they’re highly subjective and I imposed a limit of one track per album because there were entire soundtracks that I would have happily included.
But first, these are the albums that missed the cut but took it easy on my ears all the same. In no particular order:
Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey
Rajneeti
Karthik Calling Karthik
Madholal Keep Walking
Tera Kya Hoga Johnny
Udaan
Dabangg
Jhootha Hi Sahi
10. Kya Hawa Kya Badal (Allah ke Banday) – Look, I would have found some way to include some mention of an album that features a track by the amazingness known as Ishq Bector (go on, click that link! You know you want to!). But I’m helped by this song.
09. Kanha (Veer) – The only good thing about Salman Khan’s golden barbarian fixation is this song. Intentionally, anyway. *snicker*
08. Des Mera (Peepli Live) – I’ve loved Indian Ocean since I was a kid so I’ll admit I was inclined to be kind but the best part about an album like this is that it doesn’t need your pity vote. It can stand up for itself, thanks.
07. Tujhe Bhula Diya (Anjaana Anjaani) – The best part of this song is Shruti Pathak’s bit at the beginning but Mohit Chauhan and Shekhar aren’t exactly slouches either. The movie might have left me cold, but the music was pretty great.
06. Ranjha Ranjha (Raavan) – My self-imposed limit of one track per album might keep me from giving Ab Mujhe Koi the love it deserves, but I thought this song was outstanding the moment I heard it and it was sheer poetry on screen.
05. Tera Zikr Hai (Guzaarish) – The star by far, as far as I’m concerned, in an album that’s a bit overproduced and labored, but quite lovely. Like everything else Sanjay Leela Bhansali does, I guess.
04. Lehrein (Aisha) – Honestly, I could have picked any song from this movie. Especially Sham, which is still on a loop on certain days. Amit Trivedi is on fire right now and long may it continue.
03. Cham Cham (Striker) – God only knows what happened to Sonu Nigam but here’s a track to remind you that he wasn’t always a greasy-haired fountain of bitter who judged reality shows. Somewhere, deep inside that mop, is an immensely talented voice.
02. Madhno Re (Lamhaa) – It’s like they asked me what I liked the most and then composed it to order. Mogambo khush hua!
01. Dil to Bachcha Hai Ji (Ishqiya) – How much do I love this song? Everything from Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s voice to his enunciation of the amazing lyrics to the string bits in the middle. I could listen to this all day and never tire.
You’ve heard of leg-men and ass-men and boob-men – but did you know Indians were thigh-men?
The first time I even knew this was a possibility was when Shilpa Shirodkar still had a career. It was way before my time so I have no idea how she suddenly ballooned several sizes over the course of a year (?) from a fairly unremarkable starlet to a big girl whom lecherous directors delighted in squeezing into rustic costumes much too small for her. (And then drenched her in more water than the annual rainfall of that area, of course.) What I do remember is that she immediately started appearing in the back-page gossip columns of Sunday supplements as the pin-up du jour for all “thunder thighs” enthusiasts.
Even that term makes no sense to me. I’m all for alliteration but that’s not even a sexy one. It beings to mind someone who’s so obese, the ground shakes when they walk. Except it’s clearly meant to be a compliment. The reason Shilpa Shirodkar sticks in my memory, for instance, is because the writer came off as extremely creepy even to my uncomprehending young eyes as he wrote about his vision filling with her supple thighs as he sat down to interview her and how all that weight gains had done wondrous things to her figure. Ew.
South Indian actresses get this a lot, I’ve noticed. In fact, that’s what brought it all back. It’s impossible to look for videos of Sridevi, for example, from her late 70s-Jeetendra 80s period without running into a legion of her devoted fans all busily drooling over publicity stills of her wearing shorts.
And clearly, this was something the people involved appreciated because once you start looking at them without a giant frame of WTF dancing in front of your eyes, you notice that the photographs carefully focus on their thighs. The women are frequently wearing shirts buttoned up to the throat, but with their legs drawn up to present their thighs.
I’m aware there are women out there who are obsessed with their thighs and some people spend more time thinking about it than others – Jezebel’s Thighlights never did anything for me, but to each their own, right? – but when Google shows me headlines like “Shocking Thigh Show!” I have to wonder what the deal is.
10 minutes into Dabangg, written and directed by Abhinav Kashyap who previously wrote the dialogue for Manorama Six Feet Under, and you realize why Hindi has all but ceded this kind of territory to Telugu and Tamil cinema: it requires a very specific kind of movie star to work.
