22 September,2021 07:06 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
Shakespeare is the male lead of several adult entertainment films
"The term isn't porn, it's erotica," the male lead of several desi, straight, adult entertainment films, Shakespeare, 29, says, when we meet over coffee in Juhu. The distinction between the preferred name for his genre could well be in the context in which it's shot, I guess? Or indeed the quality of lighting in the room!
For instance, skin-shows on OTT platforms in India actually took off, Shakespeare tells me, "After the nudity in Sacred Games (2018) on Netflix, which had such A-list stars in them. Other producers felt if that's okay, so should be whatever they put out too."
Shakespeare hasn't starred on Netflix. The topmost platform in the largely female-led erotica industry, of which he's king, is Nueflix! Many other OTTs he lists, mysteriously named after fruits: Kiwi, Litchi, Mango...
As I write this, videos on my Instagram show serial entrepreneur Raj Kundra returning home - granted bail after over three months of imprisonment. Kundra ran an adult entertainment OTT called Hotshots. Technically, consumption of porn isn't illegal in India - its production and distribution are. In the same way that prostitution isn't banned - solicitation is.
Shakespeare primarily sees himself as an actor, with much expertise in not just performing sexual scenes, but also how they appear camera friendly: "When you kiss on screen, for instance, your jaw-line should be tilted at a particular angle, with lips moving a certain way." Sometimes, he forgets when he's with an actual love-interest, and starts re-enacting the camera way, he laughs.
The bed where Shakespeare pretends to make love in films - usually at a hired bungalow for a set - is surrounded by three cameras. With as many assistants, and other crewmembers, and a director to issue instructions, if needed. He casually chills/chats with his female co-stars before shoot, so it's not awkward when the cameras are on. The heroine here is usually paid about twice or thrice the hero.
The top female leads, he says, anyway have personal apps of their own. The unlikely yet massive mainstreaming and commercial success of Canadian born porn-star Sunny Leone in India, Shakespeare submits, could've ignited similar local ambitions. Several new actors also get approached, basis the nature/quality of their Insta feeds, for instance.
The boom time really occurred with the advent of lockdown/pandemic. Shakespeare himself joined the adult entertainment industry, serially shooting a film after another thereafter, only in July, 2020. He altogether quit in Feb, 2021.
By June, since Kundra's arrest in particular, the entire scene had gone underground. Where did they go? "Laying low, I suppose. But I must tell you, it's Kolkata (not Mumbai) that is the flag-bearer of Indian erotica," Shakespeare says.
You'd think Shakespeare is his alias, or screen-name, as it were - nope. His parents named him so, after the Bard of Avon. He suitably graduated in English literature, which his father teaches at a university in Odisha. Some of his videos on aggregator sites, he tells me, have had 25 million plus views. Which is higher than a lot of stuff that is also debatably porn, but is peddled as various other media instead!
Shakespeare's work is quite unpretentious that way. He also insists on a script. Doesn't seem like he cares too much for extreme validation or universal respect. Although it does hurt him, he says, when more mainstream production houses - like Excel Entertainment recently, or a show that he nearly bagged for Zee5 - send him regret notes, after an online background check on his past works.
A gas-station guy here, a bystander on the road elsewhere, offer him a knowing smile - soon as they realise they've seen him somewhere, and of course, where! His online followers/fans are mainly South Asians from across the globe.
I tell Shakespeare about my hunch that - from social media, dating apps, to desi erotica online; small towns, big cities included - there is a slight lowering of the guard of shame/guilt, and a sexual revolution underway in India. That you can only sense, since it's unseen enough to remain under the radar, offline. Shakespeare agrees.
Post Kundra's arrest, a lot of TV channels had contacted Shakespeare to speak on the adult entertainment industry. He flatly refused, given the ridiculously cheap/salacious content that gets sold as news on TV in India! He got in touch with me on Facebook, Shakespeare says, to really bust a bunch of blatant myths, to do with his line of work.
"For one, the production crews are as professional, safe and friendly as you'd expect any to be. I haven't come across a single female co-star, over so many shoots, who was brought in through any coercion.
A notarised contract is duly drafted and signed. Besides a video shot with actors consenting to terms and conditions, before a camera. That those films subsequently fetch lakhs and crores to producers, which the actors see none of, after a one-time fee, does create friction. Including fake FIRs that you don't hear about. Ultimately we all do what we do, for the paycheck; don't we. Don't you?" Hmmm.
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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