Monday, January 7, 2013

Bandstand - A Second Perspective



Once again, I got an opportunity to come down to Mumbai. This time I was putting up at Bandra, near Bandstand. For most of us, Bandra and Bandstand are known for only two things, super stars, and love making couples. When my friends came to know of my stay, most of them suggested me to go and enjoy at band stand – enjoying meant, watching the couples make love – others grinned at my loneliness amid the passion. Now one thing is pretty sure, Bandstand has become a public symbol, which won’t let any couple feel guilty of expressing love in public over there.

It was not long ago, when I read a quote on Facebook and it caught my eye, “In India, you can piss in public, but cannot kiss in public”. Initially I fiddled the quote, branding it a gender biases quote. Lately did I realize that we Indians have problem with public display of affection, PDA - what most of my friends call it.
The funny part of Indian lives is, we may easily find couples having a fracas in public, but would rarely find a couple romancing in public. I am astonied to feel that we are hunky-dory with the bombarding negative emotions but are wary of the most rustic positive emotions.

Being intimate is the greenest emotion – an emotion which is the most primitive one, an emotion which leads to one of the purest processes of life – generating new life. We live in a culture, where we consider physical intimacy a sacrosanct act, an act worth ostracism. We discuss it, laugh on it, crack jokes on it, watch it, but don’t admit that we practice it.

Recently came an end to an enthralling T-20 Cricket World Cup and there too, something struck my eyes. The jubilation by West Indian team was different. People were amazed to see a team, playing The Gentlemen’s game, dancing and enjoying in a rustic fashion.  Once again, the dance became the talk of the town, because the behavior was unexpected on a cricket ground.

There’s no problem with the dance, or with the dancers – read players – but, the problem lies with the viewers, who would shy away from dancing in public. Parallelly, the problem doesn't lie with love making couples, but the viewers. If we see our ancient sculptures, we would find engraving of dancing and love making couples. This gives a breath to the thought that there has been a time when these things were openly acceptable but, because of a change in mindset, they have disappeared. 

5 comments:

  1. I would rather against u r thought. If it is a matter of Viewers only & purely ignoring the socialism then yes we can do the Laghu Shanka & Dirghsanka in the public...!!!

    So from my side I am not agreed with tis thought..!!!!

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    1. Dear Rupesh,

      I would humbly respect your disagreement. The reason, we can not do Laghu Shanka & Dirghsanka in public is not as social as environmental. Sewage and cleanliness should be the main reasons.

      I would invite the word social here. Social is an adjective, which when used with animals, derives human beings. The definition of social acceptance is defined by humans and this definition, changes invariably, with time, and location.

      The social acceptance is thus majorly defined by the number of people and the position of the personnel accepting to a mindset. Thus what seems acceptable right now over here, might not be acceptable somewhere else and might have not have been acceptable earlier at this very place

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  2. Dude the way you wrote " the mother of God was branded Virgin, just to elude her from the ‘crime’ of intimacy." is kind of offensive. You cannot quote something of faith without substantiating it. The Virgin Mother is looked upon as a miracle as a work of God not to elude her from a crime of intimacy. I hope you will try and be more sensitive while putting your creative writing hat.

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    1. I am sorry, if that has hurt some one's religious sentiments, though my aim was not to do that. Will surely take care of that... :-)

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  3. Appalled that the educated people in this country steal images and use them without credit. The least you could have done is ask me for the image of the couple by the sea. Pull it down right away else I will have to report you to the cyber crime cell.

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