That is what it should have be called - kissa kiss ka. For those who don't know, this is what happened - the Pretty Woman star took the most-popular Big Brother winner into his arms a la Gone with the Wind style and kissed her on the cheek several times at a private function organized to create AIDS awareness.
Star News had a whole half hour segment devoted to it, with the embrace and kiss scene in an auto-play, re-run mode in the background. The "issue" was constructed, reconstructed and deconstructed by "experts", who discussed it threadbare. The channel, of course, didn't ask a relevant question even once - Did this "fiasco" warrant so much of air time? Not surprisingly, Indian-culture-going-down-the-drain-believing-citizens of this country have gone up in arms about the entire incident. Star News offices were ransacked, Shilpa and Gere's effigies were burnt and protests organized outside Shilpa's house and the studio where she was shooting. Delhi Shiv Sena chief Jai Bhagwan Goyal said that Gere should be arrested. In his words, "It is an attack on our cultural ethos. Our culture does not permit public display of such acts".
It didn't seem to matter to these protesters that Shilpa herself had not objected/protested to the whole incident. She, in fact, publicly said that a "trivial issue was unnecessarily being politicized" and that she wouldn't apologize for she didn't see anything wrong with it. But to the self-appointed police force of Indian culture, this didn't really matter. Don't you see, Gere had insulted Indian culture and Indian women - public and vulgar display of such affection! What about our "decorum" and "modesty"?
Yes sir, this in a country when something like this goes completely unnoticed - by these very same TV channels and very same "protectors" of Indian women and Indian culture!
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2 comments:
Ohmigosh....The other incident you talk about is shocking, and shameful to say the least. What a contrast! What a brouhaha over this silly Gere-Shilpa incident, and what royal silence over this other incident, and hundreds such.... All I feel is a tremendous sense of frustration and sorrow.
[shruthi] That was my reaction too... I was tremendously upset that our media has absolutely no time for something as important and as sickening as this, but will devote hours and hours to discuss a kiss that never was or a world cup defeat that shouldn't be of any national concern!
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