Moral Policing for making out in the city..

This summer of love, as Mumbai’s promenades, dwindling parks and gritty beaches are transformed to enchanted Xanadus and young couples whisper sweet nothings in the din of traffic, it will require a great deal of magic to keep those heart-shaped red ballons flying.

For, there is trouble in paradise. Among the complaints about canoodling couples that were scattered in the papers this week, was this particularly strange one. A Bandra woman grumbled tht entwined lovers on the seafront gave voyeuristic – and therefore, perverse – pleasure to men from rural areas, whose partners were in far-off hinterlands. This voyeurism raised a law n order issue, the daily inferred, as the “perverts” passed lewd comments at women.

Protest against street sexual harassment we certainly should, but the not on tht only rural migrants are voyeurs reflects our blinkered – and biased – urban view. It over looks the definition of voyeurism, which states tht ne1 observing, an act without knowledge of the actors is a voyeur. When intimacy is forced into open as it is in our city, isn’t every1 who glances at public displays of affection a voyeur, even without willing it?

I hv seen romance travelled to the shore in search of these brave but vulnerable twosomes, lovers who didn’t hv their private nook. Searching for the flattest rock, the least crowded and least shitty corner of the places like Juhu, Versova, Silver beach and Bandstand. I’ve seen the backs of men n women, huddled on to their interlocked fingers; his arms slung around her neck helped build their cocoon. They hv withstood invading glances, defined tradition and acted ‘improperly’ in public, but only in a neighborhood where no one knew them,

The Thought Police, the Moral Brigade and Neighbourhood Aunty have, in collusion, decided to put a stop to this burgeoning meance. Space is at premium and not to be trifled with by misguiding young couples looking for a bit of nookie. But, its not just space tht lovers want, away from the eyes of magisterial parents and state authorities. Space must also mutate in tandem with the dynamics of love. For those who are fortunate, the move is easy, from Barista to one’s apartment. For those with shallow pockets, this is time of change. The free salt water spray of Marine Drive gives way to the challenges of negotiating with sordid with rat-faced men over a soiled bedsheet, a room with a cracked water jar and a constant dipping into the pockets. Welcome to the world of Madh and Gorai shacks and Hotels called Red Rose.

This is the end of romance for such people. From this moment onwards all space is to be negotiated, fought for and horded. He police books and fine’s the lovers under the sections 110 and 117 of the Bombay Police Act(1951) its tht old n hvnt been revived since then. This ambiguous section dosnt define wht constitutes indecency and is thus open to interpretation. Our men in uniform hv interpreted cuddling – not defecating in public or kissing on celluloid – obscene. They reported lovers “indecent” behaviour to their parents, hoping perhaps, to shame the lovers into hiding.

But despite this moralistic finger-waving, lovers hvnt been deterred from seeking their perfectly paradoxical privacy in public. The raids might hv tried to make the public space heavily controlled, but like hawkers who return after the BMC demolitions their streetside shops, like commuters who got back on the train after 7/11, the lovers are here to stay in their transient asylums of invisibility.

But love like corruption, finds a way. And no matter wht lies at the end of the road, whether marigolds, a hurried sms, or a greasy outstretched palm, one is still reminded of Vyjanthimala and Raj Kapoor in Sangam: ‘”Tere man ki Ganga aur mere man ki jamuna ka bol Radha bol Sangam hoga ki nahi???”
And oh yes ,”hoga hoga HOGA”