Richard Gere To Be Arrested For Kissing Shilpa Shetty
Friday, April 27, 2007
Indians are angry that Richard Gere -- and not any of the members of that super-serious Indian court -- was able to kiss Shilpa Shetty. Now there's an arrest warrant for Gere and Shetty.
Dinesh Gupta, a judge in the northwestern city of Jaipur, issued the warrants today after a local lawyer filed a complaint accusing the pair of committing an “obscene act”.
After examining video footage of the event, the judge said that the stars’ behaviour was “highly sexually erotic”, “transgressed all limits of vulgarity” and “denigrated” Indian culture and social values. He also noted that Shetty’s attitude had been “co-operative” towards Gere, who has already left the country.
He embraced Shetty, 31, and planted several kisses on her cheek — to the audience's delight and her embarrassment — at a rally to promote Aids awareness among lorry drivers in Delhi.
Images of the clinch were then splashed across Indian newspapers and shown repeatedly on television news bulletins with little mention of the cause the two actors were trying to promote.
Last week Hindu nationalists responded by protesting in several Indian cities and even burnt straw effigies of Gere.
The opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party also condemned the incident, saying that “such a public display is not part of Indian tradition”.
But Parmeshwar Godrej, a prominent Indian socialite who organised the event, called the controversy a distraction from the more important issues of Aids in India. “It has detracted from and undermined the value and success of the event,” she told the CNN-IBN television network.
India has the largest number of Aids cases in the world, with 5.7 million people infected, according to UNAIDS.
Ms Shetty, who won Celebrity Big Brother in Britain this year after being subjected to racist slurs, admits that the kiss may have gone a “little overboard” but denies that it was obscene.
She says that Mr Gere was simply trying to entertain the audience by re-enacting his moves from the film Shall We Dance? and that he has asked her to apologise on his behalf for any offence caused.
The only thing I can say is: LOL!
at 7:56 PM
Labels: 4 Indian Babes, Shilpa Shetty
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We Indians still like Mr Gere. In fact no more than a few dozen people at a time took to the streets burning Mr Gere's effigies and in only four different towns. I am sure you know that India is a country of about a billion people with hundreds of such towns.
The judge who issued this warrant works out of a court in small town India and not out of ' New Delhi '. This is not the first time a Public Interest Litigation ( PIL ) application in India has been abused. In a similarly ridiculous attempt, a lawyer had sued a famous cricketer for eating beef! I can assure you no one in India has or will ever go to jail for either eating beef or for kissing someone. This is what Soli Sorabjee, former Attorney General of India had to say about Gere's warrant - "The order is ridiculous. Even if this hugging and kissing was a bit vulgar, it does not amount to obscenity."
"They are just seeking publicity," he said.
Another senior lawyer called the order "an act of judicial indecency."
"This is only for cheap publicity and the magistrate and lawyer should be restrained," Dushyant Dave told the Times of India newspaper.
The legal community has in fact slammed this warrant.
I am saddened that the American media is sensationalizing this incident by using headlines screaming - " The Kiss that Shocked India " or " Protests Rock India ". Why should the great majority of Indians be made to look retrograde for the actions of a few rascals?
By the way have you checked out the Kingfisher Swimsuit Calendar from last year? It's India's answer to the famous Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition; only the Indian models are less modestly clothed!
Regards
Indian