When a shawl raises heat

On a cold winter evening, in a land far far away, a man offers a shawl to his hostess, the lady seated besides him, a formal occasion. She rises, blushes in delight, her warm, surprised smile breaking through the frost in the stiff proceedings. The lady's husband, the host of the evening, meanwhile, doesn't appear to have noticed this little exchange between his wife and one of his chief guests, a dashing man, legendary for his virility and machismo. He is schmoozing with his Big Cool American friend at that moment when this exquisite little pantomime of age-old chivalry is performed. But the lady, shrugging off the newly-accepted shawl as gracefully as she does her momentary fluster, has already indicated to an attentive aide seated strategically behind her that she is uncomfortable with this act of chivalry and in what, perhaps, is going to be some of the most viewed four seconds of footage for a long time, is seen swiftly, almost magically, removing the shawl and cladding herself in her own, homegrown, indigenously-provided garment of comfort.

Welcome to the world of hyper media, where every little smidgen of expression on the faces of world leaders, every feeble attempt at humour by chancellors of 'sensitive' universities, every barely-constructed dropping of wit from the severely enhanced lips of film stars receives its share of ever breaking, ever gasping, never ceasing media coverage.

Which means that the simple gesture of a man offering his shawl to a woman, his hostess - a moment that would have been lost in the age before the Internet - is now a matter of international concern.

Leave aside the sheer diplomatic repercussions that the "shawl offering" gesture has unleashed, the "was it an insult to China?", "was it a move to upstage Obama?", "was it a message to America haters?" - the fathomless fodder it's given to commentators of gender issues, the rallying points to feminist and their detractors, the issues it has laid bare on man-women dynamics and, not least, on censorship in China and its consequences, is unprecedented.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin displayed chivalry and sensitivity, both emotions he's not always been associated with, by wrapping a shawl around Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan at a function this week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the forum for 21 Pacific Rim economies, to say he was the bull in the China shop would be an understatement!

'Putin Shawlgate' has become a trending topic on social media with one tweet claiming that "Putin putting a shawl around Chinese premier's wife triggers more discussion/s than Putin annexing Crimea."

And, of course, every milestone in awkward man-woman gaffes of recent high-end diplomacy has been dredged up. You know the ones: George W Bush at the G8 giving German Chancellor Angela Merkel an unsolicited shoulder rub; Barack Obama's hand-at-the-back and slightly warmer-than-required peck on Aung Sang Suu Kyi's cheek; Obama officially launching the selfie phenomena by cozying up to Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt at Nelson Mandela's memorial service, and so on and so forth.

There was a time when no one knew any better and we were all innocents in the Age of Media Kindergarten. America's vice-president Richard Nixon could shake hands with Cuban President Fidel Castro in Washington. Castro could envelop a blushing Indira Gandhi in a bear hug at the Non-Aligned Movement summit and Leonid Brezhnev could land a smooch on Germany's Erich Honecker!

But that was before the camera phones, surveillance cams, 24X7 media coverage and hyper social media, when a chivalrous man could offer a fine lady some protection against the cold - and it would remain just that.

Malavika Sangghvi is a Mumbai-based writer malavikasangghvi@hotmail.com