But now, as mainstream cinema sheds its former reticence about sex and female sexuality, Indians are beginning to take a second look at softcore porn, this time for what it says about Indian culture.

This December, television soap magnate Ekta Kapoor will release “The Dirty Picture,” a mainstream Bollywood biopic about Silk Smitha — a skin-show specialist from the ’80s who crossed over to perform sensuous so-called “cabaret” numbers in mainstream films.

More subtly, in this year’s “Tees Maar Khan,” a Hindi action comedy film, imported British-Indian bombshell Katrina Kaif made waves with the song, “Sheila Ki Jawani,” or “Young Sheila.” The song was an homage to the Hindi title of one of Silk Smitha’s softcore flicks, “Reshma Ki Jawani,” or “Nubile Reshma.”

And in New Delhi this week, Wieden+ Kennedy (W+K) ad agency is presenting an exhibition of softcore porn posters as, well, art.

“School kids, college students and even grown up men used to go to these movie halls just to see a glimpse of a woman bathing or a random love-making scene,” said W+K executive creative director V. Sunil, whose personal poster collection is on display in the exhibition called “Morning Show.”

Before the globalization of sexuality that came with the internet, India’s porn stars were big — literally.

Silk Smitha herself was no waif. Looking especially buxom packed into skimpy clothes, she knocked down evil thugs like bowling pins – highlighting a peculiar facet of India’s softcore porn.

The Indian films that were once labeled pornography were less about nudity and graphic sex than they were about female sexuality, according to Meena T. Pillai, a cultural critic at the University of Kerala — the state where the softcore porn industry was centered, due to its relatively liberal censor.

Apart from voluptuous stars and voluminous cleavage shots, the only real distinguishing factor of pornographic films was that they centered on a sexually aggressive woman, in contrast to the demure domestic ideal.

“You’d be shocked if you actually saw a Malayalam [language] softcore porn movie. [The camera] basically stops at the thigh. It doesn’t ride further up than that,” said Pillai. “But the moment you show women’s desire, that movie would automatically be labeled porn.”

I.V. Sasi’s 1978 “Avalude Ravukal” (“Her Nights”), for example, was labeled softcore porn simply because it dramatized the story of a prostitute and depicted the heroine — played by Sasi’s wife, Seema — exercising her power over men by offering and denying them sexual favors.

Similarly, the titillating 1989 film “Layanam” — starring Silk Smitha — depicted three adult women seducing a young man.

Other softcore hits, like “Air Hostess Girls,” apparently stuck to more tried-and-true scenarios.

To make up for any lack of skin, theater owners and distributors illegally spliced in random sequences from foreign films — splashes of nudity or even hardcore porn.

The practice was so common that in Kerala it earned its own classification as “bit cinema,” and occasionally found its way onto theater promos like the one for a film called “Honey, I Love You,” where a white woman in a bikini is embossed with the tag line: “THE GOOD PARTS. THE SEXY PARTS. THE BODY PARTS.”

Following Silk Smitha, the hottest heroine in the Malayalam porn business was a buxom young actress named Shakeela who just kept getting bigger as she got bigger — appearing in more than 50 movies.

“In Kerala, in the south, we like slightly bulky women,” explains Sunil. “Anyone with big boobs is a big thing.”

A resurgent Taliban and the return of a radical Islamic regime in Kabul could create a new safe haven for anti-Indian terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba — the Pakistan-based terrorist organization responsible for the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai.

Some analysts fear that even as Islamabad works to bring the Taliban on board for a peace deal in Afghanistan, the Taliban leadership may help broker a settlement between Pakistan and various domestic terrorist groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban, uniting the various jihadi organizations to focus on India, according to Indiana University professor Sumit Ganguly.

Realistically, the United States won’t cut and run in 2014, but it will reduce its presence and convert its counterinsurgency operations into “counterterrorism plus,” says Christine Fair, a professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies.

The recent move to freeze $800 billion in military aid to Pakistan is probably as much a signal to Congress that the State Department knows what it’s doing than an indicator of any real plans to change horses midstream.

But let’s play what if.

Despite concerns about China’s rising influence in the region, losing Pakistan — an unlikely, if not impossibly bold maneuver — could be the most profitable move Washington has made in the War on Terror since Sept. 11. And India could benefit even more than the United States.

The conventional wisdom in New Delhi is that China uses Pakistan as a tool to thwart India’s rise as a regional power, while Beijing sees the growing strategic partnership between India and the United States as part of a broader effort to prevent China from developing interests any further afield.

But even though there is more than a little truth in those perceptions, the United States may have an opportunity to create a paradigm shift in the politics of the region with a change in the way it views Pakistan — paradoxically gaining influence by ceding power.

