The Fest
In Saam Ved it was uttered:
अयं बन्धुरयं नेति गणना लघुचेतसाम्।
(ayam bondhuryam neti gonona laghuchetasam)
उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम्॥ ७१
(udaracharitanan tu Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam)
meaning,“Parochial minds differentiate between friends and others. Magnanimous minds recognize worldwide family ties.”
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Mou never let Valentine’s day go dry. Even though she was single on the day, she never missed any Annual Kiss Festival at Shahid Minar ground.
Sight of couples in the festival arena brought uneasy awkwardness when she arrived there alone. To prevent awkwardness Mou resorted to explore the Kiss fest adventurously.
The year before last year she approached the cluster of lesbians, looking forward to finding some single souls. Ill-fated she discovered that they mostly came in pairs. However, one liberal couple blessed her with bliss of kiss. Each one favored equal kissing opportunity. So, Mou got two kisses. It was heaven with one and it was stale with the other.
Last year she attempted to disguise as a man to catch some gay kisses. It appeared men were more conservative than the women. No couple were willing to bestow Mou a kiss. Besides, they rated Mou as lesbian. Before the closing bell of the festival, Mou could barely convince one that she was just a woman trapped in a male body.
It was never so discriminatory during the early years of the festival, when Mou first bumped into its arena unmindfully. She was completely oblivious of her festive surroundings until a sudden kiss disrupted her thoughts.
The kisser was generous. He touched Mou’s uvula, bitten her tongue and gave her a clitoral erection yet finished with a calm pinch on her lips and held her head in his palms meeting her ecstatic eyes with a smiling steady brightly shining gaze. Mou felt as if she was in love again. Then the rest of the night they walked along city streets speaking nothing, not even asking each other’s names, communicating only through playing fingers in each other’s palms. At dawn, the next morning, they yawned by the river and took their separate ways not knowing each other’s caste, creed, sexual orientations. It long seemed a dream to Mou. She labelled the phenomenon as one night’s love. The feeling was immortal unlike one night’s stand.
This year things turned weird. The organizers notified via social media that Bharat Rakshak brethren would be present in the arena of the fest to prevent the participants from kissing. They also warned the participants of probable violence by BR. Strikingly, instead of criticizing BR’s parochial ways, the notification thread in the social media buzzed with how Rakshaks resembled the ferociousness of the wild bulls and how intoxicated they must be with the zeal of preserving Indian traditions.
However, the thread was nothing compared to the cleansing endeavors at the festival grounds. COVID pandemic hit the fest enthusiasts hard. The size of the crowd was a hundredth of that of the previous years. Those who came were busy cleaning their mouths by gurgling five times with mouthwashes and abluting their palms five times with sanitizers.
However, the organizers were explaining, over the loudspeakers, India’s historical liberal culture of accepting Shak, Hun, Mughal, Pathan ways of lives. They added how aboriginal people relinquished their urban civilization embracing pastoral power structure of the Aryans. They warned, “If BR attacks you as you start kissing with the gong, give them your kiss, not your fists.”
With the gong of initiating kissing, BR brethren, in distinct yellow shirts, white dhoti and brown scarf around necks, jumped into the field to separate the kissing couples. It was the responsibility of singletons like Mou to thwart the advancing brethren and engage them in kissing so that the couples could carry on.
Before Mou could start, the woman next to her was pulled by her hair by a Rakshak. Instead of hurling that Rakshak with abuses or punches, the woman pulled the Rakshak’s neck and swallowed his lips inside her own mouth.
Inspired Mou pulled a BR by arm and attempted to kiss. The man screamed, “No.”
Surprised Mou asked, “Why?”
The BR replied, “Aren’t you egalitarian? Your ‘No’ means ‘No’, mine isn’t!.”
Probably to clear the air, BR declared, “I’m a Brahmachari. Hence, I must abstain from all amorous rendezvous my entire life and rate all men and women respectively as my brothers and sisters. Hence, I won’t kiss you or let you kiss me, my sister.”
The BR added, “Besides, I’ve sworn to prevent my brothers and sisters from conducting shameless show of lust like the westerners.”
Mou quipped, “Dude, westerners taunt to lustful couples on their streets with, ‘Go, get a room.”
She continued, “Also, we’ve communities where marrying maternal uncle or paternal aunt’s son is perfectly alright. That’s incest for Westerners.”
The BR brought more references, “Sis, kissing is not Indian way to express love. You must know Kamasutra does not speak of kisses.”
Mou lashed her tongue, “Yay, neither it speaks of oral hygiene."
She was already mad. She had almost lost her only chance to have a ritualistic romantic night on Valentine's Day. She continued arguing with an attempt to pay the BR by his own coin, “Don’t you agree that Sam Veda teaches us Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam? Shouldn’t we embrace the occidental expression of love and harmony?”
The BR seemed lacking in logic. Mou opportunistically added, “Kissing’s an expression. None can violate another person’s freedom of expression. It's the constitutional right of each individual in India.”
Then she shrieked, “You and your brethren are thugs. See, how he’s pushing my friend’s ribs…”
The BR tried to reason, “He was attacked sexually and molested by your friend...”
Disheveled Mou argued back, “Why don’t you call the police then?”
The BR responded, “I have called. Leave the ground sister before you get tangled in this mess. Happy Valentines’ Day.”
Then he disappeared in the kissing crowd.
Mou rambled away from the fest arena, lamenting the kiss that was lost to lousy debates.
