“A kiss is not a kiss, in India.”

Richard Gere went to New Delhi early April to attend a HIV/AIDS awareness summit.

He was invited onstage by Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty, 32.

What happened next was unexpected. After swooping her into his arms, a dip was followed by multiple kisses on her cheeks. Gere claimed that it was a clumsy attempt at mimicking a scene from the 2004 film “shall we dance”.

Video:

But the reaction to that was amazing.

First,  some outraged Hindu groups deemed the act as an insult to Indian culture and an outrage to Shetty’s modesty. Effigies of not just Gere but also Shetty were burned in several major cities.

Later, some people filed legal complaints against the two. Indeed, after viewing the video footage, Judge Dinesh Gupta  of a Jaipur court agreed that it was “highly sexually erotic” and “transgressed all limits of vulgarity.” An arrest warrant on Gere was issued, and if found guilty of public obscenity, he could be jailed 3 months. Gere had already left India by then.

Shetty was also ordered to see the judge on 5th May to explain “why she did not resist Gere’s advances.”

Gere himself said that”this recent media storm has taken me by complete surprise.”

Shetty has defended the actor: “I understand this is his culture, not ours. But this was not such a big thing or so obscene for people to overreact in such manner.”

Source: it’s all over the Net!

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