For 50 years, America has endeavored to create a strong, democratic ally in Pakistan by doling out billions of dollars in economic and military aid, only to watch with horror as it emerged as one of the most virulently anti-American countries in the world and a covert sponsor of terror, Lawrence Wright argued convincingly in a recent issue of the New Yorker.

Because aid flows through the military establishment and the Inter-services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), it seems, American cash has empowered a shadowy regime of spooks and soldiers at the expense of the legitimate civilian government. But that’s not the only compelling case for turning off the tap now, as Islamabad attempts to extort a dominant role for Pakistan in post-war Afghanistan.

Washington could save billions of dollars a year and stick Beijing with the bill at a single stroke, even as it alleviates Chinese fears of containment or encirclement by granting it equal responsibility for guaranteeing security in its own backyard.

More importantly, granting China that responsibility would likely compel Beijing to take a leadership role in managing and reforming Pakistan, rather than stirring up trouble with the confidence that the U.S. is riding herd. It would also address a simple reality: China already exerts more influence over Pakistan than the United States.

“I don’t think the Americans have done enough to reach out to China,” said Fair. “I don’t think they’ve done enough to reach out to Saudi Arabia. They have a lot more influence than we do.”

Moreover, paranoid fears aside, Beijing has repeatedly shown it has no interest in pushing Pakistan over the brink. In 1999, the Chinese thwarted Gen. Pervez Musharraf by refusing to support him in the Kargil War against India, for instance. Likewise, it was Beijing (not Washington) that induced the Pakistani government to send troops in to root out Islamic militants barricaded in the Lal Masjid in 2007.

And, most recently, when Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani sought a Chinese pledge of support following Washington’s decision to freeze $800 billion in military aid, Beijing maintained a studied silence.

“It is Pakistan that wants China more than China wants Pakistan,” said Suba Chandran, director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies.

Neither the United States nor India can match China when it comes to playing hardball with Pakistan’s military establishment. But both strategic partners could do a great deal more to promote Pakistan’s civilian institutions if they focused on trade, according to Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council.

For instance, by expanding so-called “reconstruction opportunity zones” — where manufacturers enjoy preferential tariffs for exports to the United States — America could reduce the need for humanitarian aid at the same time it strengthens its economic ties with civilian Pakistanis. Similarly, removing various roadblocks could boost trade between India and Pakistan from today’s $2 billion to $42 billion a year — creating a strong, new economic impetus for peace that might well spill over into Afghanistan.

“The pressure will grow on the military establishments to tone down their rhetoric and stop talking to each other as adversaries as the two countries economies are increasingly going to be linked,” Nawaz said.

Meanwhile, said Chandran, a comparable increase in Sino-Indian trade promises to make China and India economic partners in the upcoming “Asian Century.”

If, that is, China and India can resolve a niggling border dispute and Washington can convince Beijing that the Indo-U.S. strategic partnership is not part of a secret plan to keep China down.

An official at the city’s Police Control Room said one blast was in the crowded neighborhood of Dadar in central Mumbai. The others were at the famed jewelry market Jhaveri Bazaar and the busy business district of Opera House, both in southern Mumbai and several miles (kilometers) apart.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of office policy.

“It must be a bomb blast,” Chhagan Bhujbal, a state minister told a TV news channel.

The explosions took place around 7 p.m., when all the neighborhoods would have been packed with office workers and commuters.

The blasts — if confirmed as a terror strike — would mark the first major attack on Mumbai since 10 militants laid siege to India’s financial capital for 60 hours in November 2008.

That attack, which targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a busy train station, was blamed on Pakistan-based militant groups. The attacks escalated tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals and prompted them to suspend peace talks.

However, the talks have recently resumed.

Pakistan’s government expressed distress on the loss of lives and injuries soon after Wednesday’s blasts were reported.

Why? In Afghanistan, “violence, poor health care and brutal poverty,” notes Al-Jazeera, afflicts women, “while in Congo there are horrific levels of rape” (reportedly some 420,000 women are raped a year). Other practices and circumstances found in countries considered the most dangerous include domestic abuse, genital mutilation, acid attacks and economic discrimination.

The NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan, one women’s rights advocate told Al-Jazeera, are among the dangers threatening women in the country.

How did the survey work? 213 gender experts — aid professionals, academics, health workers, policymakers, journalists and development specialists — from all around the world ranked the countries based on general perceptions and six specific risks: health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking.

Surprising results? Some have responded with surprise to see India so high up the list, given that women, such as former Prime Minister Indira Ghandi — are able to reach the highest levels of public offi. However, it ranked highest for sex trafficking. Only 12 percent of the experts ranked it the worst country in regards to this practice, but no other single country was picked as consistently.

