Umm.. can we say, overreaction?

Shilpa Shetty can't seem to stay out controversy, poor thing. And not usually by her doing.

But seriously, I was apalled and embarrassed to see this ridiculous story splashed all over international media. I caught this latest development on Access Hollywood of all places. And then saw that it had made headlines on pretty much every entertainment news service -- print, broadcast and online.

An arrest warrant? Seriously!?

Okay, so Richard Gere should probably have stopped and thought before he acted. He visits the country (doing good, as people seem to have forgotten) often enough that he should have known better. But he made a mistake -- and I cannot even believe the overreaction. What frustrates me is how "modest" and prudish we like to believe we are as a country when, in reality, that's such bullshit. Everybody's doing it; they're just not talking about it.

Not to mention, I watched the footage and he hardly "smooched" her as was being reported. He kissed her on the cheek a few times, albeit while dipping her in a somewhat suggestive way -- but, please, we see that in the movies (yes, the Bollywood ones) all the time. And nobody's raring to throw SRK in jail. Big screen PDA is a whole lot more publicly "indecent," if that's what we're calling it.

And, of course, what gets convenietly left out is that all this happened at an important event to spread awareness about an important issue. An issue a whole lot more pressing than whether two actors behaved with adequate propriety or not. Where are people's priorities? And don't even get me started on the media. As usual, they missed the bus on what's important and what isn't.