Hands up, Pants Down

Yo

I am a little bit confused by the recent expose by India TV regarding Shakti Kapoor et al. The phenomenon of casting couch is a open secret. However wrong it may be morally and socially one wonders if it is an offense as such. What I am trying to gather is if it is illegal at all,whether there exists an law that deems it an offense or a crime punishable in court. Reduced to simple terms it means two adult indivisuals consensually engaging in sexual activity. The practice is condonable and exploitatative no doubt and the few bad men (and women!) who engage in such behavior, I hope are only a very small minority of Bollywood, Indias glorious film industry.

What I was most bothered about is the manner of the expose.It appears to be a publicity stunt, designed more to garner TRPs rather than to expose the malaise afflicting Bollywood.

Consider the facts. The sting reporter visits SK .One wonders her choice of SK in the first place. He is neither a director/producer/leading actor and is infact a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to social behavior. (For this piece of info I have to say thanks to newspapers who dug up all the dirt on his past behavior like in S.A.) She visits him not in a office but in a hotel room of all places. She offers him drinks, gets him to loosened up a little and then asks him for a role. She offers herself *to do whatever is required to get a role*. Now it doesnt take an Einstein to guess what she is referring to. Unknown to SK he is being videotaped in his private hotel room. After such suggestive actions if at all SK responded to her, I would interpret it as SK being immoral person rather than one demanding sex in return for a place in Bollywood. Note that SK isint soliciting sex in the first place. And even if he were the sting would have only proved SK to be engaged in inappropritae behavior. It would not have been sufficient evidence of *Existence if casting couch in Bollywood*. If that is the channels objective, as they state it is, than they should have carried out many more sting operations for such a generalisation to be made.

My point here is that it is not whether the Casting couch exists or doesnt. The point of contention and dispute is that if India TVs aim was to expose this phenomenon than doing a sting operation on side actor, not reputed for his behavior, wasnt the way to go about it.It is in this context that the sting appears less of an expose and more of an exploit.To me it appears to be an attempt at sensationalism rather than journalism. Notice how the names of top-actors liek Ash, Preity Zinta and Rani Mukherjee are woven into the operation. Again this name dropping appears to be an publicity stunt.

Sting operations will always border on the thin line between ethical and unethical. When they adrress relevant social issues, pose hard questions of national importance and expose some deep rooted malaise within a society they are acceptable. India TVs expose hardly addresses any of the above. Rather all it did was to send the TRPs of the Fledging channel northwards and gather the channel enough publicity.