Udupi: A viral video of a young couple kissing in Karnataka‘s Udupi district has ignited a heated debate over public decency, cultural responsibility, and personal freedom.
The footage shows a couple engaged in a public display of affection on the side of an empty road in Manipal town. A bystander recorded the entire incident before confronting them.
He questioned them in Kannada, but the man asked to speak in Hindi. In response, the local insisted on continuing the conversation in Kannada.
The couple left the area after a while, with the woman trying to hide her face from being captured in the video.
The local claimed that their display made other women uncomfortable. Another bystander said, “They shouldn’t come here to do such things and spoil Udupi’s name.”
Online, while some criticised the act as insensitive for a city known as a major educational and religious hub, others condemned the moral policing, arguing that legal standards should be prioritised over subjective cultural values.
“Do you also stop the people who pee in public? or it’s just for kissing?” one comment read.
Another user wrote, “Frankly young people should learn to respect cultural sensibilities of the place you are in.. every place has its own culture. It has nothing to do with freedom..where does the freedom stop? ”
Others drew comparisons to celebrities or politicians, arguing that they would have been left alone in a similar situation. “If he was rich person or celebrity, nobody would even get near or have guts to talk.”
Another person called out the person behind the camera, “Recording a couple and uploading it on social media is next level of creepiness.”
This post was last modified on April 25, 2026 4:49 pm