Do we need 'heavage' queens like Poonam Pandey in the age of internet porn?

I don’t understand pornography. I’d like to believe this is because I lack a crucial ingredient required to enjoy porn – a Y chromosome – but truly, it’s because I have eyes. The human body is a wonderful thing, but let’s face it: extreme close ups don’t do justice to anyone or anything. For example, if you zoom in on Nargis Fakhri, you’ll see an emu. If you zoom in on Kajol, you’ll see a caterpillar, and if you zoom in on Shah Rukh Khan, you’ll see the “Smoking kills” disclaimer, tattooed on his forehead by the cigarette police using the tar extracted from his lungs.(“SMOKINGCAUSESCANCER!THATMUKESHGUYDIED! FOCUSONTHATGIANTFESTERINGPIMPLEONHISFACE WHICHISTOTALLYNOTFAKE!”) Porn stars, thus, hold little or no appeal to me. So when they venture into Bollywood to do “bold” roles that usually involve a lot of heaving cleavage (I’m going to call this heavage) and the public gets in a tizzy, I am left a bit flummoxed. To quote someone’s profoundly sexist American grandmother (because Indian grandmothers will never talk about sex even in a metaphorical way), why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? [caption id=“attachment_996115” align=“alignright” width=“380”]  Image: From Facebook[/caption] Judging by the box office results of Jism 2, I am obviously on the losing side of this argument because India seems to be willing to lap it up as long as Sunny Leone is willing to dish it out. Or until Kapil Sibal provides small-town India with high-speed internet… which should happen any time now, just before hell freezes over. This week, Internet’s Biggest Tease, (CODE NAME: Poonam Pandey) has starred in a movie called Nasha, where she plays Mrs Robinson to some teenage boy… let’s call him Hormone Baweja. While we shouldn’t disregard the altruism behind the thought of introducing an adolescent to the art of love making, I’d like to point out that if the USP of Nasha is Miss Pandey’s past performance, then there’s really no point watching this movie. Because Poonam Pandey isn’t a porn star; at best, she is the “Hot Indian Nymphette Wants Yaun Sambandh” pop-up ad lady on Redtube. What I admire greatly though, is how she manipulates the internet to get the attention she wants without actually showing any ladybits, which has clearly resulted in this gem of a movie. Sunny Leone is usually considered the pioneer in this genre, but that’s unfair. We, the truly dedicated surveyors of Bollywood pulp, all know that the true Heavage Queen is Mallika Sherawat. Now that she has gone on to do great things in life like Dissing India at Cannes and putting LA in her Twitter handle, Poonam must’ve been positively giddy to follow in her footsteps. Lo and behold, a nekkid back on a movie poster accompanied by promises to strip if the film is a success or if she buys new toothpaste, whichever comes first. I get it. There’s a market for erotic movies, but in an industry where women struggle every day to be more than just wallpaper, do we need more “actors” trying to make it on the basis of how much butt-crack they’re willing to show? More movies relying on titillation and controversy? More porn stars being heralded as the next big thing? So to Indian men and directors in the Bhatt/ Saxena camp I say this – there’s enough and more erotica to enjoy online. Kindly consume or create it there and let our theatres be heavage-free, so that we can focus on more unreal love stories and action-thrillers secretly written by orangutans.