To Kiss or Not To Kiss…. ! How A Romantic Issue Turned Patriotic
By Maharathi
17 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org
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“What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?’’ - Robert Browning.
A small flight of fantasy…
When pairs of girls and boys are sizzlingly raining kisses on cheeks and lips, a mob of so-called cultural policemen pelts and chases them with stones.
A sage appears from nowhere and raises his voice: “Stop it’’. A sullen silence freezes the scene for a fraction of second, with both groups hanging on his lip, waiting for a powerfully pithy statement.
“Whoever has not had a taste of kissing at all, let them stone the kissing pairs’’.
All stones dropped in an instant and the scene dissolves.
Instances are galore in which the arms-wielding cultural custodians (mostly, of the Hindutva hue) turned a nightmare to lovers or friendly pairs celebrating the Valentine’s Day on beaches, coffee houses, parks and pubs. Such intimidatory incidents happened, not in remote villages where such things are still a taboo, but in major cities such as Calcutta, Cochin, Calicut and Chennai.
The result: the youths have proved the psychological theory true that the more the youngsters are suppressed or the more they are advised not to do rash things like dating or loving, the more stealthy and rebellious they turn. That is how the ‘Kiss of Love’ idea was conceived (the elders always fear the girls conceiving as a fall-out of the liberal life) and executed.
Recently, in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, a well-known mall was closed in anticipation of the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest and for fear of skirmishes on its premises between the youths and the threatening fundamentalists.
With social network sites turning vehicles of free expression, the youths’ clarion call for the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest evoked lakhs of ‘likes’ on Facebook. As a consequence, the ‘cultural custodians’ have met with a counter-blitz from the youth. Several cities were ablaze with public kissing scenes abhorred by the moral cops.
What is objectionable about the public kiss to them? They say this abominable practice has been imported from the West which has driven the youth of our country steeped in godly values, cultural ethos and moral precepts and practices to go astray.
Just a kiss robs India of its moral grandeur!
The Calicut incident, in which pairs of boys and girls, hugging and kissing in a downtown café and telecast on a channel, were attacked by the ‘morally conscious’ brigades, was the origin of the youths’ protest movement which adopted non-violence as a counter-measure.
What an irony that the saviours of the Indian culture turn violent, throwing to the winds the tenets of the Father of the Nation whose life and teachings are essentially reflective of the Indian ethos! But the so-called “anti-Indian and westernised’’ youth adopt non-violence, the moral weapon of Gandhiji, in their battle for their personal freedom.
Unfortunately, the law, the Hindu dharma and temple architecture (which they proclaim they safeguard) are not on the side with the cultural custodians who are always on the rampage, whenever they happen on a boy-and-girl pair passionately puckering up in public. Worse incidents of indecency and public nuisance have been reported when the establishmentarian elements played spoilsport with the ‘scattered’ gatherings of lovers celebrating the Valentine’s Day in privacy.
They say kissing in public is a criminal offence. But they turn a blind eye to the Supreme Court’s words: “No case can be made out of two people consensually hugging and/or kissing’’. The apex court, uttering these words, quashed an arrest warrant against Hollywood actor Richare Gere who just embraced and kissed Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty at a public event marking an AIDS awareness programme.
Actually Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code can be invoked against any ‘obscene act’ in public. But what is ‘obscenity’ to me may be an art or freedom to you. What the Supreme Court has said is worth recalling here: “Notions of social morality are inherently subjective and the criminal law cannot be used as a means to unduly interfere with the domain of personal autonomy”. (Khushboo vs Kanniamal 2010).
On November 2, 2014, a few students indulged in a “display’’ of demonstratively mutual affection in the form of kissing on the campus of Hyderabad University. Prof. Sanjay Palshikar, Political Science Department, wrote about the laws on kissing to the committee set up to “look into the matter of the incident of November 2, 2014’’. After a thorough scrutiny of the laws concerned and enquiries with legal scholars, he highlighted certain valid points which defend the ‘kiss’ movement in no small measure. A few quotes from his writing:
“Indian judiciary at the higher levels has not universally treated kissing in public as illegal. In appropriate context, spelt out variously by the relevant judgments, it has been seen as an expression of love, expression of love and compassion, and its artistic representation as defensible. Absent in all theses cases is the tendency to presume that every kiss is an act of sexual expression and that indulging in this act in public is always obscene. (A & B vs State Thr. N.C.T. of Delhi 2009; Friday vs K.J. Sebastian 2001).’’“The Supreme Court has observed that the Indian Penal Code “does not define the word obscene and this delicate task has to be performed by courts….” If the Apex Court considers it a delicate task, how much more challenging it would be for university teachers and police officers to say if an act is obscene! (Udeshi vs State of Maharashtra 1965)’’.
