Dear KJO, Not Everyone Is Comfortable Discussing Their Sex Lives

In episode  after episode of  the  otherwise-enjoyable  Koffee With Karan we  can feel the host’s ineluctable desire to enter his celebrity guests’ bedrooms for a  peep into their sexual activities. Which  is  not such a  bad thing if you are interviewing Paris Hilton , Rakhi Sawant  or Mika Singh.

But it can get a bit iffy when the guests are two normal healthy young  conservative heterosexual actors not used to kissing and telling, and maybe not  even used to kissing in public.

The up and coming(giggle giggle) Ayushmann Khurrana and Vicky Kaushal(billed in order of seniority) were Karan Johar’s guests this week.While Kaushal made it clear he wasn’t comfortable answering ‘those’ kinds  of  questions  by not even admitting to  dating a particular girl(whom we know he’s dating), Ayushmann decided to take the innuendo route.

He spoke about how during his  courtship days in  Chandigarh  he sneaked   into his wife(then girlfriend)’s house when her father was away.

“Were you in the bedroom with her?” leered  our host.

Here  is where Khurrana Saab got uncomfortable.

Last week when the affable Diljit Dosanjh  showed up with Badshah on the show , Dosanjh was asked if he had  ever “made out” in the fields  in a car.

“Yeh bada khatarnaak sawaal hai,’ Diljit replied smartly.  The truth is, Diljit didn’t even know what KJO meant. All  he knew was that  the  question was sexual  in tone. He later asked his friends  and understood how sexual.

No wonder a friend  of  Diljit’s said to me, “I think Karan Saab got the wrong  person on the show with Badshah. I think he was  looking for Mika. He would have happily answered all the questions where he made out and in what  positions.”

The  truth is, Indian men even  the ones who are  high-profile do not  discuss their own sex lives in  public. When  the ultra-conservative Kapil Sharma  had come on  Koffee With Karan , the host tried to  grill him about his girlfriend, sex , etc. Kapil  very firmly dodged the  questions with a  smile.

Later Kapil told me, “Karan Saab ke andar ek sharaarati bachha baitha hai jo iss show pe lapak ke baahar aa jata hai. He  doesn’t mean any harm.”

No , he doesn’t. But talking  sex is not everyone’s cup of coffee. They grin and bear with the intrusive questions  only because of who he is.

In a way that’s a misuse of one’s power, though not in any deliberately  damaging way.