Public Display of Affections

The PDA’s as it is fondly called is a complex working system...How much is enough and how much is prudish is a matter of personal ruling. My first brush with the PDA came about when I was in class 11th. My brother and I had gone for a vacation to my masi’s house in Kolkata, where she took us to a happening club for New Year’s celebration. Everything was fine and sinking till the bell of 12 tolled to usher the arrival of the New Year. And to our immediate horror and utter discomfiture, all couples including teenagers, broke out into deep hard smooches that went on for some time, way into the next year. With our cultural roots jolted, my brother and I looked sheepishly at the ground for starters, though soon the dust settled and we managed to catch sideway glances of the hard-core action. Yup, even at that age, both of us smarty pants knew what to look at, when and how. We had suddenly lost interest in dancing and were more fascinated by the blood on the dance floor...embraces, fondling, cupping...you name it and it was happening right there, as if on a mission to educate us small towners to the core.

We, despite being a nation with a history of the Kama sutra or rather because of it, are often starved for sexual action in our own lives or more pronouncedly in the matter of getting a sneak public preview. Hence we gape unabashedly whenever we do manage to catch a handful...of action that is.
At a railway station in England, the authorities have put up a ‘no-kissing’ board in a specific zone, whereby they think passengers are delayed in their smooth flow, due to such interferences. To call that pedantic would be silly because it indicates that please do it anywhere else as you may deem suitable, but here.
Wow, kudos to their recognition of the need to do it publicly!

Back home the Valentine’s Day evokes a whole lot of hue and cry. Lovers caught in the act are harassed and defamed till they do not cover their faces in shame...Why can’t we live and let live? Why attempt to control the matters of the heart yaar? When you pass through a sea side or walk along a mountain strip, how pleasing it is to look at twosomes engrossed in cootchie-cooing...eyes locked, hands clasped, soft smiles, oblivion to the world around...This my friend is more pleasing than nature’s manifestations of beauty. But then sadly many-a-souls end up twittering like birds instead and guffaws follow.

Recently I visited the zoo with my very little nephew, where we saw couples getting mushy near, around, behind and in front of the cages, on benches, wherever the poor specimens managed to find space to “indulge”, which in simpler terms translates into talking with the mouth as well as gestures...aw...so sweets is that! What a comic relief I wondered, it must be for the animals to see some thrill around them for a change! And I also noticed how my brother’s little one was often more interested in what “uncle and aunty” were doing there than what the lion and bear seem to be parading for his entertainment...He has our genes, I thought with extreme pride!
But how sad is the situation of lovers when they are forced to dig up such corners to confess and profess!

Oh how adorable it is to see lovey dovey couples in movie halls resting their heads on the others shoulder...How an elderly pair gently moves to the tunes of soft notes in a sweet romantic dance....How with proud and cheeky display, some yuppie teenagers hold hands in market places as if to deter seemingly interested eye candies with a threat....this is mine! How awesome it is to catch a married duo signalling gestures to each other in a crowded party room, blissfully unaware that someone is watching them do so...How moving in a metro train the guy possessively...ok, maybe simply hornily... puts his hand around the waist of his gal....aw...I sigh and sigh before swooning in my overflowing mush...

Ah! While my dearly beloved believes in “all” display of “affection” in the confines of our four walls...hold his hand in public and lo! He would pull it away as if I passed an electric current into him. Despite the good metaphor, I remind him...Hellooooooooo, you legally married me remember? And he smiles and whispers...ghar ja ke... @#%$#@#%$#@ ...and I sigh again!

So then I have to shake hands and embrace people, correction...friends all around...whatever their sexes, to get some soothing comfort and I tell him defiantly it is his fault. Still not deterred he merely manages to say “guilty as charged” and reminds me of the new entrant in the room, whom I must greet with the pleasure of my soft hands...Hmmm...I wonder if public display of violence upon spouse would be looked at just as intriguingly...But thankfully I let that urge too, like the many others, pass.