March 14, 2006
‘Playboy’ NehruHumor
The latest New Yorker reports that Jawaharlal Nehru did an interview for Playboy’s October 1963 issue. Oh yes, we read it only for the articles. 
Will anyone cop to having a copy, or you gonna make me drag my culo down to the N.Y. Public Library? ‘Cause you know I will.
… Playboy’s fiction was far less important than its interviews, inaugurated in 1962. Among the subjects were Miles Davis, Peter Sellers, Bertrand Russell, Malcolm X, Billy Wilder, Richard Burton, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jimmy Hoffa, Albert Schweitzer, Nabokov, Jean Genet, Ingmar Bergman, Dick Gregory, Henry Miller, Cassius Clay, and George Wallace, and that’s just for the first three years. The questioning was long (seven to ten hours) and confrontational. Presumably for that reason—and maybe, too, because this was a skin magazine and what the hell—the subjects often said what they did not say elsewhere. [Link]
The cover model uses Nehru as a fig leaf of civility (NSFW):
Shortly after this interview ran, the Nehru ‘jacket’ became popular in America. I think you see where I’m going with this. Embarrassed, the Indian government quickly backpedaled:
… after the rest of the magazine had gone to press, we received word from the Indian Embassy in Washington that our interview with PM Nehru was not, in fact, the result of an exclusive, personal conversation with the head of the Indian state, but simply a gathering together of public pronouncements made by the Prime Minister in various speeches, statements, etc., over the past several years. The Nehru material was submitted to us by a well-regarded journalist-publisher who has previously conducted numerous similar interviews with famous personages all over the world: it was sold as an actual interview, recorded on tape, and the covering letters that so described the material also included photographs of the Prime Minister and journalist together… [Link]
Rajiv Gandhi also did an interview for Penthouse’s Jan. 9, 1987 issue (thanks, Karthik). And Kal Penn did a famously raunchy, somewhat tongue-in-cheek Playboy interview (NSFW):
What’s the most number of women you’ve slept with in a day?
Two, when I had the threesomes. But, ask me again three months after Harold & Kumar comes out. [Link - NSFW]
Top that, Mr. Nehru.
Apparently the Amitabh was merely boning up on foreign affairs (via Daily Rhino):
Which raises the question: if Manmohan Singh did a Playboy interview, how would Musharraf respond? Bare Ankles Daily? I hear it’s very hott.
You can read the full text of the interview here.
Related posts: Kal Penn interviewed in Playboy, There is no place to hide it in India, Indians love their newspapers; related site: Sheetal Sheth in Maxim (NSFW)
manish on March 14, 2006 04:17 PM in Humor, Politics · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Dude, some of the links NSFW (playboy.com, etc). People like me dont look where the link leads to before clicking.
Dude, those links are labeled a Playboy interview.
Like I said, often I dont look before I click. Thanks for the NSFWs.
I think there was an uproar about Rajiv Gandhi's interview with Penthouse (or Playboy?) as well in the mid 1980s.
"Nehru: I admire the machine greatly. But it grows and grows and grows till it becomes almost human; it begins to think - to give answers to questions. It becomes human, and the human being appears to become more and more a machine. If the human mind loses its creative faculty and becomes more and more of a machine, then surely that is a tragedy for humanity."
i wonder if he ever imagined that one day people would be discussing his playboy interview on a machine with great reach and great power that can "give" you "answers" to questions?
Damn it seems like sepia mutiny is uncovering things that only i used to know,
On serveral occasions while having a patiala peg I had bragged about that fact to the aunties
For those who want to keep it in respectable library
The playboy interviews upto 92 are available in book format without the you know what
ISBN :087223908X
I think, Indira Gandhi was interviewed by Playboy too. Was Morarji Desai ever interview on his nature's therapy?
Jimmy Carter's Playboy interview is still considered a classic interview on his "sense of morality" that people still talk about.
Pro: No fake boobs back then.
Con: Nothing about Lady Mountbatten.
interesting revelation - the thing is - manly pursuits aside, playboy magazine has offered up some fairly interesting reads - in recent times the google guys did the interview - further back - i believe playboy was one of the first magazines to publish an interview or excerpts of ellison's invisible man.
hey - be a bro' or a sis' someone - can someone please do a search to see if ellison DID get published in playboy - i got a filter on my computer and even 'playboy' in the search field gets me blocked - or just confirm for me.