First, you need a Star. Somebody with a rabid fan base and the kind of charisma that can’t be manufactured, no matter how many years you spent assisting famous directors or learning to dance from master choreographers or who you call Pop.
Next, he must willing to embrace a dhishum-dhishum flick entirely unironically. He’s not trying to re-interpret, deconstruct or elevate it. He’s simply and methodically bashing in the heads of random people who get in his way in a manner that makes you feel like he’s doing it for you as a personal favor.
And the cherry on top is that he must do all of this with enough style to sell it. “It” being whatever it is he’s peddling. Explosions, murder in broad daylight, defenestration, stealing, drinking, hookers, you name it. You want to be him, your wife wants to do him – at no point do you think, “Who’s he kidding?” or “What a psycho!” even if it’s true. That kind of ruins the movie.
Even in South India where they like to keep in practice, this is a tall order. You might think your average gorilla in shades could pull it off, but watch Salman Khan prove you wrong. The man is absolutely in his element as he joyfully smashes up a small town, blows shit up, creatively murders various people, courts a girl by threatening to beat currency upon her… and still effectively convey the idea that at heart he’s just a sad little boy who wants someone to love him. Awww.
I can’t think of a single other actor in Hindi today who could have pulled this off. Salman’s Chulbul Pandey is a beast held barely leashed by a crisp white shirt, and his offscreen persona only feeds into the animal magnetism onscreen. Movies like these channel the fantasy of the exotic pet – the heady rush at the thought of taming such a potentially lethal creature through nothing more than love. But for it to work, you need a believably dangerous persona to fuel the character – and there’s nobody more enigmatic or unpredictable in today’s carefully manicured Bollywood than Salman Khan.
Is it “good” cinema? Well, it’s entertaining cinema. A more cohesive follow-up to Wanted, the only thing it aspires to is a good time and that it delivers with glee. Into every life a little popcorn must fall and Dabangg a.k.a. The Adventures of Chulbul “Robin Hood” Pandey is exactly that. What is it about, who goes where and why – it’s about watching Salman Khan beat the ever-lovin’ hell out of everything in sight, animate and inanimate. No false advertising here: it’s everything the trailer promised and then some.
Somewhere in this Salman-fest you’ll also find producer Arbaaz Khan perfectly cast as the dimwitted half-brother, the delectably Amazon-esque Sonakshi Sinha as the unexpectedly grim love interest who squares off with Khan the few times she’s allowed on screen, and Sonu Sood putting all the Villainy 101 lessons he learned down South to good use. Additionally, there’s a short but honorable list of character actors to give able support: Dimple Kapadia, Vinod Khanna, Mahesh Manjrekar, Om Puri, Tinnu Anand, Anupam Kher, Mahie Gill and Malaika Arora in an item number when she ought to have been off eating a sandwich.
With hardly any gore in spite of the hailstorm of violence that surrounds Chulbul Pandey, just a hint of sex, and a tragic mother who fails to make you weep even as her sainted memory turns her son into The Incredible Bulk, Dabangg is just what I needed this weekend.
While Aamir Khan’s Peepli Live continues to garner lukewarm/ condescending reviews, anticipation is building around the world for an entirely different kind of project: Endhiran.
That’s right, Rajnikanth and his insane robot movie co-starring Aishwarya Rai are about to take over the world. Like, who’s not going to watch this? You hear that phone ringing? That’s your aged granny calling to ask you if the advance booking is open.
After Phase I in which loads of clever kids went to the original IITs and grew up to become New India’s success stories, came Phase II in which loads of parents programmed their kids at special indoctrination camps tuition classes to become the New Indian’s successful employees. And now we’re entering Phase III where parents are building customized children to train the ever increasing vast blob of Phase II applicants.
Rejoice, parents of substandard children! Manipulating a fetus is no longer something restricted to villains in science fiction novels and Hitler. My favoritest tabloid in everty ever brings joyful tidings:
Prof Tulsi Narayan Prasad, an advocate at the Supreme Court and a serious practitioner of astro-genetics, had to fight the world around him when he proposed that the sex of a to-be-born child could be manipulated.
[…]
“It’s a science called eugenics,” Tulsi Prasad said, explaining the way his genius child was conceived. “By employing it, we can ensure that the child achieves the desired traits. As I knew what we wanted, we followed the prescription for a genius mind…I and my wife had to plan everything in the process of having the child, right from our diet to our mood to the sex itself.”
Oooo-kay. A little reminiscent of the sex scene from Rosemary’s Baby, perhaps, but genius and deals with the Devil both demand a certain amount of sacrifice.
