The Playboy Interviews

Words like Sex and Nudes seem to come to many people's mind, if you mention Playboy Magazine. Should the magazine be banned? "YES" say hordes of people. I realize that the fact that semi-nudes featured in it were considered terrible in many people's mind and, I suppose, banning it in Pakistan seemed obvious. Sad as it may seem, I supposed that this was OK, despite my believing that there should be no censorship. After all, sex outside of marriage - and even looking at semi-nudes - was not allowed in our religion. Although, being in the Merchant Navy, I did get my Playboys after the ban when I visited UK, USA, India.

After the ban?

That's true. The ban happened much later. Otherwise one could buy it openly in a few bookstores: TIT BITS (What a name!) being my favorite book spot where I bought this and a lot of my SciFi, Perry Mason, Mickey Spillane books. All this happened during my school days and well onwards …

But let's get to 'Playboy':

Did I enjoy the nudes. Sure. I even had 3 of them framed and posted in my room at home and took them with me to my (rather short) days at Government College, Lahore. They hung on the wall there, too.*

Then there was also the delightful page after the fold-out nudes. It had jokes that were not (mainly) for the public.

Those were all enjoyable …  yes! But my love was the Playboy Interview. There has never been anything like these. Thinkers, Writers, Philosophers, Politicians, Humourists, Scientists, Actors, Sportsmen, whatever - you name them. They all appeared in Playboy. Most of these were finally sold separately as books. I have them all.

My First Book

My Second Book

My Third Book

Some Extracts from the Interviews

If you haven't got any of these, get them and read them.

Lives will be better, I promise.