India: Streetwise Kama Sutra?
Posted on June 4, 2010, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Culture, India, International.
MUMBAI, India — Every weekday morning 23-year-old Muskaan gets ready for work in an apartment she shares with her mother in Chembur, a suburb in Mumbai. Muskaan’s mom thinks her daughter will catch a bus to her office in Powai.
Instead, she meets her boyfriend, 24-year-old Dilip, and he gives her a ride to work on his motorcycle. Muskaan and Dilip have been together for a year, but their families do not know. The young couple fear their parents would disapprove of them dating before marriage.
They both still live at home and since they are not allowed to bring a member of the opposite sex over, they see each other in secret. Whenever they have free time, Muskaan and Dilip leave their own neighborhood and ride Dilip’s motorcycle to one of the few public spaces available in Mumbai.
On a recent Saturday, they sat shoulder-to-shoulder on a promenade, admiring the sunset over the Arabian Sea in Bandra, another suburb. “We normally sit here because this is a very beautiful place,” said Muskaan, who wears thick black eyeliner, black hoop earrings, silver sparkling sandals and a traditional Indian outfit called a salwar kameez.
Asked if they take their intimacy a step further and kiss or do other personal acts while sitting on Carter Road, Muskaan says in a matter-of-fact tone: “Obviously. Why would people come here?”
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