Mayank Shekhar: The Harvey Weinsteins of Bollywood

Honestly Id never rat on loud neighbours having a great time even if it were at the cost of sleep Knocking at a door to bust a party is just an ultradouche thing to do And so its only with minor envy and slight admiration that I waited until morning to find out who exactly had checkedin to the hotel room next to mine and instantly transformed it into a Playboy Mansion of sorts with a huge gaggle of girls giggling through the night as Im presuming booze flowedAs many as 43 women have accused Weinstein of sexual harassment PicAFPThe gentleman the hotel staff told me was a famous filmmaker although a fairly old man by now I was quite impressed That filmmaker and I were participating in the same film festival at the afterparty of which I was on the table with him with a strikingly beautiful European actress seated between usA drunken guy once abruptly walked in to express his love for the European blonde She fobbed him off fine At some point she asked me about the filmmaker instead Is he a Mafia don No why Well he just clenched his fist said hell kill that guy whod interrupted their conversation I laughed Maybe thats his way of expressing machismoI didnt tell her that the said gent was possibly a sexual predator with an infamous kingsize castingbed in the outskirts of the city which has served as the rite of passage for any woman landing a major part in his movies for years Its an open secret I realised his lecherous ways when I bumped into him as a college intern once taking sound bytes with a female friend He spoke to me with his eyes wholly fixed on my friends breasts It appeared shocking that someones reputation succeeds them even at the lobby of a shoppingmallPeople often diagnose this condition as sexual addiction what producer Harvey Weinstein admitted himself for after allegations of serial sexual harassment and molestation committed over decades broke like a dam on him one fine morning Psychologists by the way are wholly divided on whether there is an ailment called sexual addiction at all for anyone to be cured of it Humans are capably in control of their sexual impulses regardless Perhaps the disorder is external It seems a power trip has something to do with itOver a period of time I had a couple of female actors complain to me privately about the said filmmakers advances and how theyd warded them off only to be left out of his films eventually Why had they never gone public with it Its hard to sayOr maybe even harder to do in a largely unorganised industry of freelancers where for the most part a company is formed for a year or two around the production of a particular film And then like seasonal farmers the same lot cast crew disperses to organise itself behind various other productions Wheres then even a scope of an internal sexual harassment committee or a senior to confide in when authority is essentially centralised around the alleged harasser or the producerdirector himselfAnd so its easy to hear about such serial offenders in Bollywood Many of them have even been brazen about their supposed sexual exploits Ram Gopal Varma for instance whether in jest or not has spoken about how he prefers to get his carnal urges out of the way when hes with an attractive woman an actor most likely just so they can talk about work without any distractions thereafterI distinctly remember the oldtime filmmaker Saawan Kumar Tak almost justifying castingcouch on a TV discussion as the inevitably organic relationship between the artiste and his creationmuseDoes showbiz get a higher share of sexual fiends than other professions Not sure It does lend itself more naturally to public gossip since people involved are known And as much as we love glitz which appears too good to be true our ears perk up at the thought of sleaze behind the stardom There ought to be that disgusting dark side to such a beautiful moonWhich by the way has only been shrinking in Bollywood given that auditions are more of a norm than an exception Several studios are organised enough to have an HR department to begin with Casting is a legitimate business Sleazoids are generally wary Those who arent everybody usually knows about them I feel its a matter of time before they get waryMost of the aspiring female actors Ive met pretty much all of them educated confident selfaware affluent and ambitious tell me if they plan on sleeping with someone for a part or otherwise itd entirely be their choice Theyre happy to exercise it if push comes to shoveWell it is their choice Consent is king Now if you consent to concessions once can you always go back on it And isnt this an unfair transaction to begin with Well thats another matterUnsurprisingly the only proper sexscandal type story Ive ever covered was the rape allegation against director Madhur Bhandarkar Having spoken extensively with the starlet and the accused then my feeble conclusion although contestable was that the girl had been with the guy forever He just didnt offer her a role If anything thats the opposite of a casting couchMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom