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The word or the image?
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Are we creating too much of a furore over art and religion?
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CROSS CULTURAL the movie that has sparked off many a debate
As a bunch of sloganeering vandals ransacked a cinema hall and terrorised theatre audience, across the city, the book on which it is based is selling like hot cakes.
Clutching an almost new copy of the Dan Brown's book, is Rakesh (not his real name) who has bunked his office's TGIF programme to reach Prasads for the 3.15 p.m. show.
At 3.30 p.m. he looks morose scanning the pavement and the police wallahs who have come in late like the readers of Phantom. "I cannot believe this is happening here. How is anybody affected by someone else watching a movie?" he asks.
As the hooligans ran riot, one more social more crumbled. A few kilometers from the cinema hall are a clutch of bookshops chock-a-block well stocked with erotica. The range includes the kinky to the straight to the tantra to the medical to the illustrated. And the Hyderabadi is picking them up by the dozen to read it at leisure.
At hand are the words of Alex Comfort, Vatsayana, Penthouse diaries and then there are the guide books that can send the blood coursing to the ears. "These books are selling well that's why we have such big inventory," says a shophand in Somajiguda.
So is the word being held in less awe than the image? Why are we no longer bothered about books that titillate but anything to do with religion raises our hackles?
And who is buying these books? Not the IT folks for sure, "We have access to so much more than what these few textbook types contain," says Ravi Rao who works for one of the biggest enterprise solutions company in the world.
But the florid prose, the-leave-nothing-to-imagination images, and the easy access (all you need is a greeting card, says a regular) are turning these books into hot favourites of the not-logged on generation.
"We never had access to such books. The biggest draw was the Victorian-era Pearl I read during graduation. Now I can walk in and buy what I want," says Sridhar who works as an accountant in a bank.
SERISH NANISETTI
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