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Meeta Bhatti
SEPTEMBER 29: Chronicles of the stir created by Khushwant Singh's grandfatherly peck on Maha Qazi's cheek have had an interesting ripple effect among Mumbai's chatterati.
Following the kiss and tale, the debate in the cocktail circuit is not one of morality, but a more mundane one on modus operandi: the chic way to say hello. Do you proffer hello from a sanitised 50 meter radius, shake hands, balacing a flute of champagne in the other or just damn the moralist and go mwah-mwah in the air, as Vikram Seth so evocatively wrote.
And if kiss it is to be, then there is that delicate task of execution. Do you air kiss, send a flying kiss, cheek-to-cheek or that social peck? Each evening many a veteran navigate this minefield of social etiquette as poolsides echo with `hello dahlings' and cheese is daintily nibbled with salt 'n pepper. "Oh! we do it all the time. And why one, we kiss on both the cheeks," enthuses model-turned-TV anchor Achla Sachdev. A kiss for her is an extension of a hug or a handshake. "It isan accepted form of greeting someone."
Her views are echoed by model-actor Marc Robinson who was last year in Pramod Navalkar's bad books for kissing former Channel [V] veejay Sophia Haque at a public function. But for every believer of freedom of expression of affection there is a purist who object to a callow Padmini Kolhapure's peck for Prince Charles or Shabana Azmi's warm greetings to Nelson Mandela. "But it's a peck for God's sake. A sign of affection. That's how you show your warmth and friendliness," protests Robinson. Even Diwakar Pundir, Graviera Mr India '97 thinks that a social kiss is like a hug or holding hands. "I do it all the time," he says. However, a smack on the lips is something different. "An intimate kiss in public is criminal. I agree," says Robinson. "It should definitely be restricted to the confines of your house," he says. "No one comes and kisses you on lips unless he/she is your boyfriend or girlfriend," nods Sachdev, who feels that she has been seeing people conducting in thismanner since her early days in modelling. She, like others from the city's chattering class, is not allergic to a social kiss. She neither extends her hand on seeing a puckered mouth reaching for her cheek, nor does she cross her arms for a plain `hello'.
Neither does jewellery designer Poonam Soni. But she prefers to shake hands with all her acquaintances, even at social dos, while she has nothing against those who choose more intimate ways to greet friends and foes. "Sometimes, before you even know the other person kisses you, and you react. It's human," she says. At other times, she feels that people drift with the prevalent. "Like the way you tend to touch your elders' feet if someone else is doing it, the same way people tend to follow the trend of kissing if others are. Personally, I touch my cheek with the other person's if I am close, otherwise it's just a handshake for me," adds Soni.
So it is for Shobha De, author and The Indian Express columnist, who doesn't subscribe to either peckingor kissing. "I am not a social kisser," she affirms. Socialite Dolly Thakore, on the other hand, feels that relationships last longer than politics. "Khushwant Singh's peck has been ridiculously politicised. There's nothing sexual about making the other person feeling comfortable with a kiss planted on the cheek. If the French can kiss hands and the Europeans greet with a peck too, then why can't we.
So, what's the furore about? Let's kiss and make up.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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