Folks @SM, Stop using kundi. Kundi. does NOT mean ass. Kundi means Anus. Got it ? Anus. Not ass. I have said this a 100 million times and some SM smartass always deletes the comment. Nobody will drag their anus to the library.
Actually, that makes it better.
Thank you "A Tamilian", at least I wasn't the only one squirming in discomfort everytime I read that. But I know better than to comment about misappropriating expressions. No grief though, and I dont intend this to be the initiation point of thread-hijacking.
dhavak,
Hope this link helps. This is closest I can get online with African writers and Playboy.
http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/aa_Vignettes/haley_alex.htm
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9569/9569.ch24.html
Playboy archives are shielded by online paid subscription (not even included with print copy subscription).
I could not specific link to Ellison's The Invisible Man and Playboy through google.
Urban Dictionary needs your edit... favorite expression: Kundistan.
"There now you admitted to being a subscriber'
Yes, I do.
O!!! yea... kush! thanks man. It was, as you point out, not Ellison but Haley who I remember appearing in PB. Fell into the trap again - one black guy looks the same as another i guess to these brown eyes :-/.
Yea - not the same caliber as Invisible Man, but Roots was definitely a cultural phenom and I believe Playboy was ahead of the curve in capturing that.
Thanks for coming through Kush
Interesting to see so many different interpretations...In fact, I've always heard "kundi" used to mean a turd. I didn't really want to bring it up but now that we've decided to hash it out....
Oh yes, we read it only for the articles.
It's funny, however, because I remember there was a time when one's interest in the articles did go hand-in-hand with the pictorials, as Playboy was once seen as a "socially progressive" magazine for adults, not just pornography. It had good writers and was one of the first magazines to rely on fiction and interviews, not feature articles, for written content and people actually gave it some respect. Of course, the premise of the magazine does have some flaws...
Anyhow, long ago, I do remember going into the office of one of my dad's colleagues and seeing a Playboy on the coffee-table along with Life, Esquire and National Geographic. I was twelve and because the guy knew I liked books, he told me to read the interview with one G.G. Marquez, (which in turn turned me on to the whole concept of magic realism which I suppose is what it's like to open up a Playboy in front of your dad at the tender age of puberty)...
I'm not trying to say Playboy's a great magazine, but it did have some presence in the world at one time and did cause people to do some thinking (when I found out Shel Silverstein worked a stint at Playboy while putting together "Where the Sidewalk Ends"...). In any case, it certainly got the Indian government thinking and, collectively *reading*, which I'm certain got Nehru thinking, "Hmm, yes, they're all boobs, I must do something..." and thus began the adolescence of India.
The interviews in Playboy are still pretty good. If you dont believe me, read the Kanye West one in the latest issue. Excellent stuff.
As a Mallu who speaks pretty fluent Malayalam, I can tell you that kundi does mean arse.
I think the definition of "kundi" has been tranformed amongst the diasporic south asian Tamil speaking community.
I wouldn't use it around my relatives, except for my mom (mostly to irritate her) but it is standard with the crew here . . . .
Much Love to My Kundis
Kundi meets butt, not anus. Some really stupid nonsensical mofo Tamilians writing crap in this blog. Learn your Tamil first and don't talk out of your ass.
Kundi means butt, not anus. You guys are talking out of your ass ... so in your case your mouth is your anus.
from the Kriya Tamil-English dictionary (the best in the business):
குண்டி (kuNDi): (of persons) bottom; buttocks; (of animals) rump.
it is disgusting to see the K word here. Please SM intern, do delete it everytime you see it. Noone needs to be informed of what it means and to split etymological hairs about it. It is ridiculous. Are you guys still in Junior High and giggle when you say it? Soothu is much better if there is a distinct need for it. As in "please don't drag your soothu into this conversation". See, more mellifluous and sanskrity. And it is "Arse" not
"Ass". Yeah, I follow the prescriptive school when it comes to body parts.
Turnip -- soothu is a low class as it gets.... Kundi is high class way of saying it. Get with the Program dude !! :-)
Turnip -- soothu is as low class as it gets.... Kundi is high class way of saying it. Get with the Program dude !! :-)