What heats me is why, in our country, where there is so much violence committed against women and children on a daily basis, we get so worked up about couples kissing? What could go wrong if couples kissed in public? Don’t they do it in so many parts of the world? What has changed there? Did the tsunami happen because of a couple kissing? Do children starve in Orissa and Jharkhand because of a public display of affection and love? Do cyclones destroy life and property because of a kiss? Those are disasters. What worries me more is the sight of people defecating in public places, spitting on walls, men teasing or molesting women on the road, drunken men lying on a road… That, to me, is distasteful. Not the sight of couples kissing.
In Kerala, we seem to be regressing day after day. Instead of becoming more expansive and inclusive, I see an orthodox tendency creeping in. Moral policing is the new pastime of people who have nothing else to do. And so can’t seem to mind their own business. There is a saying in Malayalam — Velayillatha ambattan poochaye cherakkum — which means a barber who has no work will shave his cat. That’s how I see the moral police. Why not clean the streets of garbage or plant trees? What two people do with each other consensual is between the two of them and it isn’t for the public to intrude. To do so is to infringe on personal freedom.
I am afraid that this to me is representative of how fundamentalist nations behave. Couples who kiss in public are arrested and kept in custody while murderers, paedophiles and rapists are bailed out. What kind of justice system do we have? What kind of an executive arm of government do we have which can’t seem to distinguish between real evil and prejudice? Instead of focusing on what creates terror in our land, we seem to be occupied by something as silly as couples kissing.
Children are being trafficked, women are abused and no one bats an eyelid. It is the most natural thing to kiss if you love someone. Just like you breathe, eat, drink, talk and sing, you kiss when you feel the urge. Even fish kiss! So why can’t a man and woman? Or man and man, or woman and woman! It is perfectly natural. What isn’t is a society that frowns upon love!
Anita Nair is the author of the bestselling novels The Better Man, Ladies’ Coupe, Mistress and most recently of Idris: The Keeper of Light.
The vast majority of Kerala society detests this “Kiss of Love” agitation, which annoys because it’s obscene. After all the hype, only 50 pro-kiss campaigners reached the very public Marine Grounds and they could not indulge in their obscene acts, if one goes by their “logo” of a passionate kiss.
I have travelled to every nook and corner of Kerala, meeting women, both empowered and victims. I’ve not found any support from them for this campaign. Which is why I believe that the vast majority of Kerala resents this so-called new generation’s passion for the freedom to liplock in public.
The organisers, who claimed to be protesting “moral cops” rampaging a restaurant in Kozhikode after seeing something “obscene” there, chose a very uncultured form of protest. It’s not Gandhian because it violates social consciousness of what is permissible in public. It’s a wakeup call to the new generation. They should realise that the vast amounts of “likes” and “shares” on the Facebook do not translate into passionate multitudes on the ground. Social websites are so removed from the hard reality of life.
If we allow kissing in public today, we will not be able to stop smooching and, one step further, love-making in public. Kissers’ freedom to do the act in public offends the freedom of the rest of society. It grates on their sensibilities.
If society today falls in line with the kissers, what are we going to tell our young children in schools: Thou shall kiss or not kiss? Would any parent be able to protect his/her child once we give social sanction for the “Kiss of Love”. Kerala has witnessed several heroic and progressive agitation — the one for women to cover their breasts, rights of Namboodiri women against being dumped in the market and the right to share a community meal without caste inhibitions. But this campaign is a retrograde step and negates the spirit of freedom that we all cherish in God’s Own Country.
Modernisation is not Westernisation. While the West is coming to its senses after having spun through reckless orgies, why is it that our youth do not pick up the right lessons?
Let me say this: the “Kiss of Love” organisers’ fight against the lumpen band of “moral police”, though well-meaning, has gone awry because of the wrong tactic they employed. I would stand by them if they adopt socially relevant and culturally acceptable modes of agitation. “Kiss of Love” is against the tradition of Kerala. It’s against our culture. Jai Kerala!
Noorbeena Rasheed is a member of Kerala State Women’s Commission
