Kiss of death of Shilpa Shetty PR stunt

Shilpa Shetty, Bollywood actress and darling of reality TV, has caused a stir in India when a rally designed to raise AIDS awareness took an unconventional turn.

Sharing a platform with Richard Gere, the Hollywood actor kissed Shilpa several times, albeit jokingly.

This breaks a cultural taboo in India that sparked off chants of "death to Shilpa" and burning of effigies of Gere across the country; that honour is are usually reserved for the under performing national cricket team.

It all brings memories back of my international marketing module, which highlighted the difficulties that can happen because of cultural and linguist misunderstanding although the illustrations were a bit more lighthearted.