Police crack down on porn pushers
Police have launched a nationwide crackdown on pornographic films after receiving protests from women's groups and social workers.
The groups claimed Indian porn was flooding underground markets in the country and was also being sold in other parts of Asia.
The films come mainly from the southern states of Kerala and Karnataka.
'You can't really call them blue movies,' Ajay Sharma, a Dubai resident, said. 'The colour is soft blue.' He said Indian soft-porn video cassettes were easily available in the specialist markets of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
'The movies are especially popular with Indian expatriates in the Gulf,' Mr Sharma said.
'It gives them a taste, however twisted, of home.' With deft editing well-known Indian movie stars can be made to appear as if they are participating in a cheap soft-porn venture.
Scenes from mainstream Hindi films, say of a couple embracing on a moonlit beach, are juxtaposed with steamy shots of two nude bodies writhing on a bed.
Viewers believe their favourite stars are baring everything for the camera.
'The illusion is everything,' Mr Sharma said. 'It's more important than reality.
'This is body doubling of the weirdest kind.' The films are low-budget efforts using one camera and shot in cheap hotel rooms. The nameless actors and actresses are either gullible newcomers or local prostitutes.
Video parlours throughout India stock pornography under the counter for private viewing. Makeshift theatres screen the films for sizeable, mostly male, audiences.
'It is a thriving nationwide business,' a Bombay-based film publicist said. 'It will continue as long as there is demand and there will always be demand.' India's prudish Censor Board takes great pains not to pass films with scenes it considers objectionable. But the same scenes are often inserted into films by theatre owners.
Unscrupulous theatre owners also advertise sex in films which do not contain such scenes.
Some billboards for Schindler's List showed a half-naked couple lounging on a bed, smoking.