A Burning Issue: What Not To Do in Public in the Land of Kama Sutra

Actor Richard Gere has been formally charged with committing an obscene act in public when he kissed Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty three times on the cheek at an AIDS awareness event.

I am not making this up. 

According to the BBC;

"Photographs of the clinch were splashed across front pages of newspapers in India.

Public displays of affection are still largely taboo in India, and protesters in Mumbai (Bombay) set fire to effigies of Gere following the incident."

Now admittedly, this is a rather painful image.  One can almost hear Mr. Gere's vertibrae cracking under the strain and Ms. Shetty appears to be drowning in his embrace.  But still, as PDA goes this is pretty tame stuff, at least outside of India.  Remember, this is a country where tradition and modernity are in dynamic tension, where in 1996 Indian Police reported over 2,500 cases of bride burning, and where long ago a celibate scholar wrote the definitive book on love: the Kama Sutra.  Of course, one didn't attempt some of its more challenging positions on stage and in public but as part of the romantic duty of married couples under the caste system and the practice of Dharma.   Sex as a means toward enlightenment is a fundamental part of the Tantric tradition.  I suppose by this standard the Gere grapple might appear coarse and unseemly.    Plus, darn it, he's a foreigner.  They never know their place or how to behave.

The Buddhist Bad Boy now faces a fine and/or three months imprisonment if convicted. 

Comments

[Al Mollitor]

I've bee rather suspicious of Richard Gere ever since I heard Debra Winger say how revolting she found him while making "An Officer and a Gentleman." It doesn't help that he's played some mighty sleazy characters over the years. This episode just adds to my distaste.