Kiss of love protest: To Kiss or Not to kiss?

 

Veteran journalist and human rights activist, B.R.P.Bhaskar, says:  “Kerala had a unique renaissance movement. Kerala stays ahead of other states of India in social parameters because of this movement. Our statistiscs on health, education and sex ratio are comparable to that of westerners only because of this revolutionary social renewal movement which went on for a century, but halted in the middle of the last century. Now Kochi is not a city, not a place; it is a statement, it is a movement. I see the possibility of reviving the stalled Kerala renaissance through this movement.” 

 

Arundhathi B Nalukettil, a PG student of Hyderabad Central University, asks guardian angels of culture, “What is this Indian culture? Have you visited old temples? It is filled with sensuous sculptures that express different forms of love. 

 

Sangam poetry and Bhakthi Movement in earlier centuries seek to express love through body, as it is considered divine. And remember this is a place where we worship Lingam-because body is considered spiritual.   

 

Shambhu Sajith, scriptwriter and director, states, “See the name of the protest. It is not ‘kiss for war’, not ‘kiss for terror’ or ‘kiss against culture’, it is simple. ‘Kiss for love’. It ought to be positive. ” 

 

NID-graduated fashion photographer Anjali Gopan says, “Each and every individual deserves to love and be loved in the way they like. If anybody wants to kiss, let them kiss. Personal freedom is of utmost importance.”

 

If we understand that Kiss of Love is a symbolic protest against moral policing that controls and limits the freedom of a lot of women in our state, which brands our sisters and friends as “loose” if they are seen with their male counterparts, which demarcates our public space into two halves, I hope we would think different then.