parotechnics

This is a longer (much much longer) version of my Sunday Mid-day column Paronormal Activity on Lust Stories 2, which you can read here. Also, my review of Lust Stories 1 is here - Lust to Dust In a time saturated with pornography, what can a collection of Lust Stories offer us? Perhaps a chance to experience the meanings of what sex does in our life, something that reveals an aspect of humanness beyond the functional arousals of porn. I am not sure Lust Stories S2 does this much. Like the first season, this set too features only one woman director (like, why babes? Yeh quota kisne decide kiya?). The other three films, are made by men. One film – R. Balki’s – is a #BoreMatKarYaar bhashan to shame any dadiwala. The other two are entirely fixated on the climax, and not at all on the cinematic sensuality that might build us up to it. All three are absorbed in the pleasure of their own self-congratulations. If this tells us something about how Indian men think about sex, you will agree fri...