Giving her the lip

Rakhi Sawant is popularly called an ‘item girl’, which is film industryspeak for a young, sexy dancer who does a suggestive number in the movies or in music videos. Mika Singh is a singer, many of whose videos will feature dances by girls like Sawant. He is better known as the brother of Punjabi singer Daler Mehndi.

Sawant was a guest at Mika’s birthday party at an Andheri restaurant owned by Bollywood actor Bobby Deol. Sawant has accused Mika of forcibly kissing her on the lips and biting her. She has complained to the police.

Public opinion will be divided between whether Rakhi Sawant, recently in the news for dancing in a manner apparently too vulgar for small town India, has staged a publicity stunt, whether this stunt was organised in cahoots with Mika, whether she left herself open to such actions by her clothes and her demeanour.

One vital issue will be left out of this argument: that of mistaken modernity. Indian society today is in a state of flux. Globalisation and liberalisation have not only brought us multiplexes and malls but have also led to an explosion of “western culture” and modern ways of dressing and behaving. In some sections of society, the cultural rituals of haute living are understood and the rules are followed with little damage. But only in some.

Modernity imposed from the top can never be assimilated fully. Right from the birthday party with its attendant customs to the peck on the cheek, unless the cultural context is understood they remain little more than shallow imitation of an alien lifestyle, leaving the door open to both social solecisms and unfortunate misunderstandings.

This is why Rakhi Sawant can see no contradiction in her behaviour or her choice of garments and her defence that she is an Indian girl and, therefore, averse to a liplock. To gratuitously invoke Indian culture is to have your birthday cake and to eat it too.

But you cannot have it both ways. From the available visual evidence, this is a publicity stunt gone horribly wrong, ending in press coverage, yes, but also subjecting its dramatis personae to ridicule.

Sawant may scream she was kissed on the lips, Mika may claim it was the cheeks, though it does appear that he got carried away. It’s all immaterial really. What is obvious is that neither understood that there are rules to this game and when you flout them, you end up looking silly.