What do you do when you're out in a public place minding your own business and you're suddenly confronted with a couple unabashedly creating a public display of affection? Consider them fair game and ogle them happily? Quickly avert your eyes and pretend you can't see them? Act totally blasé like you're exposed to exhibits like that every day? Confront them with a sound lecture on public behaviour?
At one of the eating places I went to on my recent trip, my cousin and I were hungrily lunching on something nice and Chinese when this young couple walked in and sat down at the table right next to ours. Both looked Chinese, in their early to mid 20s, fair, decently dressed and had a few shopping bags. Although they were sitting directly in my line of sight, I was probably so busy digging into my food I didn't notice when they started acting touchy feely. My cousin who was actually sitting with her back to them was the one to bring them to my notice. The restaurant was cosily dark with tinted windows but not so cinema hall dark that customers might end up eating spoonfuls of salt. And besides it was around 2 in the afternoon with the sun in full blast mode outside. None of that bothered the couple. The woman would lean her head on his shoulder like she'd been carrying a quintal-full headload all day and her neck was now dying on her. He would smoothen her hair, murmur presumed wee wee words of love in her ear. When their food arrived in arrays of plates and bowls, they fussed around and when I next looked, she was coyly feeding him like he was some imbecelic overgrown child having trouble feeding on his own.
Ok so they didn't actually put on a physically intimate free show, at least not when I was looking, nothing that might've got them booked for indecent behaviour in public. But it got me thinking that while times change and the country and its people aren't as conservative and buttoned-up as it/we used to be, surely you should stop to consider whether your public peccadilloes are embarrassing the unwary around you and take it someplace private.
LMAO. the first serious culture shock i had when i moved into 'india' was the affection shown in public. was a chennai restaurant too, actually, and the whole 'feeding' thing. gotten quite used to it now, as long as people aren't actually swapping spit. 've had to get used to being hugged too, 'specially in b'lore.
ReplyDeleteThat was a bit much too much, i'd certainly class it as indecent.
ReplyDeleteWell mesjay, I don't know about "indecent" exactly but it was discomfiting being a bystander.
ReplyDeletefed, are you saying "public feeding" happens often in conservative South India? Amazing, who'd have thought of that! Mizos and most NE folks are definitely shy that way and while a few couples now walk around in public holding hands, that's about as much PDA we can take as of now, I think. How about out there in Kiwi country though? White folks, different perspectives?
k'u calliopa?mind if i join? i have only 3 words to say to the couple, "Get a room"...lolz...well...er...if u r truly in love maybe u act kinda crazy cos maybe, just maybe, their world revolves around each other n there4, they r unaware that there r people like us sitting next to them who cant c anythg special abt the hairy, oily-haired dude clad in multi-colored shirt n highwaisted-bootcut jeans or extra-attractive abt the hairy, bushy eyebrowed gal reeking of "bajaj almond drops" lol
ReplyDeleteGiven all the hate and violence in this world, better love than war. Those guys in that eating place didn't do much. Give them some space. Make love not war I say!
ReplyDeleteLoch, you're right, better love than war. But I wonder if you'd still be saying that if you came across hard to ignore, blatant PDAs!
ReplyDeleteJamie, what's with the k'u calliopia, a thring eee lolzzz. I just went around to your pretty pink blog. Didn't know you were a blogger too. Yes, my sentiments exactly, get a room!
Ah! I am quite used to PDAs and I don't mind that at all. Hmmm. I have to admit I would sort of mind it if it were conducted in restaurant. It all depends on the on the setting I suppose. If it is a casual place PDA is ok. Formal place? Definitely not in.
ReplyDeletePDA is probably the antidote to the obnoxious behaviour that is/was routine in, for example, Delhi's notorious buses where groping by strangers was the norm. The funny thing is that police officers will not do anything about such serious things but will arrest you for PDA!
Lol Loch, you're the world traveller so you ought to be exposed to a lot of this stuff. Yeah, now that you mention it, gropers def. deserve to be arrested and given a criminal record. I remember my sister once talking about a friend of hers who was part of a college excursion team and they were all at the railway station in Delhi when a couple of the girls had their breasts groped. The male team members were so outraged, my sister's friend turned to the first woman he saw and groped her too! Tit for tat but kind of pointless huh?
ReplyDeletei kinda find it sweet when a couple (vai ho hi ania ka tih tlangpui) manage to steal some time away from their families (presumably very strict ones) and sneak out to meet in parks where they would look intensely at each other and talk endlessly for hours. its when the groping starts when i get freaked out.
ReplyDeleteI like it when couples are openly affectionate. But when 'affectionate' translates into the really physical, then it becomes really awkward. Strolling hand-in-hand- beautiful. Holding each other,chest-to-chest, face-to-face- awkward.
ReplyDeleteYou got it, V. I agree totally. And awkward is just the word I was looking for. They make you feel like you're intruding onto something private which is just a no no in a public place.
ReplyDelete__K, I suppose when you think about how strict their society is, vai lovebirds should be more pitied, even congratulated maybe. And they do do it with such intensity and obsessiveness, don't they? haha
Yes I do get to see pda all over the world all the time. So I am used to it and don't mind it at all. However, like I said it depends on the setting or circumstance. For example pdas in a religious settings is a definite no no! In general I do have a lot of understanding for couples being affectionate specially in our type of repressed society.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that I miss from the old days is the fine art of flirting. A glance, a shyly defiant look, a flick of the hair....and subtle,elegant and refined non verbal hints that says you really interest me. I take that any day over modern zeitgeist of slam bang thank you ma'am.
Loch, I can see you're really warming up to the subject :D And you're right again, the modern zeitgeist (that's a new one for me) does take away the romance of it all. Forgive me for sounding like some know-it-all who has an anecdote for every turn in the convo but my friend's grandmother was once in hospital critically ill and as her husband, aged 70/80 sth, was about to leave for the night, he stopped by the door and came back to lay a tender hand on her cheek. My friend said that was such an uncharacteristic and romantic gesture for him, she was more deeply touched than by any other overt gesture of love by other folks.
ReplyDeleteVa romantic hlawm ve. I'll stick to the good ole Love Letters, folded in those special ways!!
ReplyDeleteLove letters folded in "special ways", hmmmm methinks we have another oldie here :) Youngsters don't know a thing about paper love letters
ReplyDeleteI'm a certified psychiatrist and after reading your post I can state with authority that you actually miss that days when you used to coochie coo with your lovers in public especially inside the AR Cinema Hall on that day when Sholay first released in Mizoram.
ReplyDeleteer.. *THOSE* days . My grammars are unperfect :(
ReplyDeleteYou are is grammar is zimbly awesome, Dr Quack. You know, I did go often to the AR cinema...would bunk college and all to take in Hindi movies like Amar Akbar Anthony, Hum Kissi Se Kum Nahi (which I loved!!) but somehow I never watched Sholay. One of those ones that got away.. And I never had no one to coochie coo with either waahhhh
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