The Wall Street Journal’s Tripti Lahiri registers some surprise at countries missing from the list: “China also practices widespread sex selection and is ranked on the State Department’s Tier 2 Watch List on human trafficking, same as India, while South Africa has a reputation for a high level of sexual violence. Two years ago, Amnesty International declared maternal mortality a “human rights emergency” in Sierra Leone, but the country didn’t appear among those the experts polled were most worried about on this front.

Trustworthy methodology?: TrustLaw explain the methodology of how they reached the rankings, but do not go into detail about the gender experts who provided the results, save for that they are from all five continents and a range of professions. Potential biases in how the experts might have been chosen cannot be checked. It also is problematic that TrustLaw does not elaborate on how it uses terms like “rape” and “domestic abuse,” which can come in numerous and insidious forms. More worrying still, the survey frames “danger” in such a way that it was always going point to non-Western countries as the most dangerous for women. For a more nuanced look at why this is hugely problematic, see the fantastic article by Lila Abu-Lughod of Columbia University called “Do Muslim women really need saving?” In stark contrast, the TrustLaw survey at best offers a snapshot of genuinely concerning situations across the world, but lacks any real or valuable analysis; at worst it betrays concerning cultural and racial biases.

This unsettling experience gave Carney his first inkling of how a human being becomes a thing. When he abandoned academia for investigative journalism (he writes for Wired, Mother Jones and other publications), his South Asian surroundings offered him many examples of the ways human bodies — in part or in whole — are transformed into commodities. He calls this the “red market,” a term that encompasses the trade (legal and illegal) in human bones, blood, organs, embryos, surrogate pregnancy and living children.

“The Red Market: On the Trail of the World’s Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers” is the alarming product of Carney’s research. It includes vivid, on-the-spot reports from Indian “bone farms,” where remains looted from graveyards are processed into skeletons for Western anatomy students (hundreds of reeking bones left out to bleach in the sun) and tsunami refugee camps where most of the residents bear the scars of kidney “donations.” Carney relays these tales with enough florid touches (“Toads the size of baseball mitts hop across the muddy track”) to make them seem downright hallucinatory.

Freakish as these stories can be — none more so than the dairy farmer who kept several men prisoner in sheds, some for more than three years, extracting their blood to sell to a nearby hospital — they are the secret face of the age of modern medical miracles. Poor people supply human flesh in various forms for rich people, while a well-meaning ethical system of anonymity and mandated “altruism” allows middlemen to siphon off most of the profits.

When the supply isn’t sufficient to the demand, some enterprising individuals take it upon themselves to even things up. One of the most heartrending stories Carney tells is of an Indian family who bankrupted themselves trying to find their son, who was kidnapped by an orphanage and essentially sold to an American adoption agency. The Midwestern couple that may have adopted the boy are resisting attempts to establish the child’s identity, even though the Indian father tells Carney he understands “it’s not realistic for us to ask for him back, but at least let us know him.”

Denial makes such injustices possible. Carney argues that the inequities of the red market were only exacerbated by regulations like the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, which prohibited the sale of human organs and tissue and was championed by then-Sen. Al Gore as a way to make sure that the human body could not be treated as “a mere assemblage of spare parts.” Although Carney is no fan of the market philosophy that would reduce our bodies to salable “widgets,” he thinks we need to face up to the fact that altruistic donation will never provide as much of these precious materials as we desire. “As a society we neither want to accept open trade in human tissue, nor do we want to reduce our access to life-extending treatments. In other words, we want to have our cake and eat it, too.”

He also thinks “absolute transparency of the supply chain” would go a long way toward eliminating the brokers, recruiters and suppliers who exploit those driven to trade their kidneys and blood for cash or to rent out their wombs. “Every bag of blood should include the name of the original donor, every adopted child should have full access to his personal history, and every transplant recipient should know who gave him an organ,” he writes. (Contrary to what you see in the movies, much of this information is sequestered by what Carney regards as “misguided” privacy laws.) Yes, the hustlers will immediately commence  forging documents, but even so, “a clear paper trail makes it easier to flag dangerous operators.”

And while he doesn’t come right out and say it, Carney obviously thinks the world’s privileged patients ought to revise their expectations and reconcile themselves to their mortality. He more or less implies that the handful of years most kidney transplant recipients gain from the operation may not be worth the cost in exploitation. (Most Indian “donors” get as little as $800 for their organs — though some are promised more — not enough to make a significant difference in their circumstances or lift them out of destitution for more than a year or so. This is out of the $14,000 or so paid by the recipient for the transplant.)

No doubt Carney doesn’t linger on this point because he knows it’s a nonstarter. Most people would countenance a good deal of dodgy behavior if it meant a few more years of life for themselves or a loved one. Nevertheless, it makes sense that they be made aware of how much their survival may have cost others, and Carney rightly decries the “depersonalization of human tissue” that obscures that cost. This challenging and revelatory book makes it a little bit harder to overlook the human being in every human body.