Censor Board asks Saif's team to delete expletives and the word 'naked' from Happy Ending

18 Nov 2014

It's a happy ending for Saif Ali Khan's production Happy Ending at the censors. The film sailed past the Central Board Of Film Certification (CBFC) with a 'UA' certificate.

But with some bizarre deletions. Saif Ali Khan who plays a writer with roving eyes won't be able to say the word 'naked'.

Says a source, "There is a dialogue where Saif says, 'I love naked girls in my bedroom'.

The word 'naked' has been ordered muted by the censor board. "Since when is naked a dirty word?" asks the bewildered source.

'Naked' may not be a dirty word. But the explicit expletives 'a.shole' and 'f..kers' are definitely a no-show in a film open to kids accompanied by adults.

Says the source, "The word 'hole' has been muted and in the word 'fu.kers' the 'u' sound has to be very clearly replaced by the 'o' sound. Which is to say that we should clearly hear the character on screen say 'fockers'." Raj Nidimoru the co-director of Happy Ending says he is baffled rather than amused by some of the censorial alteration. "I don't understand the system where the word 'naked' is considered wrong. How else do we describe the condition of being naked? Maybe there should be a glossary sponsored by the censor board for what words to use and not to use. Maybe we should also have a glossary of the banned words explaining why we can't use them. That would certainly help us filmmakers to understand the dynamics of a system we are part of without understanding it." Equally baffling is the cuts ordered in a sequence where Saif and his co-star Ileana D'Cruz play strip poker.

Says Raj Nidimoru, "I didn't understand why that sequence needed cuts. Ileana is wearing layers and layers of clothes. It's not as if she gets....that awful taboo word...naked." Incidentally, Zeenat Aman had played strip poker 37 years ago in a film called Aashiq Hoon Baharon Ka and stripped down to her lingerie.