" From the age-old climate of strict purdah enforced until recently in the state, the sudden change to increased personal freedom began to be seen as indistinguishable from promiscuity.
When the people saw a man and woman together, any man and any woman, they would make barbed comments that reeked of sexual innuendo.
Malicious tongues were desperately and subconsciously trying to violate social barriers by touching on this forbidden subject.
For some it was also, perhaps unknown to themselves, a manifestation of repressed anger at the transgression of accepted codes that prevailed from the beginning to the end of people's lives. "

― P.V. Narasimha Rao , The Insider