Sacred Games Gets A Political Boost

Netflix couldn’t have hoped  for  a  better  boost for their premium series Scared Games  about a turbaned  Sardarji cop and a crude sociopath playing hide ‘n’ seek for 8  8-hour long episodes, than the  huge uproar  over Nawazuddin Siddiqui (who has rapidly grown typecast  playing the scummy sociopath) calling  a Rajiv Gandhi a….errrr,  “Phattu”.

 Firstly,the excuse  that the actor is  not to blame doesn’t hold water. Nawazuddin Siddiqui  should check hisdialogues before delivering them.Would he call  a politician  from the ruling regime  any kind of  unparliamentary name?

Secondly, who are  we to protest about Sacred Games when Mr Gandhi’s own son usually so vocal on all matters to do with his family,  is silent? Far  milder rebuke  in Madhur Bhandarkar’s  Indu Sarkar  had the Congress loyalists out on the streets.

​Recently​

  Arnab Goswami on  his  news channel was busy pulling  up the entire film industry for their selective outrage  against the  curbing of  freedom  of  expression. According to him the  entertainment industry should be pulled up for not defending  Nawazuddin’s right to call Rajeev Gandhi “Phattu”.

Does that make any sense?

But guess who’s is having the last laugh? The  Netflix brand has suddenly gained  exceptional  momentum in India. People are logging in   to see what  all the  fuss is about. While the  derogatory mention of the Congress leader  is just a passing utterance what really gets our attention is the series’  insouciant  faith in the language of  lascivious liberalism. There are  two lengthy sequences  of Nawazuddin having noisy sweaty anal sex, with female partners (so don’t jump to conclusions).Committed actor that he  is Nawaz  must have undertaken lengthy  bouts of  rehearsals before plunging in.

Ooof. The things one has  to do to be true to  one’s job.

 It  would be hard  for  audiences to see him play the iconic  litterateur  Sadat   Haasan Manto after watching him defile the female anatomy with such unaesthetic  brutality.

But then perhaps knowing how  sexually liberated he was,  Manto may have approved.

​I am not too sure that the explicit language ​ and graphic nudity/sex works in a free-flowing natural  manner. Filmmaker Paul Schrader is not off the mark when he  says the profanities in Sacred Games  sound like kids trying  out grownup  language. Every time Nawazuddin  or Saif  Ali Khan and even the  ladies  who  play sluts, transvestites, gangsters  and  other fornicating fringe beneficiaries tell us where they would like to put their  private parts and  what they would like to do to their  adversaries allies’ mothers and sisters  it sounds  like they are pausing the plot  to consciously  and  deliberately  shock us.

 There   is also  plenty of nudity  and not-so-sacred sex   , all designed to show  how the social  outcasts  behave in their bedrooms. Two of the actors Rajshri Despande  and Jatin  Sarna have  done nude love-making  scenes. While Rajshri goes topless (much to the  squealing delight of  the  social media) the little-seen Sarna  has done  a fully nude  shot(though admittedlly his privates  are concealed  by the lighting)  during a frenetic copulation sequence which ends with  the actor getting seriously  thrashed  by his own gang members.

Talk about getting a gang-bang.

All this would not be allowed  in Indian movie theatres. It almost seems as  if Netflix is celebrating that creative freedom  denied  by  the  censor board  to filmmakers in India.The  torrent of  abuse and  humping is like  a kid who is gifted  a big box of chocolates which he gorges  on  until he is  sick.

Sacred  Games  just doesn’t know  where to stop.