Filmmakers needn’t lose hope if director Shonali Bose’s recent experience with the Central Board Of Film Certification (CBFC) is anything to go by.
Her starkly real film Margarita With A Straw had been recommended several cuts by the CBFC’s Examining Committee. However, the Board’s Revising Committee asked only for one. And that means the love-making between the two female protagonists played by Kalki Koechlin and Sayani Gupta, is now intact.
Shonali sounded happy, but said guardedly, “I was devastated when the EC recommended drastic cuts. No way was I going to allow my film to be mutilated. So my first reaction was to celebrate when my film was passed by the Revising Committee(RC) with only one cut. But after a few hours I began to wonder what the hell I was celebrating. It is my film and they were threatening to cut it. Was I feeling grateful just because they made one cut? It’s like a battered wife feeling grateful that her husband has given her only one slap”.
Shonali would have fought for that one cut too had it affected her film. “But it doesn’t really effect my narrative. It’s a scene of heterosexual lovemaking. They only wanted me to cut when the couple was to reach absolute climax. I agreed. It didn’t take anything much away from my film”.
What Shonali is jubilant about is that the crucial lesbian love-making scene remains. “There was no way I was going to let even a single moment of that go. When the EC wanted that sequence reduced, I was shocked. How can they tell me that the crux of my film is invalid? But thankfully, they’ve allowed me the freedom to have my say. In a country where homosexuality is still illegal, it is no small victory to allow two women to make love in a film.”
When reminded of Deepa Mehta’s Fire which had lesbian love-making scenes, Shonali laughs, “Oh that was nothing compared with what we’ve shown.”
Shonali says, “I am enormously relieved that Margarita With A Straw has been certified without cuts. My biggest moment of triumph was to see members of the censor board, all above the age of 45, admitting to being moved by the film. Even when the EC wanted monstrous cuts, some of the women members of the Board told me they were very moved. But they had guidelines of dos and don’ts to follow, so why don’t I approach the RC?That was the biggest triumph for my film.”