Howsoever the law is very clear against them on the issue, the ‘messiahs’ of Indian culture continue to frown upon the puckering pairs, saying that this public expression of intimacy borders on the sexual. They may dismiss it all simply as the western trash; as if it is only the western countries that have taught Indians to kiss; as if Indians have been so ‘civilised and cultured’ that they do not know anything about kiss, love and sex.
Now a little bit of history. Let the scales fall from their eyes.
Several researches have pointed out that the concept of kiss actually was in vogue in ancient India when most parts of the world were uncivilized and uncultured to the point of not knowing at all how it felt to get lips locked in a burning passion.
Scholars in general and anthropologists, in particular, point to the Vedas, ancient scriptures of India, where there are several references to kisses, though the word is not used as it is. Vaughn Bryant, an anthropologist at Texas A&M University and well-known expert in the history of kiss, has found the references to kissing in the Vedas.
One school of thought says that around 326 B.C. Alexander the Great was invading Punjab in India and capturing several parts when his soldiers started learning the Indian practice of kissing. When they returned home, they took the practice with them to spread it in their country.
Moreover, Vaughn Bryant has traced the root of the word, ‘kiss’, to the Indian term ‘busa’ or ‘bosa’ which meant kissing. From the Indian ‘bosa’, the Latin ‘basium’ was derived, which, in turn, gave birth to the old English words, ‘ba’ and ‘buss’.
Vatsyayana in his magnus opus ‘Kama Sutra’ has described three sorts of kisses (Chapter 3): 1. Nominal kiss 2 Throbbing kiss and 3. Touching kiss
“When a girl only touches the mouth of her lover with her own, but does not herself do anything, it is called the nominal kiss. When a girl, setting aside her bashfulness a little, wishes to touch the lip that is pressed into her mouth, and with that object moves her lower lip, but not the upper one, it is called the throbbing kiss. When a girl touches her lover's lip with her tongue, and having shut her eyes, places her hands on those of her lover, it is called the touching kiss.’’
Kissing normally ignites fire in lovers. But it is a great surprise that it has fuelled such a conflagration as this current one, for it has been tacitly, complacently and historically accepted part of the Indian culture. If the weapon-fielding anti-osculation battalion persists in branding it as anti-Indian, let them first go and demolish the divinely erotic sculptures at Khajuraho.
They may say that the western civilization, modern cinema and internet have all contributed their mite to the moral decadence of the youth. But at the time itself when cinema was invented, kissing was portrayed in some scenes. It is quite understandable that in the 19th century when Victorian values were markedly conservative, such scenes met with a lot of opposition. In 1896 the silent film in the U.S., “The Kiss’’ projected a powerfully emotional scene of kissing for 30 seconds; so energetically and passionately the scene was shot that certain detractors condemned the then new medium of silent movie. The film received brickbats, earning the sobriquet ‘so disgusting’ that some called for even police interference.
That was in the 19th century. But the Victorian attitude that marked that age is unfortunately prevailing in India now, that too, more than a century after. Police interference, which was sought against that silent movie in the U.S., is now happening in India wherever the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest takes place, which might not have arisen at all, had there not been such a moral policing at its worst.
I wonder whether there was any strong condemnation of the 4-minute kissing scene in which Devika Rani kissed Himanshu Rai in the movie, “Karma’’; the film was shot in 1929, nearly 85 years ago. In fact, since then much water has flowed under the bridge of the Indian cinema on that count. Nowadays the audience comprising families does not squirm in the seats when a hero locks the lips of the heroine in a tight embrace. Perhaps, celluloid scene should not be translated into reality, the so-called moralists may think.
Religious texts seem not to treat kiss as a taboo though religious people seem to.
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine’’ (Song of Solomon)
In a country where a few legislators are watching porno stealthily in assemblies and given all due respect and immunity, there is a contempt for and opposition to the peaceful protestors who just express their affections in a decent act of kiss which has been delineated very powerfully, sometimes to the point of erotic ecstasy in most part of the Indian literature in several of its regional languages.
Will the moral policemen, who take up cudgels or gird up their loins to defend the fort of the Indian culture, burn a chunk of our arts and literature which are full of such man-woman intimacies?
From time immemorial, man and woman have been meeting, loving, kissing and even having sex, all in utter privacy and secrecy, unnoticed and away from the public stare and snare. It is their personal freedom or personal problem unless it causes a huge loss to the nation or a big problem to the law and order.
Only when fundamentalists are on the prowl, there erupts a backlash against them, from the youth who are driven to the point of exhibiting what they have so far done in a comparatively, prudently and decently allowed secrecy.
A young man of the ‘Kiss of Love’ protest may sing these lines from an ancient Egyptian love poem.
I kiss her before everyone that They all may see my love.
Maharathi is a poet who writes in both Tamil and English and a social commentator. He has a collection of Tamil poems titled, ‘Rainy Nights’ to his credit
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