I sense a Censor

Censorship: It tends to get irritating very, very quickly.

Indian censors really take the cake - they replace "hell" with "heck" in the subtitles. Which works in most movies, but not something like "Bedazzled".

"Paragraph one states that I, the Devil, a not-for-profit cooperation, with offices in Purgatory, heck, and Los Angeles, will give you seven wishes to use as you see fit"

What the heck ?

Not only do they get stuff wrong all the time (it really is quite obvious that the people writing the subtitles have no knowledge of English), but I mean seriously ! Censoring SUBTITLES ?!! (and mixing up "lichen" and "lycan" )

They're been cutting out crucial scenes from movies for a long time (anything "too gory" or "showing too much skin") - but allowing shows like Splitsvilla to continue - which do you think is worse for our innocent, naive little minds ?

And you know what ? This is helping increase piracy. I watched this movie a couple of months ago - and I liked it, but it seemed that some scenes were cut off (there was an obvious break in continuity), so I went and bought a DVD. Guess what - that was censored too.

So I ended up having to download the bloody thing, just to watch the whole movie. Which I PAID for. And it wasn't a sex scene. It wasn't very gory (I've seen stuff a lot worse on TV). And it certainly should not have been censored.

So just for the heck of it, I decided to find out how many people ended up downloading/ buying from pirates even after they had bought the DVDs, or had decided not to buy originals because they would be incomplete.

I asked 16 of my friends - here are the results :

2 - usually buy

3 - always download because its cheaper, and easier to get.

11 - download pirated stuff because its better.

And guess why its better ? 

1. They're compressed to 700MB or so (not everyone wants to get a hi-def - they'd rather watch the movie first, see if they like it, and then maybe get a better resolution)
2. They're out first - movies are often released much, much later in India, so people who really, really, want to watch, people who can and will pay, people who are anxious for the film - will download a hall cam record.
3. They are complete ( Indian censors substituted "courtesan" for "whore" throughout the movie Original Sin - which is pretty funny, especially in places like "you liar ! Thief ! Courtesan !" )

But that's all right. We don't need FTV to spoil our minds. Or bad language (most parents would be quite.. surprised to know how many swearwords their children are aware of). Or words like "hell".

May you burn in heck.