What they don’t tell you about revolutions is that they always come with traffic jams.
Commuters in Kochi found themselves battling some unusual traffic last Sunday evening, thanks to the enterprising youngsters who decided to stage a protest on Marine Drive. The event, called “Kiss of Love”, had taken over the Internet and primetime television, causing much debate over two topics — kissing in public, and, more importantly, the rampant moral policing that has weaved its way into the social fabric so well, that it has become what we lovingly refer to as “Indian culture”.
In a state where an unwarranted pinch on the bum is as much a part of the daily bus commute as rush-hour traffic, Malayali women have learnt to joke about the legacy of harassment that has been handed down by men for generations — for what better way to deal with what you cannot change than to laugh about it?
Laugh, because change is the last thing anyone expects in a State that boasts of its exceptional literacy levels, but is more famed for its widespread misogyny. How appropriate then, that an event as radical as a “kiss” protest should be first held in this State.
After goons trashed a café in Kozhikode for allegedly allowing young couples to canoodle, a bunch of youngsters in Kochi decided a simple peaceful protest where people could kiss in public was a brilliant idea. Well-intentioned because they (probably) assumed that if you show people that a kiss was actually no big deal, maybe they would stop harassing people who did kiss. But what started off as a simple protest was misappropriated and construed as a threat to Indian culture.
What’s in a kiss, any normal person would ask. Far more than the two pairs of lips involved, if you’re kissing in India. And it takes on monumental significance if you’re in public. This is mostly because, until very recently, most Indians have never seen two other Indians kiss. Your parents certainly never kissed; in Bollywood movies, a couple just stared into each other’s eyes while flowers did most of the work. All sources of information about this ‘kissing’ business were from books and movies from another land. It might as well have been science fiction. Which would explain why of the hordes of people gathered at Marine Drive, a small fraction were there to kiss, a slightly larger fraction to protest and the majority were there just to watch. Young men, mostly, gathered in droves to see if what they heard was true; they were going to — and not surreptitiously, mind you — see people kiss! If that doesn’t tell you what a lifetime of repressing all things related to love and sex, can do — what will?
As of today, in solidarity with Kochi, there have been similar “kiss of love” events in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Kolkata — and if you check the winds, there’s a nationwide storm coming.
While many are trying to trace the roots of the kiss, assertions that it originated in India are being used to counter those claiming that “western concepts” like kissing on the lips are ruining our “culture”. The point to be noted is that above all else, kissing is a natural, human response to this emotion called love. So unless they are prepared to label “love” a western concept and reject that as well, proponents of Indian culture can hold their peace.
What’s the first thing a mother does when you hand her her newborn child? Certainly not shake its hand. She’s going to want to kiss her baby. The kiss originated when human beings first experienced love, and if you want to figure out exactly “where” love originated, by all means go ahead and waste your time.
The kiss as a symbol of protest is not a new concept. Earlier this year, two women were unceremoniously asked to leave a British grocery store after a customer complained about their public display of affection. In response, hundreds of students at the University of Sussex organised a “Big Kiss In” at the Sainsbury outlet where the incident took place. Over 700 protestors, many of them from the same sex, kissed inside the store, in a protest that got the point across, quite lovingly.
In May last year, hundreds of protestors gathered at a Subway station in Ankara, Turkey, in a kissing protest after officials admonished a young couple for kissing on the streets, despite fundamentalists who staged a counter-protest at the same place.
Even Paris, the City of Love, where kissing couples are as much a part of the scenery as the Eiffel Tower, needed some TLC to combat its homophobia and protestors happily puckered up in support of marriage equality.
Closer home, Indians might recall the ‘Gay For A Day’ Facebook event that had users changing their profile picture to that of them kissing someone of the same sex. An attempt to show their solidarity with the LGBTQ community after the Supreme Court upheld Section 377 that criminalised homosexuality.
Clearly, turning the other cheek when policed for kissing is not an entirely new idea, but for a country like India, it certainly is revolutionary.
If there’s one image that will gain iconic status, it’s the one clicked by a local scribe of a Malayali couple locking lips inside a police van, visible through the grill. Ignore the young man giving them the side eye right next to them — and focus on the two making a simple point — it’s a display of affection, of love, between two willing parties. There are bigger things to worry about, world, let lovers be.
Sadly, in all the hullaballoo, the point the protestors wanted to make — about moral policing and misogyny — seem to have gotten lost in all the outrage. If only the naysayers could take a minute to stop gawking, maybe they would realise that there are bigger issues than locked lips. Until then, pucker up!
