The art of osculation

S. PATHIRAVITANA

“Nu, some say that kissin’s a sin,” runs an old Scottish ditty and continues, “but I say it’s nain at a’.” While the world in general, with some reservations nonetheless, may support the second of these two propositions, there is considerable diversity of opinion on the first.

Take, for instance, what happened in India sometime back when two young lovers from Israel travelling separately met for the first time in India while on holiday and decided to get married according to the Hindu ritual. Quite romantic indeed!

All went well until the stotras were chanted by the priests and at that point the couple decided, true to their custom, to hug and kiss. The Hindu priests were offended by this hugging and kissing and as a result the couple had to appear in Court on a charge of public misbehaviour.

The couple were apologetic and pleaded they were only conforming to their culture, but since public kissing is an offence in the holy city of Pushkar in Rajasthan, they were fined Rs 1000, in the alternative a ten-day jail sentence.

Respect

The President of the Priests and Pilgrimage Society, S.N.Garga explained, “It is a matter of concern for the priest community. We want the Government to ensure that tourists visiting Pushkar must respect Indian culture.”

It is not, as I understand, that India is against kissing as such, it is the time and place that is important. After all in the country of Vatsyayana who illustrated the infinite varieties in the arts of osculation in his Kama Sutra, it is unimaginable that it should hold that ‘kissin’s a sin.’

In contrast to Vatsyayana it must be said that there are also societies in which kissing is totally absent for hygienic reasons As I said earlier there is a time for all these things and a place in which, as Eliot sings, “The association of man and woman/ In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie / A dignified and commodious sacrament/ Two and two necessary coniunction,” should take place. Note that he uses the older spellings here to evoke the aura of times past.

The Indian film industry, particularly the Hindi variety, has been slowly edging towards breaking down the taboo on public kissing. They are not quite there yet and it seems to me they are tantalisingly close to it, a mere per cent or two away from their target.

Even the preliminaries to what Eliot calls the ‘coniunction’ in the Hindi films are notably in bad taste and I wonder why the priests in the holy city of Pushkar are not objecting to this ‘public indecency.’

That this matter of the public kiss in the Hindi film is still a very sensitive subject came up with another incident sparked by the protest of Kareena Kapoor, highlighted in the newspapers as ‘Bollywood Star in Kiss Dispute’.

Public kissing

She and her co-star, Shahid Kapoor, were found kissing in a public restaurant, which she denies as having taken place and claims the pictures published were doctored.

The BBC reporter Zubair Ahmed in reporting this incident points out that ‘the photographs and film clip of the two actors - who are not related - were apparently taken by someone with a video-enabled mobile phone.’

That the ho-ha about the public kissing is still on may be gathered from the on-going debate being aired by the press. Kareena Kapoor was keeping it alive one way by waiting for the Midday newspaper, which published the pictures, to make an unqualified apology to her before she decides to go to Court. And the Midday in turn had not made any move to meet her request.

Indecencies

Amitabh Bachchan, the well known film star, is reported to have said that he had not seen the pictures but added that if people allow themselves to be photographed then the media should not be blamed for publishing the results. A film director Karan Johar has said the publication of the pictures in a newspaper was bad because many children also read these newspapers.

One good thing that has happened as a result of this publicity to ‘public indecencies’ is that the hotels have reacted by publishing a twenty page guidelines for unwary tourists by giving them a few don’ts and do’s. This was in order to meet a request made by a magistrate in Rajasthan to hotels and restaurants to hand out a booklet on how not to be offensive even innocently.

Some years back I remember a Diyawadana Nilame, may have been one of the Wijeyratnas, advocating modesty of dress for tourists entering the Temple of the Tooth. I wonder whether the rules are still being observed.

The guidelines mentioned are the following:

Men should never touch women in public, even to help a woman out of a car, unless the lady is very elderly or infirm.

Paradise

In Indian culture men socialise with men, and women with women. Married couples in Asia do not hug, hold hands or kiss in public. Even embracing at airports and train stations is considered out of the question. Generally it is improper for women to speak with strangers on the street and especially to strike up a casual conversation.

Drinking alcohol or smoking in public, no matter how innocent, are interpreted as a sign of moral laxity and are not acceptable.

Though not immediately relevant to the issue above I would like to refer to a letter I received from the States, which throws some light on what exactly the genuine tourist falls in love with when trying to understand other cultures:

“Sri Lanka has always been a paradise for me and my wife. When we visit Sri Lanka we are always astonished at the simple uncomplicated way of life in Sri Lanka; a country trying to survive, like a small ship in a storm.

Natural beauty

A country that has such a civilized and a poetic past, scenery and unsophisticated natural beauty that we silently weep when we hear of the brutal murders carried out by the Nazi type but uneducated, uncivilized, selfish band of thugs in hiding in Wanni, that has brought terror and fear to every peace loving man, woman and child in this little paradise.”

If we keep this “Nazi type...uneducated, uncivilised” animal out of our picture for the moment, what we should know is that the visitor is fascinated with ‘unsophisticated natural beauty’ and the ‘simple’ unsophisticated life of the ordinary people.

Reacting to the guidelines being offered to tourists, two British tourists interviewed by the BBC made some important statements which may be of use to those who are in charge of displaying our ‘civilised and poetic past’ may take heart from their words.

The British tourists referred to are a married couple, Jackie and Wayne, who were on their third visit to India since 1999, said that they would even like such guidelines to be extended.

“Why just Rajasthan? Such guidelines should be made available for other places in India too. Tour operators often do not tell tourists about local culture,” says Jackie.

Quite important

“It is quite important to know things beforehand about local sensibilities, like covering your arms and not getting too close to your partner in public.”

Her partner, Wayne, says: “We do not kiss or embrace each other in public because I know it is not liked here. When you open up a bottle of beer you can make out from the looks around you, it is not liked,” he says.

The greater menace, however, to our country, I seem to think, are not so much the foreigners as our own people manning our electronic media. What is driven home everyday through the commercials of its advertisements is the slow destruction of our ‘poetic past’ and our culture and civilisation.

Greed, one of the seven deadly sins, is now traded as the prime virtue in life through this media. And greed is also the pabulum that our children are being brought up on. Their greedy displays of eating and drinking are a sad commentary on how the electronic media is helping to bring up our children.

Why is there silence on the child labour that is used in commercial advertising? But a great fuss is made when some poor child is driven to work because he has to help in keeping the home fires burning. We don’t have to ban advertising but only to remind the advertisers that they have padlocked their social consciousness and thrown away the key.