Music to the ears...

Reading this first thing in the morning completely cheered me up. This was music to the ears - absolutely! I was particularly impressed with what the Judge had to say in this case.

The government of AP had banned the movie (without even having watched it) contending that the movie would hurt the religious sentiments. This, despite the movie having been given a clear go-ahead by the Censor Board and the Central government. To this, Justice Raghu Ram said, "The Constitution does not confer or tolerate such individualised hyper-sensitive private censor intrusion into and regulation of guaranteed freedom of others." An absolutely mature take on private censorship, if you ask me.

I have never understood why the government or any other body/committee feels it is incumbent on them to pass a judgement on what is moral and what isn't, or what is right or what isn't. Why does such a committee believe people who are by law "mature" enough to decide who can or cannot run this country cannot make a prudent decision on what to watch/read and be influenced by? As the judge rightly pointed out, "Those who purchased tickets to see the film made a conscious decision, and the state had no role to stop the screening". And finally this - a fitting response to what he described as the government's "wholly negligent and an irresponsible exercise of executive power", "Freedom of speech and expression contributes to the richness and equilibrium of human existence". Very well said!

I am not sure if I will watch this movie - I wasn't particularly impressed by the book, though it was a good read for a long train journey. But I do believe that the controversy surrounding the book (and the movie) was absolutely uncalled for and just contributed much more to the hype that was eventually built around both. Left alone, the book would have remained a bestseller for some time and then forgotten, and the movie - one people would have probably appreciated but not necessarily cherished.