The Censor Board seems to have a problem with Neil Nitin Mukesh's nude scene in Madhur Bhandarkar's film, Jail. The TV promos had to be called off air, despite the pixelated image of the undertrial encountering the harsh reality of the Indian prison system. So, what's really new? Isn't this embarrassed hai-hai something we've heard so many times from the government and sundry thought-policing agencies, whenever there is a teeny-weeny body show on television, films or advertisements. Without going into the aesthetics of the image or bothering to check the maturity of the Indian viewer, these self-imposed moral guardians brand sex and nudity as 'bawdy' . Wonder how they haven't spiked John Abraham's all-nude fetal shot that has already hit the TV in the promos of his upcoming film, New York. Small mercies, perhaps.

It's high time India's Censor Board grew up. And it's high time nudity and sex is no longer an iffy affair in Indian cinema. Ironically, sex and erotica have been an intrinsic part of Indian cinema since its inception. The first kiss on the Indian screen can be traced back to the 1930s when director Himansu Rai had the camera pan lovingly on its actors, Sita Devi and Charu Roy, as they sought the most natural expression of love in A Throw of Dice. The kisses exchanged between Devika Rani and Himansu Rai in films like Light of Asia and Karma have become an integral part of film aesthetics. It was the rising tide of nationalism which banished the kiss from the big screen by dubbing it as another `unpatriotic' act. It was only after two decades that the kiss could resurface in Indian cinema in Raj Kapoor's Satyam Shivam Sundaram. Thankfully, the kiss seems to have found its rightful place in Bollywood today.

But nudity still remains a big no-no in desi cinema. This despite the fact that the GD Khosla Committee, which was set up way back in 1975 to review the functioning of the Censor Board and suggest a more progressive application of the Cinematograph Act of 1952, stated: "If in telling the story, it is logical, relevant or necessary to depict a passionate kiss or a nude woman, there should be no question of excluding the shot.''

Needless to say, all traditional arguments in favour of 'no nudity - and sex - please, we're Indians' fall flat on their face in view of India's rich literary heritage which boasts of texts like Sudraka's Mrchhakatikam, Vatsyayana's Kamasutra and erotic poetry in Sanskrit. It was Raj Kapoor who first highlighted the dilemma of the Indian filmmaker, suffocated in this creative bind which was peculiar to Indian cinema. Being hauled up by the Censor Board for the depiction of the female breast in Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Kapoor had lamented: "what's immoral in showing a beautiful girl…If a Fellini shows a woman in the nude, it is considered art. If I show off a woman's beauty, it is called exploitation!''