Lindsay Pereira: Making room for love in Mumbai

A large number of young people were happy earlier this week after being told that there is now a hotel booking site that allows couples to book rooms for 8 to 10 hours The site reportedly picks hotels that donrsquot have a problem with unmarried couples hence the reason for that happinessI havenrsquot tried the service yet nor can I say for certain that the police wonrsquot abandon their focus on serious crime in order to keep an eye on people using the site After all they have long felt the need to keep an eye on couples more than an eye on their corrupt colleaguesWhat I do know is that this piece of information made me sad for a number of reasons starting with the fact that I am no longer a teenager and canrsquot remember the last time I was excited about a hotel room What made me more upset was how we continue to demonise people who want nothing more than a quickie or a cuddle simply because it goes against our regressive ideas of what a couple should and shouldnrsquot be allowed to doLetrsquos put into perspective what we all seem to have a huge problem with People having sexOne would assume this sort of forced reticence would lead to a drop in our everexpanding population This hasnrsquot happened obviously One would assume young people would give up the idea of sex and hope for a chaste relationship involving nothing more than mild pecks on cheeks That hasnrsquot happened either What then do we hope to accomplish by continuing to demonise couples just because they feel an urge that is humanMuch has been written and said about how we as Indians are more sexually regressive than ever before Those looking for proof can find it everywhere mdash from the way men constantly stare at women in skirts to the way adults usher children out of rooms the minute someone on television decides to kiss someone else to the way ridiculously ordinary words like lsquobreastrsquo lsquoassrsquo and lsquobuttrsquo are censored despite the fact that they have no sexual connotations whatsoever Who decides what is allowed and what isnrsquot anyway No one knows No one seems to care either which is why The Jungle Book gets a UA certificate in our countryThe psychoanalyst and novelist Sudhir Kakar tried figuring out why so many of our countrymen are the way they are in his book The Indians Portrait of a People Referring to our sexual repression he pointed out that Indians were once very erotic people who eventually lost a longstanding battle between erotica and asceticism This he added explained why the temples of Khajuraho depicted the pleasures of oral sex while our honourable Censor Board made it hard for filmmakers to show two adults kissingKakar asks us to look at the poetry of Jayadevarsquos Gita Govinda or sculptures in medieval temples blaming our puritanical streak on the advent of foreign invaders who either forced their repressive ideologies on to us or made us seem inferior forcing us to adopt Victorian notions of morality that eventually consumed us The result is the inability of couples today to find a room they can just make out in without the risk of being arrestedThis isnrsquot about just unmarried people having sex either Millions of married folk struggle to find a bit of privacy in our city which compels them to hide under umbrellas along Worli seaface for a kiss Theyrsquore not sure about whether thatrsquos punishable either Not too long ago the police decided to conduct a raid on several lodges and twostar hotels They knocked on doors arrested couples and took them to police stations where they were humiliated in public for over five hours Interestingly this happened in an area where a spurious liquor racket was allowed to flourish leading to the death of over 104 people See what I mean about priorities for the policeThe startup in question doesnrsquot solve every problem Couples who want to book a room still need to furnish government ID proof from both partners who should be at least 18 years of ageIf the Mumbai police had their way consenting unmarried adults would never be allowed to have sex or enjoy any kind of privacy I hope teenagers do their bit to fight this If yoursquore a teenager reading this I hope you do the right thing Go and get a roomWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereira Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom