India gets Naughty

The signs are everywhere. On a recent Friday night at a new gastropub in Bangalore,Shirley Joseph,a 27-year-old online content editor,wore a T-shirt with the slogan: “Writers do it literally,” in a Warhol-esque four-colour pattern with the words “do it” sequinned in bright red,in case you missed the innuendo. “This one is rather mild,” she says,adding: “It’s not that sex is on my mind if I wear this T-shirt. It’s about not being afraid to joke about sex,nothing more.” Harish Iyer,a popular social media figure and creative group head of events at a Mumbai company,calls this verbal foreplay. “As a society,we have become more vocal about sex. A T-shirt with a sexual slogan will not only make you stand out in a crowd,it is also a conversation starter,” he says. Iyer’s irreverent sense of humour is a hit on social networks and his “I love boys” badge — he is openly gay — no longer raises eyebrows at work.

There is no denying that Indian kitsch is going kinky. Cheapsex Boxers,a Faridabad-based design company founded by fashion graduate Brijesh Dahiya and his chaddi-buddy,former computer engineer Kuldeep Singh,make a living out of styling and printing slatternly slogans in Hindi and English on its garments. “The nature of the garment made it possible to play with sexual humour and kinky motifs,” says Dahiya,26,who previously designed graphics for Allen Solly. Cheapsex boxers have fun with profanity and Kama Sutra positions and impose salacious meanings on Eveready batteries and the Big Bang. They are so popular that online stores often have to wait a full three months for stocks. “We wanted to make a statement. And sex offered both shock value and comic relief,” says Dahiya,who is particular about tasteful rendition of the graphics. The brand sells 500-600 boxers a month and retails at about 20 stores across India,but online sales account for the biggest chunk.

India may not be ready for brazen humour on its shop shelves and the sense of acceptance that a window display would bring,but it’s certainly loosening up. A major portion of Cheapsex’s customers are men in their 30s,by which time they presumably lead independent lives away from the chastening influence of their parents. “As initiates in a globalised world,there is no coyness in the young generation about sex,at least not in their minds. But there is a duality when it comes to expressing it — with people their own age,they can talk about sex relatively freely,but with parents and the older generation,sex is a strict no-no,” says Sheena Ahluwalia,a sociologist who studies sexuality in Indian pop culture. Ahluwalia lives in New York and is an observer of “the wave of sexual libertarianism” that is sweeping urban India. “Jokes and light-hearted banter about sex are the youth’s way of resolving this dichotomy,” she says.

Ask 16-year-old Shyam Saluja*,who does not bat an eyelid ordering a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “I saw,I conquered,I came” from an online portal. “It’s just a bunch of funny words to me,” says the Pune-based teen. He hopes his mother will overlook the innuendo,and that his friends will not. For these uncomfortable situations,Blue Bus Tees,an online T-shirt store,has a neat solution: designs are divided into two categories,Parents Approved and Parents Not Approved.

Sometimes,a naughty name is all it takes. Dirty Laundry,a New Delhi-based label that sells boxers for men and women printed with interesting,but innocuous,graphics,is one such brand riding the double entendre. Ediots,a Nagpur-based T-shirt company that designs funny,sometimes explicit,Hinglish tees,has a sister company,My Lilliput Army,that makes lifestyle products out of rubber and wood. One of its products,a limited-edition international design award winner,is called Mr Strip Tease,a kitchen tissue roll dispenser in the shape of a stick-man. “The design was inspired by Draupadi’s cheer-haran and the name is deliberate — together they infuse an element of fun in what could otherwise be a boring kitchen object,” says Paul Sandip,who designed the lilliputian army of “helpers” that can prop up dishes and paper napkins and hold toothpicks,all with suggestive names and imagery.

Parties in the metros are dotted with such non-verbal sexual innuendos. Pubs and bars take this fascination with double entendre to another level by giving their drinks colourful names that are bound to raise eyebrows. The Hidden Place in Koregaon Park,Pune,is always packed with college-going beer guzzlers and young professionals. On the menu are drinks that go by the names Absolut Abortion,Just for Kinks,Naked Martini,and Safe Sex on the Beach. Sid Khullar of the popular food blog http://www.chefatlarge.in says cocktails with smutty names are a gimmick aimed at attracting the diner’s attention. “Establishments have to try harder to attract customers,who in turn are part of a world full of sexual content,” he says.

