Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Radio in Chennai

This places seems to be very famous with spammers :-( Anyways, I have been listening to the radio for the last 2months in Chennai. Chennai has sort of become a pioneer, but not for the usual reasons. Till a few years back, before I left this place, radio was heavily censored for "vulgar" content - only the clean version of any song was played, even words that can have a political meaning were blanked or bleeped out. But, I have noticed that the explicit version of the songs are played - using words that mean various things from dangly bits to synonymns for copulation, and various nicknames for the females. I don't know how no one is saying anything.
When I came back, I noticed many billboards around my house (which happens to be close to a women's college and school) advertising a female contraceptive "Miss-Take" The ad showed a happy female hugging a male with his face hidden. The next week, there was a report on Kumudam Reporter (or Nakkeeran, who knows, all these mags seem the same) about how Miss-take is "encouraging teenagers to make mistakes" (clever wordplay, huh?) I was expecting this sort of a thing and wanted to take a photo of the boards, but it was too late. I didn't make the connection between the position of the billboards (4 of them) and the college/school (which I now think were the target audience ;) But I noticed the prepare to get assaulted billboard featured here (Conservative City) with the manly part covered, was still up (the board I mean) with the part still covered. This board is in Loyola College, and Loyola College is one of those straight-laced Christian run colleges!