It’s all worth it in the end:
Hailed as a child prodigy, he finished high school when he was just nine, B.Sc by the time he was 10 and M.Sc before he turned 12. “It wasn’t surprising at all as my parents had told me that I was programmed before birth to be genius. I knew I was different when I discovered that I was more fascinated by physics while the others my age were into sports and games,” he said.
[…]
“But now I have learnt the art of pretending to be ‘normal’,” he added. “I finished reading A Brief History of Time (by Stephen Hawking) when I was six. I loved it even though I didn’t understand everything there,” he said, giving glimpses of what it was like to grow up as a programmed child.
I hope all those people freaked out by Indians’ Hitler obsession are reading this. Astro-Eugenics is the way real Aryans do it, baby.
PS: Hey buddy, when the revolution comes, just remember it was all fun and games! Seriously. Please don’t eat me or preserve me in a slime pod or whatever it is that advanced specimens do. Thanks!
I can’t remember what I had scheduled for today because ever since a kind reader sent me these pics, they’re all I’ve been staring at.
You know, if I were even a fraction as beautiful as this woman, I would never pose for photographs and insist on candids like these. It’s not just that she has no bad angles – it’s the sheer vibrancy of her. Look at her! This is a woman who’d make you look up just by walking into a room even if she’d never made a movie in her life.
And, I’m sorry, I have a great deal of love for Mads Dixit but all that comparing business is nonsense and these pictures should tell you why. La Dixit is a fine, fine woman, but Madhubala isn’t just in a class by herself, she travels private jet.
Sigh. I have absolutely no thoughtful comment to make other than “OMG! GORGEOUS!” but wanted to share. Thanks, Reader! You know who you are! And you’re awesome!
Update: Since many of you asked for the full set, here it is. I have no idea who took these or where but it appears to be somebody’s apartment, most probably hers given her comfortable vibe, and she’s walking up the stairs to the terrace where she blows the camera a kiss. Enjoy!
The cringe-fest known as Bride & Prejudice aside, Jane Austen makes such a terrific fit for Bollywood, I find it surprising that Aisha – the upcoming remake of Emma starring Sonam Kapoor – joins rather thin company.
Besides, Gurinder Chaddha’s ode to Bollywood was only dubbed into Hindi and awkwardly at that. The only successful adaptation so far that I can think of is Rajiv Menon’s Kandukondain Kandukondain in Tamil starring Aishwarya Rai and Tabu – and it laid an egg at the box office if I remember right. Maybe one of the other industries has had better luck?
The Brontes get a couple of Dilip Kumar (Sangdil based on Jane Eyre and the insufferable Dil Diya Dard Liya based on Wuthering Heights) and Rajesh Khanna movies (the yawnfest Oonche Log based on Dil Diya Dard Liya) while Austen can barely scrounge up a couple of Aishwarya Rai-starrers? The world is odd.
And now there’s Aisha, perhaps Abhay Deol’s most mainstream movie since his debut Socha Na Tha. Yay! I’ll admit to certain pangs after viewing this trailer right after the one for I Hate Luv Storys but I’ll give Sonam Kapoor the benefit of the doubt for now. After all, I’ve only seen two of her performances and one of them is invalid because Saawariya was all about Sanjay Leela Bhansali. In any case, there’s nothing wrong with being a one-note actor as long as you can find movies that cater to that one note. Please watch Knight and Day for a master class tutorial.
Meanwhile, thanks to Beth, I got a chance to have a little chat with Devika Bhagat (read my review of her TV show Mahi Way). Here she is on working for YRF, the benefits of having a woman in charge, how Abhay Deol makes things better, and – oh yeah – Matt Damon playing water polo. Ahem.
How much does the actual casting of your movies correspond with how you imagine your characters when you’re writing?
I have never written a screenplay keeping specific actors in mind. That would box the characters. (Once for a film that shall remain unnamed, the producer mentioned John Abraham’s name during the scripting stage for the male lead and after that whenever I would write the character’s scene, I would imagine him shirtless – not good!)
[…]
The only significant change was made in Manorama Six Feet Under. The main protagonist Satyaveer, was meant to be a down and out 45 year old. But once Abhay Deol was cast, the age of the character was brought down to 30 and therefore changes had to be made to the script to fit a 30 year old in terms of the character’s cynicism and excess baggage!
Being Indian, I obviously lack the social subtleties and sense of humor required to fully appreciate Tunku Varadarajan’s examination of the Indian spelling bee champ phenomenon.