Sanjay Srivastava,a professor of sociology at the Institute of Economic Growth,Delhi,says consumers are increasingly spending on non-essential lifestyle products,and sex-themed merchandise is an easy fit into this scheme of things. “To be able to speak publicly about one’s private life is now considered a sign of modernity and women,at least in the cities,are the ones who are taking it forward,” he says.

“Women want to feel naughty too,but in a safe way,” says Roopali Trivedi,a 28-year-old Hyderabad-based graphic designer who admits to buying glow-in-the-dark lingerie from an online lingerie shop. “It was expensive and a bad fit but it seemed like fun,” she says. Trivedi is working on a line of adult unisex canvas bags that will channel Chandler Bing and Barney Stinson for dating humour. The label will be called,aptly enough,“Pick Me Up”. “Bags will be priced at Rs 899 and will have zippers that open to reveal lacy underwear-like pouches,” says Trivedi. “It won’t be over the top. No pun intended,” she jokes.

Where it can go over the top is at private parties. Six months ago,when Delhi-based founder of online gifting portal http://www.asap.co.in Ruchi Chopra,was planning her wedding,a bachelorette party was organised to celebrate the last days of being single. This was no hush-hush affair: it was held at Chopra’s residence and the 28-year-old has since organised several such parties for clients. “The girls usually wear hotpants or bikinis and we even have a naughty sack for the bride-to be,filled with edible lingerie,a whip and other sexual paraphernalia,” Chopra says. “Edible lingerie is surprisingly popular among young men and women,” says a Bangalore-based baker,who made a range of such party nibbles for a naughty-Santa Christmas party in Mangalore last year.

All these,however,are niche products,points out Shamik Sen Gupta,senior creative director at Ogilvy & Mather,Bangalore,an advertising agency. “Much of the mainstream market is still conservative and sexual innuendoes don’t necessarily work with older consumers,in products or in advertisements,” he says.

Indian advertisements,as opposed to films,have been toying with sexuality for some time now,with only the rare underwear campaign going overboard. What has happened,however,is that television and the internet have unleashed a flood of unpalatable sexual humour,says ad guru Prahlad Kakkar,blaming “crass and cheesy” reality shows in particular. “Now you have porn stars in your living room and sleaze on prime time television,” he says.

On the big screen,what was restricted to “B-grade” sleaze and a handful of arthouse films,has now started percolating into the mainstream. With the young urban audience warming up to viewing sex as a part of their lives,sex isn’t taboo in Bollywood any more. Or is it cinema that has conditioned them? Director Sajid Khan,whose films Heyy Babby and Housefull are replete with sexual innuendos of the slapstick kind,is tongue-in-cheek when he says,“I make films for the family.”

“It’s that age-old debate of whether art influences life or the other way round,” says Akshat Varma,who wrote last year’s game-changing film Delhi Belly. The Aamir Khan-produced film pitched itself as India’s equivalent of American Pie,brought cunnilingus to mainstream Bollywood and earned both money and the respect of the critics. According to Varma,the film’s milieu wasn’t unknown at all. “I started writing Delhi Belly in the mid-1990s; sex was always there,just that we were hypocritical about it. The point is,we are a highly connected nation and restless,young people have opened up to foreign influences much more,” he says.

While Delhi Belly played mostly to the young,urban audience,Vicky Donor successfully broke the age barrier. “People didn’t see it as an adult movie. It was not vulgar or overtly provocative. We sold sperm the way we would sell cola or chocolate,” says director Shoojit Sircar. He admits,however,that it would have been difficult to get away with a U/A certificate five years ago.

Anurag Kashyap’s films have unabashedly embraced sexuality,and his latest one,Gangs of Wasseypur,is centred around a sex-obsessed mafia lord (played by Manoj Bajpai). Kashyap feels internet has brought the change. “People are talking about it more. There was a barrier of morality before,but now,people don’t feel judged or they just don’t care any more. They feel empowered and they know they are not alone,” he says.

From onscreen analogies of two flowers meeting to agony aunt columns to Savita Bhabhi comic strips,we have come a long way. But is sexual humour destined to be the illicit succour of youth suffering a quarter-life crisis? “You’d be surprised at the sort of cakes corporate executives my age order,” says the 43-year-old Bangalore baker on condition of anonymity. “I bake them for the secret pleasure of it — that,and the fit of laughter when I have to explain a dislodged body part.”

* Some names have been changed on request.