OH , The things that man has to do and can do for money and success....
Others cheat people , steal money , borrow and never return money---and still they lead respectable lives....
But when a man writes about everyone's ultimate fantasy---sex....then why does society look down upon him and treat him with contempt and condescension....why....?
He is not stealing or committing a crime or fooling anybody---then why ??
That is the question that must be haunting the writer who writes porn under the pseudonym ' mastraam ' when he is finally caught....
But till then , he is earning real money and having a happy time entertaining everybody by writing novels that fulfill our dreams and fantasies---of pleasure , of physical intimacy , of bodies burning with desire and ultimately fulfilling it....
However it has not been always so in his life.....
Actually he is the young man who begins his career as a person who wants to write real literature , and who is so respectable and shy that he is afraid to touch his wife on the first night after his wedding....
But no one is ready to publish his literature , and he is threatened to be kicked out of his job....
Yeah , the setting is the 1970s in north India and jobs are hard to come by in the stagnant economy of those times....
Yet a man with a growing family has to earn money to take care of his dependents....
And when such a man discovers his hidden talents of writing uninhibited stuff that tickles our pleasurable senses , and further discovers that he can mint real moolah by doing so---then can he be stopped ; can he stop himself ?? Naaaah....
The movie's finest moments are when the hero thinks about the people around him , especially the women---and lets his imagination run riot...just plain riot....
....And do I even have to tell you that the riot that runs in his mind is of the sensuous kind.....
....A riot of the mind that strokes flames in our bodies when he puts his imagination in writing on paper....
.....Papers that when published in the form of novels will be read by people in the thousands , though they will be read in secret....
Yeah , they will be read in secret because in a society full of hypocrisy it is sin to talk or read openly about sex....
But they will be read---by students using torchlight in darkened hostel rooms , in bedrooms away form the prying eyes of family by older people , and by anyone and everyone having ' feelings ' of some sort....
But we are the lucky ones....!!
Because not only we get to know what the hero writes , but we get to see it on celluloid as he imagines it in his mind before writing it....
And what we get to see on celluloid is not just imagination---it's lovemaking shot aesthetically without real vulgarity and nudity but lovemaking nevertheless , of bodies stroking kissing massaging pleasuring each other....
Society's hypocrisy was all around us in the theater too , for the audience was laughing and sniggering derisively at the sensuous scenes....
But even the audience was stunned into silence in one scene---when the hero sees his own wife and his friend talking to each other and begins to imagine them making love ; and we have to see his wife in action with another man as he again lets his imagination run riot....
....Riot that powers our adrenals and vitals.....
Is imagining one's own wife with another man acceptable while writing a novel or has the hero crossed the red line ??
Watch the film before deciding that....
For I found it to be a different and interesting outing well worth a watch....
Verdict---Not great but decent enough .
Others cheat people , steal money , borrow and never return money---and still they lead respectable lives....
But when a man writes about everyone's ultimate fantasy---sex....then why does society look down upon him and treat him with contempt and condescension....why....?
He is not stealing or committing a crime or fooling anybody---then why ??
That is the question that must be haunting the writer who writes porn under the pseudonym ' mastraam ' when he is finally caught....
But till then , he is earning real money and having a happy time entertaining everybody by writing novels that fulfill our dreams and fantasies---of pleasure , of physical intimacy , of bodies burning with desire and ultimately fulfilling it....
However it has not been always so in his life.....
Actually he is the young man who begins his career as a person who wants to write real literature , and who is so respectable and shy that he is afraid to touch his wife on the first night after his wedding....
But no one is ready to publish his literature , and he is threatened to be kicked out of his job....
Yeah , the setting is the 1970s in north India and jobs are hard to come by in the stagnant economy of those times....
Yet a man with a growing family has to earn money to take care of his dependents....
And when such a man discovers his hidden talents of writing uninhibited stuff that tickles our pleasurable senses , and further discovers that he can mint real moolah by doing so---then can he be stopped ; can he stop himself ?? Naaaah....
The movie's finest moments are when the hero thinks about the people around him , especially the women---and lets his imagination run riot...just plain riot....
....And do I even have to tell you that the riot that runs in his mind is of the sensuous kind.....
....A riot of the mind that strokes flames in our bodies when he puts his imagination in writing on paper....
.....Papers that when published in the form of novels will be read by people in the thousands , though they will be read in secret....
Yeah , they will be read in secret because in a society full of hypocrisy it is sin to talk or read openly about sex....
But they will be read---by students using torchlight in darkened hostel rooms , in bedrooms away form the prying eyes of family by older people , and by anyone and everyone having ' feelings ' of some sort....
But we are the lucky ones....!!
Because not only we get to know what the hero writes , but we get to see it on celluloid as he imagines it in his mind before writing it....
And what we get to see on celluloid is not just imagination---it's lovemaking shot aesthetically without real vulgarity and nudity but lovemaking nevertheless , of bodies stroking kissing massaging pleasuring each other....
Society's hypocrisy was all around us in the theater too , for the audience was laughing and sniggering derisively at the sensuous scenes....
But even the audience was stunned into silence in one scene---when the hero sees his own wife and his friend talking to each other and begins to imagine them making love ; and we have to see his wife in action with another man as he again lets his imagination run riot....
....Riot that powers our adrenals and vitals.....
Is imagining one's own wife with another man acceptable while writing a novel or has the hero crossed the red line ??
Watch the film before deciding that....
For I found it to be a different and interesting outing well worth a watch....
Verdict---Not great but decent enough .