As human being, however, I am transfixed by this casual observation:
There are certain cultures–particularly Asian ones–that produce child prodigies. Relentless parents, goading their children to success at the youngest possible age, are but one explanation. These are all cultures in which, traditionally, children have begun work early, in which childhood as we know it in the West is an alien idea. Indian kids are potty-trained by two. In America, that would be regarded as precocious. Pressure is brought to bear much later on purely American children than on those kids whose parents persist in old-world child-rearing ways long after they immigrate to America.
Um, whut?
What kind of pooping monsters are y’all raising, white people? No wonder the Injuns are hunting down your wimminz with such ease.
I guess I should be happy I can wear clothes at all.
Do any of you remember the slew of articles that came out in the wake of 9/11 when people (in the West) suddenly sat up and discovered that there was a significant – significantly Muslim that is – population of women out there who walk around covered from head to toe?
Reporters were dressing up in burkhas to walk the free streets of London to find out first hand what it felt like (Answer: confining, scary, got stared at a lot. Alternative answer: safe, confining, got stared at a lot.); there were roundtable discussions on newschannels about what it meant to be an Arab and a woman and a Muslim and how they could make it all work (Answer: Arabic for “adjust maadi!”); and everybody was very concerned about how this was a violation of human rights.
I thought it would slowly fade away because it’s not like Muslim women just started covering up. I’m pretty sure they were wearing those things even before 9/11 and all they got in return were double takes and stares. But no, they’re still at it.
Meanwhile, lots of Muslim women went, “Thanks but we’ll drop you a note when we need you to talk for us because right now all you’re doing is creeping us out.” Turns out a lot of these women really like wearing the hijab/niqab to various degrees and saw it as their ethnic wear. Then a bunch of other Muslim women spoke up and said, “Hold on! We never signed on to this! Doesn’t our opinion count?”
So then everybody went back to the drawing table and it was finally decided that it was terrible that some countries (*cough*Saudi Arabia*cough*) control what women wear but if the women themselves want to wear it, then that’s because they’re brainwashed victims but hey! at least we told them so now it’s on their own head and let’s get real here for a second, is Saudi Arabia really going to pay attention to what the rest of the world thinks about how they treat their women? Ha! So enjoy snorkeling in a hijab, ladies! We hear the sea around your country is awesome. The Israeli end of it anyway.
***
My last year of high school, right before the Board exams, my friends and I were casually sauntering past the library on our way to catching the mid-morning bus home. Seniors were invited to come in a for a couple of hours each morning and put in some extra practice under the concerned teacher’s supervision if they felt they needed it and a bunch of us thought it was an excellent idea: we’d study in the morning, hitch a ride back to town, get something to eat at our favorite hangout before going home to study some more. Teen life in a small town where everybody knew who you were and what you were supposed to be doing was always a matter of extreme forward planning.
We didn’t have to dress in uniform and could pretty much do whatever we liked in school as long as we didn’t disturb the rest of the students, which was fine by us. It was like having a picnic every day and we thought it was a great way to end our school life.
So on this particular day, we’d just wrapped up and were about to go find the school bus when we heard the librarian screech: “There she is!”
We turned around and there she was, finger pointed dramatically and accusingly at… me. What had I done?
“Look at her clothes!” she screamed as though I was poking holes in her eyes.
I looked down. I was wearing my baggiest jeans, the ones that had never fit me properly but I loved to wear because it was so comfy. You could just see its shapeless legs peeping out from under my tent-like pink t-shirt, the one so large, its shoulder seams hit halfway down to my elbow. Not that this gave me a cleavage of any kind, mind you: like all Indian t-shirts sold within the country, it had a round neck that was so tiny, it would have strangled a person of the right size.
So I stood there in my hobo outfit, wearing flat ballet slippers, and completing the look with greasy hair, thick spectacles and a mouth full of steel and rubber. Damn, I thought. I should have listened to my mom when she told me I looked like a bum.
“What are you wearing, Amrita?” asked Miss X, the teacher we’d come to meet this morning, the one the librarian had apparently been complaining to.
“Uh, jeans and a t-shirt?” I said, hoping for the best.
“Well, such tight clothes are not appropriate for school,” she said with a straight face.
I looked at her. She studied her nails. The librarian looked victorious.
“Ha ha,” I said at last. Sometimes the teachers like to crack jokes. Nobody ever got them because they were incredibly lame, but maybe this was one of them?
Nope. No such luck.
“Why don’t you wear something like your friends?” she asked.
