Excerpt from BBC article!

"Look before you kiss in India. A smooch can get you in serious trouble in the world's largest democracy.

Earlier this week, a court in Delhi - ah, of all places, in the "happening" capital! - threw out the case against a young, married couple who were picked up by police allegedly for kissing near a railway station."

 For clues to why Indians appear to be clueless about kissing, listen to a model-actress Udita Goswami.

"I have pledged that in any of my forthcoming films I will not give a lip kiss," she told a newspaper.

"I am not comfortable doing that. I belong to a traditional family and my values do not allow me to indulge in such acts."

But a kissing famine has led to a curious demand for it in the dark confines of the movie theatre - and become a passport to fame for some.

A Bollywood starlet's film some years ago was hyped as one in which she had kissed her dazed looking co-star 17 times. (It so happened that the kisses were the only memorable thing about the film.)"

"Some people play it down, saying those who protest belong to a "loony fringe" of moral fundamentalists. Others say it is a hangover from tradition in an ancient civilisation. Still others say many Indians long for traditional mores as Western consumerist values swamp the country.

Or is it a response to what the Iranian intellectual Jalal-e-Ahmad called "Westoxication" - superficial consumerist display of commodities and fads produced in the West?"