Hopefully, one day we will not be voyeurs anymore

Iwant to see people kissing in the streets. Impulsively.

CHENNAI : Iwant to see people kissing in the streets. Impulsively. Without stopping to check all sides for traffic. Without waiting for the light to change. Without nervousness. Without fear.I want to see people kissing in the streets, kissing as slowly as dust motes in a slab of sunlight. As slowly as water leaking from an air-conditioner into a bucket on the side of a building with balconies on which other people also kiss (and kiss) – as though kisses, like plants, need bright light and open air and time to grow languidly. Without wanting to be invisible. Kissing instead of speaking with the eyes.

Kissing without having to keep it briefer than a blink, so infinitesimal that even the kissers can’t be sure it happened later, licking their lips to try and remember. Kissing and disappearing into pedestrian crowds, only to turn around and come back for another one, to linger sweetly on the lips in a smile for the separate journeys home.

Kissing even though the breeze is immodest with their dresses, because no one will break stride to shame them, or stare too long, or try to destroy them. Kissing with their eyes closed tight, because there is no need to be vigilant. Kissing with their eyes wide open to the possibilities of a better world.Kissing passionately. Or tenderly. Kissing because they want to. Kissing because they can. Kissing because they forgot – even if only in the way that a kiss can contain and keep out the world at once – a time when they could not. When kisses had to be acts of subterfuge, when moments had to be stolen, when whole lives had to be operations of secrets and silences, and sometimes even lies.

There are rainbows everywhere – have you seen them? And we’ve no need to speak in codes anymore, but what would rambling through these streets be if we couldn’t pause to enjoy a metaphor? (And a kiss fills a pause like no words can).There are still so many who cannot cross that street – let alone kiss there – without danger, even loss of life. Still so many loves that are not equal. Still so many who must draw the curtains, even though the walls are always thin – except when someone being battered is screaming. Still so many violations, upheld by the bed of the law or protected by the umbrella of society.

But let’s begin. I want to see them – whoever they are – be who they are. Kissing, with abandon, in the streets. I hope that one day we won’t be voyeurs anymore, won’t be stunned (even with joy) at the sight. Because love will be something we take pride in, and we’ll celebrate it by simply letting it be.

Because the human heart, homed in the hot-blooded human body, is ancient and dependable. The law, in comparison, is capricious. It speaks, sometimes poorly, only for a time. I want to see people kissing in the streets now, because here we are in an era – and may it last forever – when the language of the law has finally begun to speak with love’s own mouth, love’s own tongue.

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