I looked at Pops and Sangs, wearing tight-fitted salwar kameezes and identical WTF expressions. Contacts placed discreetly in their eyes and no braces in sight. Then I looked at myself. If I was so inclined, I knew who I’d find attractive amongst the three of us. (Hint: it’s not me.)
I opened my mouth to argue when one of my friends jabbed me discreetly in the ribs. “Jeans,” she muttered significantly.
Ah.
Denim. Cloth of the Devil. It’s a wonder they let you buy it over the counter considering the accessories that come with it – a libido that won’t quit, teenage pregnancy with mandatory termination, the morals of a sociopath, a junkie-unwashed-hippie boyfriend, and an alarming tendency to take away the free will of all men in sight and turn them into slavering rapists by force! Oh, did I forget the Western Bug? It’s an advanced parasite that hides in your pants leg and drills into your bone, instantly changing your nationality, your morals and your personality.
For fuck’s sake! They’re pants! Durable, comfortable, easy to wear, easier to maintain, pants!
Tell that to the good fathers who ran the Catholic college I attended. In Bangalore. Shortly after I joined, they actually banned jeans on campus. No, I’m not 100 years old. This incident took place at the turn of this century, not the last. The fathers did it with the best of intentions – they were shielding the pristine minds entrusted to their care by anxious parents. I failed to understand then and I still don’t understand how wearing a skirt or salwar kameez to college protected our virtue whereas denims would absolutely destroy us.
What I did understand then, and continue to understand now, is that when you are a woman, the world is entitled to not just have an opinion about the way you dress but enforce it as well. As business school students we were required to dress in formal attire three days a week and were allowed to dress as we pleased the other two days. The gender ratio in our class was five girls to about twenty boys. We studied together, we hung out together, we got in trouble together, we partied together, we paid the same amount of money to attend the same classes taught by the same teachers about whom we all bitched in the same rooms. For three days of the week, we were all equal. For the remaining two, five of us had an extra rule based on nothing but gender.
The ban didn’t last long, its utter ridiculousness becoming more and more apparent as the college tried to modernize itself into a sleek, Western-friendly environment in a city being touted as India’s Silicon Valley. India’s success brought down a rule based on lingering Indian bigotry. But I’ve never forgotten the sting of that relatively minor injustice.
***
The burkha is not a garment that I would wear. Unless I was hiding from the police or something. I don’t even wear a dupatta every time I put on a salwar because I often feel suffocated by things touching my neck, so the whole hijab-niqab bit is lost on me. I don’t care if it’ll make me feel warm and fuzzy like I’m back in my m0ther’s womb, I don’t want it.
Other women do for various reasons of their own. It’s hard to understand them from where I stand but you know what? They don’t need me to understand. I’ve never in my life put on a set of clothes hoping some random person I don’t know and will never know, somewhere out there in the big wide world, approves and understands my sartorial decisions. Why shouldn’t the woman who wears a niqab have the same right?
That said, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, a journalist I greatly admire even when I find myself disagreeing with her, makes a strong point when she says:
We communicate with each other with our faces. To deny that interaction is to deny our shared humanity. Unreasonable community or nationalistic expectations disconnect essential bonds. Governments should not accommodate such demands. Naturists can’t parade on the streets, go to school or take up jobs unless they cover their nakedness. Why should burqaed women get special consideration?
Why? Because there actually are women living in the West today who cover themselves not out of choice but because that is the requirement for stepping outside the house at all.
Take for instance the woman who was fined for wearing a burkha in Italy. Her husband thinks their only alternative now is for her to just stay where she’s put, where nobody else can look at her. A law meant to “help” her ended with her imprisonment.
Europe’s response to Islamic nations forcing their women to dress a particular way is to tell Muslim women living in their countries how to dress, thus isolating them even further. Well! That’ll certainly show those stupid women in Saudi Arabia and Iran and elsewhere!
Amazing, isn’t it, that the right and the left come at it from two completely different political viewpoints, but they agree on one thing: the best way to help a girl out is to tell her what to wear. Once you’ve taken away her choice in this one thing, she will magically find herself surrounded by a multitude of “correct” choices and the world will be a better place. For her and for you.
India doesn’t have this problem, of course. Shikha Dalmia thinks it’s because India has a secular ideal based in the tolerant strands of Hinduism. Maybe. I think it’s because conservative Hindus up north practice their own version of the burkha. Any Indian politician who runs around saying Muslim women need to set aside the veil runs the risk of running into hordes of pissed off Hindu men vehemently opposed to their women taking the pallu of their sarees off their face.
Astro-Eugenics is the way real Aryans do it, baby.
INDIEQUILL 