Young beginnings
In 2007, a group of young lads who called themselves The Indian Porn Empire gave India its most treasured matriarch: Savita Bhabhi. Savita Bhabhi tapped into a part of the Indian psyche that after long years of British puritanism had been subdued into a secret fantasy.For her maker, though, unveiling that insincere shroud of morality meant veiling his own identity from India’s righteous outrage. In the domestic roster of Indian archetypes, Savita Bhabhi embodied the favourite one: the hot Indian bhabhi. Her success was expected, and the contemptuous response, too.
Savita Bhabhi was borne of many passions and pitchers of alcohol. Deshmukh, her creator, has always been an “entrepreneur at heart.” A second generation NRI (non-resident Indian), he was intrigued by Indian culture and the potential of the Internet to experiment.
Deshmukh says, “We were a group of friend sitting together on a weekend having a few drinks and talking. As it is normally with a bunch of drunken young men, the topic shifted to women and sex. One of our non-Indian friends remarked that while Indian women were considered among the most sensuous in the world, we did not have a single really hot Indian porn star.”
India’s stock of porn stars have always been politely called “erotic actresses.” But their popularity is hardly pan-Indian; many becoming a caricature of the dramatic Indian erotic industry. South India is particularly famous for its brand of mind-boggling cost-effective porn. Those actresses well-known amongst porn enthusiasts tend to be based in the UK, Canada or the USA.
For Deshmukh, though, Savita Bhabhi would be the quintessential Made in India porn superstar: a bored housewife with a neglected concupiscence. Rendering her on paper than screen allowed him to push sexual boundaries (legally speaking), besides being the only financially feasible solution.
Young and old Indians wanted to see more than a woman denuded one pleat at a time. They wanted a woman who’d put aside the ritual of first having her jewellery taken off and skip right to the underskirt for a different kind of muh dekhai. Savita Bhabhi delivered.
The lithe and lissome ‘unmaking’ of Savita
Savita Bhabhi’s [SB] first sexcapade took six full months to execute with Deshmukh at the creative forefront of her conception. With no real resources, the best course was to develop a toon porn star. “One of my friends is an amateur artist,” says Deshmukh.“He came up with the first draft of SB. Initially there was a toss-up between SB being a young Gujarati woman or a South Indian aunty. We went ahead and posted some threads on a forum asking people which they prefer.” The young Gujarati housewife Savita was born, a woman as versatile as a dish of dhoklas.
The next challenge for Deshmukh was to develop stories. She was the closest we’d come in 21st century art and literature to the murals of Khajuraho, and nothing was more important than having a sexual icon people could relate to. Literally little was left to the imagination, because SB’s stories were stories of real men and women, fans and authors.
“We got tonnes of email from fans detailing their fantasies and asking us if their fantasies can be converted into an SB toon. We try to keep all our plots fairly believable and connected to everyday occurrences, which could just lead into a sexual adventure.”
In her first ever tryst with promiscuity, Savita has an encounter with a bra salesman, a polemic moment in India’s post-modern literary anthology. Mistakenly, he sees her changing out of her clothes. Bored by the monotony of everyday domesticity, she decides to “put on a show” for the “scoundrel.” The rest is last night’s history.
In the name of entertainment
Image via Kirtu.com
Only because the company is incorporated and run in the EU region with its sites hosted from the UK, it’s a legal operation. Deshmukh argues, “In my opinion, the adult entertainment industry is no different from any online entertainment web-venture. My love for technology, a creative bend and most importantly a market need got me started in the industry. Being on the Internet, it is accessible to only those who want to. As adults, I feel we should be able to make that choice ourselves.”
That was the most confounding part of the backlash against Savita Bhabhi. Unlike advertisements, a far vulgar and unavoidable malady, SB was available online. It required users to get a computer, connect to the Internet, type in the website and then access its content. Nestled in the eighth wonder of this world, SB did not infringe on anyone’s space until they actively went in search for it. It’s a testament to how much Indian culture leaves the “social” to dictate the “personal.” But Savita Bhabhi would persist.
Full-time in the business of pornography, Deshmukh’s identity in this chaos was not necessarily secret either. He preferred his low profile, but says, “I was not trying very hard to keep it a secret either.” Over the years, he’d already begun sharing his hobby with more people. “Now almost everyone close to me knows that I created Savita Bhabhi.”
Savita Bhabhi was neither something that shot to fame over-night, nor was it an obscure publication before it graced mainstream news headlines. “Ever since the first episode was released,” says Deshmukh, “the amount of users on the site kept growing steadily -but fast- till we had about half a million users a day.
Then, one day suddenly the Indian Government decided to ban the site. However rather than seeing that as a fatal blow, we saw it as an opportunity.” Savita Bhabhi returned with a slew of other titles on Kirtu.com, an even bigger illustrated pornography platform. “It was the best thing to happen to Savita Bhabhi.”
Filling the vacuum in Indian pop culture
But why was Savita Bhabhi’s presence so all-consuming? Deshmukh thinks it’s because she is every man and woman in India, sweltering under the burden of latent sexualities. “SB was and still is a very unique niche in the Indian entertainment scene.It’s entertainment for adults who want to embrace their sexuality, but still not just regular porn. SB is about women exploring their sexuality and being sexually liberated. What we are trying to show via SB is that sex isn’t only something a man wants from a woman. It’s a two way street – women need pleasure as much as men.
If we can get this through to at least half our viewers, I swear you’ll see a whole lot more happy women in India.” Perhaps, this is true. In most Indian cultures, the woman always fills the role of a coy bride or must mimic the affectations of one. Savita Bhabhi was an unassuming liberated woman telling both men and women: desire is for sex, not gender.
Deshmukh hopes to make this disruptive sexual force equally lucrative, too. He wants to see Savita Bhabhi mature into an established brand backed by the merchandising industry. Once she’s part of the mainstream pop-culture, the possibilities are limitless, from fashion, jewellery, accessories to sex toys, collectibles and feature-length movies.
“I see Savita Bhabhi soon moving from the realm of being an Internet-only porn star to becoming a much more mainstream brand with offline products.”
However, it’s never enough for the South Asian ghairat brigade to control the bodies of women, they must even strike judgement on women’s representation in art and literature. Will the current polity temper its irritation with the routine “disgrace” of our fictional Bharatiya nari by a “disreputable” man? Deshmukh says, “Honestly, I haven’t got a clue! The Government of India works in mysterious ways.”
source:yourstory
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