Senior Tamil artist Mansoor Ali Khan, who was most recently seen in 'Leo', has opined that the CBFC shouldn't have permitted Tamannaah Bhatia’s song 'Kaavaalaa' without cuts. He made the utterance while questioning the Board's decision to impose cuts on his Tamil film 'Saraku'.
The song in question was part of Rajinikanth's blockbuster hit 'Jailer'. When the Anirudh-composed song was released on YouTube weeks before the film's theatrical release, it received flak for its pelvic thrusts and so-called crass sounds. Mansoor Ali Khan, driven by an emotional response to the CBFC's supposed arbitrariness, questioned the criteria of censorship.
While Mansoor's criticism may sound selfish, it is very much true that the CBFC is notorious for being arbitrary. In some Telugu films, the forbidden 'L' word is allowed to be used in intense scenes. In others, much less extreme language is censored. It is true that filmmakers are given a choice at times by the CBFC to opt for 'A' rating if they want gore/obscene language to be retained. However, the censor regime is not uniformly applied to all, as many instances have proven from time to time.
