The Great Indian LSD Trip

At long last Om Dar-B-Dar, an India film made in 1988, has finally had its theatrical release this month. The reason? It fell foul of India's notorious censor board, who refused to issue it a viewing certificate not because it was too violent or explicit --but because it was weird.

Well, how weird would that be exactly? It has been described as a surreal, postmodern satire, and The Great Indian LSD trip, but I prefer how TheSeventhArt.info describes the film:

‘Horoscope. Dead frog. Cloudy sky. Radio show. Terrorist tadpole. Caste-based reservation. Bicycle. Mount Everest. Women’s lib. Communism. Sleeveless blouse. Yuri Gagarin. Miniature book. Nitrogen fixation. Computer. Man on moon. Biology class. Hema Malini. Turtle. Typewriter. Text inside nose. Googly. James Bond. Severed tongue. Shoes outside temple. Gandhi. Hopping currency. Goggles. Helium breath. Diamonds inside frogs. God. Promise toothpaste. Nehru. Aviation centres. Potassium cyanide…."



That is the view in 2014. Way back in 1988 the censor board couldn’t make head or tail of the movie and feared that subliminal, subversive messages were being transmitted through he film that could adversely affect an unsuspecting public. So it got the axe.

Read the full story in Open Magazine: