Dear Guardians of Indian culture,
First, please accept my gratitude for destroying a coffee shop that was alleged by a Malayalam channel – and its bitter-looking anchor – to have been nurturing amoral, amorous activity in its premises.
I was horrified by the video. First, the garish pink umbrella which was being shared – shared, I shudder to even think – by a mixed-sex couple...the colour of that umbrella may have permanently affected my sight. It also appeared that a woman wearing white clothes was passionately kissing several men. Or, it may have been two similarly-built women in similar clothes – the video was blurred, so I couldn’t tell.
The anchor pointed out, I think – my Malayalam is only marginally better than my Russian – that, in the guise of a car park, the coffee shop had provided a secluded area for such rendezvous. It seemed that people were – god forbid – actually having fun. Some groups even had a couple of women in the mix.
Just when it appeared that all of India’s cultural richness was going to be destroyed over several cups of coffee, you showed up like old-fashioned warriors, complete with flags.
You went on to break all the glass that you could see – save for the cameras that were recording your heroics.
Not only did this scare people away from this love-nest-in-the-guise-of-a-coffee-shop, but it also provided fodder for the Swachch Bharat campaign. I mean, at the very least, it spared municipal workers from carting along garbage in order to create a photo-op for our charming politicians.
Your intentions were no doubt excellent.
However, they have led to this execrable Kiss of Love campaign. First, a husband and wife decided to kiss in public. Despite their having given notice of their plans, the courts refused to put a stop to this act, leaving it to the police to make a last minute decision.
The fact that it was last minute allowed people to gather in force. What did you expect, really? Traditionally, or at least stereotypically, Malayali men based in Kerala are supposed to be at a disadvantage where the Casanova moves are concerned, you know. And now, suddenly, women were willing to make out with them, all for a good cause.
You did well in having the police arrest the peaceful protesters, after first allowing them to be attacked by the aggressive protesters who were protesting against their peaceful protest.
Yet, this seems to have spawned off a chain reaction.
Women were willing to kiss IIT boys.
I mean, IIT boys.
Think about it. Across India, any given IIT campus is a bigger sausage fest than a mediaeval war sequence in a Hollywood film. There are fewer monsters and creatures, and far fewer women. The sex ratio is more skewed than 300. Hell, it’s more skewed than The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
As an Indian woman, I am deeply affronted by this departure from our traditions – never in our history have we given college boys, leave alone IIT boys, so much bhao.
Worse, all the spots that lovers have painstakingly found for themselves – the university campuses in all the metropolises, abandoned bridges and shady lanes, which senior citizens frequent with torches and moral high ground – will now lose their significance.
And so, I encourage you to persist with your campaign against Public Display of Affection (PDA).
I must confess at this point that I have a personal stake in the matter.
As a stand-up comedienne, I find the prospect of PDA being legalised extremely disturbing – most of my routines involve imitations of cops threatening to call up the geriatric parents of middle-aged couples who are caught making out in their cars.
So, I hope that you will always have armies of destruction-loving, sexually frustrated young men at hand, to willingly
vandalise coffee shops and college campuses where people of opposite sexes are found engaging in face-to-face human interaction.
To concede to our hormonal impulses – wait, I’ll have to rephrase that, given that this may also cover the activities of your young men on their violent missions...umm, let’s say: To concede to the call of our procreative hormones, outside the bounds of an auspicious and socially-blessed marriage (no manglik, bhaichara etc, you know), would destroy the moral fabric of our society.
While it is important to maintain our status as one of the world’s most populous nations – and, dude, we’re going to overtake China in the near future – we must equally ensure that no one has fun doing it.
The courts’ hesitation to rule against marital rape is a case in point.
I humbly submit my imploration that you will follow the footsteps of our learned judiciary, and do the same.
My best regards,
Bharatiya Nari
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