Poor Richard........?

Poor Richard! He would have never thought that a kiss, that too on the cheek, would have raised such a storm. Though he claims that he was just taking off from where he left “Shall We Dance”, he could have certainly used some other excuses like maybe he was just educating people on AIDS, that, it’s perfectly alright to kiss total strangers. Or, maybe that he was not a racist unlike some ‘goody’ ‘goody’ people, the entire West ( not all that wild anymore) did stand up as a society to rid themselves of the guilt by coming on strongly against the ‘jaded’ people. Richard probably only succumbed to the peer pressure. Maybe the real mistake Richard made was underestimating the desperation of the Indian media to grab a ‘Breaking News’.
What Richard should understand is that if on that fateful day, even if he had kissed his own wife rather than Miss Big Brother, the hue and cry would have been the same. PDA is just not allowed here. And I am not talking of Personal Digital Assistant or Parenteral Drug Association. This one is Public Display of affection.
So it poses a real problem for Mr. Gere. How does he come back to India? How does he keep his dates with the Dalai Lama. If things in India do not change I can see Richard upping the ante for the Tibetan cause so Dalai Lama can go home.