Casting Couch- A Reality

 

Many skeletons are tumbling down from the cupboard of the Bollywood after’ Raveena Tandon’ gave an interview to 'Pinkvilla' saying” She did not get the roles in the films to perform as she did not permit the actors of prominence to sleep with her.

Is this a serious charge? The answer is simple No, because the murky world of Bollywood is not alien to the unscrupulous gears. The offence of sexual favours to get jobs, promotion and to hold on these jobs is archaic.

I know for sure, how the corporate world works where the sycophancy and seeking sexual favours is rampant. The corrupt corporate world is a prig behaving differently and acting differently, a debauchee of the worst kind enjoying beautiful skin. It is being said “you scratch my back and I will scratch yours is a precondition of annual appraisals and promotions. The one who succumbs to this moral extortion reaches the zenith, while talent gets lost to the corrupt practices. The other category uses adulation and sycophancy who are bereft of the first trait to avail the same benefits as the first category.  The one who works honestly and couldn't care less about the corrupt practices are insulted and shunted out. I would write a separate blog on corporate corruption as we are focussing today on the casting couch of Bollywood.

There are many actresses who opened up after the global outrage on the sexual exploitation and the subsequent supportive action to express the views by # MeTooMovement and #Time’sUP by Tarana Burke and Hollywood celebrities in response to the Weinstein effect accordingly.

Here in India there were many actresses who opened up after seeing their global counterparts discussing the scourge and menace of violating the modesty of women. Here in India due to social stigma and cultural beliefs, many women tend to remain quiet as it brings lot of disrepute to disregard them socially. Forget about women, men too were exploited to seek sexual favours in response to the reciprocation of the work to be assigned to them.  The Women who dare to speak about the sexual harassment are often confronted with either the loss of job and experience the wrath of the society in general as “Sluts” or a “Hustlers” casting aspersions on the men for the lack of work. This might be true in some cases, but it is not the case always.  But it is being said that ‘patience has its limits’ women are coming up open to discuss the brutality of this male dominant society.

Following are only some of the actresses and the known faces of other fields who openly talked about this prevalent issue

•      Kangana Ranaut
•     Malika Sherawat
•    Renuka Chaudhary
•   Payal Rohtagi
•   Usha Jhaddav
•    Sherlyn Chopra
•    Yashika Aannand.
•     Priyanka Bose
•     Tanushree Dutta.
•     Vinita Nanda
•     Saloni Chopra
•     Joanna Lobbo        
•   Priya Rammani 
•   Kalki Koechlin

Quoting Abhiji Naskar  “Philanderers and swingers can see nothing beyond the needs of their genitals. Sexual craving is a part of our biology, but it is not who we are.” Therefore the pervert nature has not spared their male counterparts too.

 

The men who faced casting couch in Bollywood are as follows

·         Ayushman Khurrana

·         Ranveer Singh

·         Shakti Kapoor

·         Ashish Bist

·         Priyanshu Chatterjee

·         Aftab Shivdasani

Having said, the good, bad and ugly is the ultimate reality of today’s world. Finally quoting Judith Lewis from his book “Trauma and Recovery” “In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.” This is what all the fraudsters and criminal offenders do who assume the power to make an ouster for those who are not akin and fall in the same category.