The multi-million dollar productions of Bollywood in which most of the mysteriously raised budget is expended on elaborate song and dance sequences featuring the choreographed efforts of lead actors who may well be portraying learned professors and nuclear scientists, are studiously avoided by your editor as theatre of the absurd. Nevertheless, once in a blue moon Bollywood’s cinema factory churns out a feature with a purpose. The 132-minute feature film Talvar directed by Meghna Gulzar and produced by Vishal Bhardwaj, both big names in mainstream Bollywood, is a refreshing departure from the staple fare of Indian cinema. Talvar re-investigates the famous Aarushi murder case that hit media headlines seven years ago and resulted in the conviction by a sessions court of her parents, Noida-based Dr. Rajesh and Nupur Talwar for the honour killing of their daughter and manservant Hemraj. By detailing sloppy investigation of the crime committed in the Talwars’ home and numerous acts of commission and omission of policemen who first arrived on the crime scene, the movie raises suspicion of a grave miscarriage of justice. The director does a competent job of highlighting the failure of the Delhi police to prevent the crime scene being overrun by media personnel and the public. The sub-text of the movie is the poor calibre of the police, with senior officers anxious to manipulate the evidence to suit their surmises and premature conclusions. In this connection it’s also pertinent to note that the Talwars have appealed the sessions court verdict in the Allahabad high court where at the current pace of case disposal, their appeal will be heard 25 years hence. Although Talvar doesn’t prove the Talwars’ innocence, it certainly raises enough doubts about the verdict to fast-track their appeal. Despite the director glossing over the hysteria generated by television news channels in influencing the court’s decision and condoning third degree interrogation, Talvar is an intelligent film which indicates that all is not lost in Bollywood. Debonair prescience The decision taken by the editors of the path-breaking American magazine Playboy, which was famously launched with a nude centrefold of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe in 1953, to stop publishing nude photos of women, marks the end of an era in print magazine publishing. The monthly was conceptualised by Hugh Hefner, and in typical American style Playboy mag enabled Hefner, who is still alive and kicking, to establish the Playboy empire, spanning nightclubs, garments, perfumes and holiday resorts which have earned him a personal net worth of $43 million (Rs.281 crore). Inevitably, the Playboy success story inspired clones around the world, including in this beggared socialist republic. In 1971, the first issue of Debonair was published and intermittently thereafter until the late Vinod Mehta took over as editor in 1975. Debonair which in Playboy style began publishing nude photos of foreign and indigenous women, found a ready market among repressed males in urban India where patriarchy and social mores prohibited pre-marital social — let alone sexual — interaction between young men and women. Although…
