Collective euphoria (Image courtesy : Dreamdis)

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On the morning of 14 August, 1945, 21-year-old Greta Zimmer, reported for work as a dental assistant on Lexington Ave, New York City.

All morning, Greta had been hearing rumors that the Japanese had surrendered after being hammered by those two atomic bombs. Two months prior, in May, Nazi Germany had surrendered and this meant that World War II was finally over.

When the announcement finally came over the radio, businesses across New York (and in fact all over America and the world) downed their shutters and countless men and women left whatever they were doing and spilled into the streets in giddy, chaotic revelry.

Mass euphoria is a fascinating, spell-binding thing, a cathartic release. It is a moment of intense emotional high, usually brought about events like victory in war, as in this case. People will collectively go overboard by other events too, such as sports competitions, music festivals, religious gatherings or even the toppling of a brutal dictator. Singular events of awesome human achievement, like the moon landing, also bring people out on the streets. 

Mass euphoria can go the other way as well. In Orwell’s 1984 or Hitler’s 1939 Reichstag address, the mass euphoria was not spontaneous joy, but an engineered emotional state, manufactured and weaponized by a totalitarian power. It blinded the revellers to suffering and injustice.

Sigmund Freud called mass euphoria a temporary disconnect or reprieve, from reality, which in this case was the crippling economic depression raging through America at that time.

On that August day it was a sudden release from not only the pent-up anxieties and fears of six years of brutal warfare but also the bottled up anger over the previous two decades of economic meltdown that had come to be known as The Great Depression.

Sigmund Freud called mass euphoria a temporary disconnect or reprieve, from reality, which in this case was the crippling economic depression raging through America at that time.

Greta Zimmer’s joy was sobered by her recent past – she had landed in America as a Jewish refugee who escaped Austria in the nick of time in 1938, leaving her parents behind. As of that euphoric day, she hadn’t heard from them and feared they hadn’t survived.

Nevertheless Greta took off. In a happy daze, she wandered aimlessly west toward Manhattan. At the Times Square, which was – as it is even now – ground zero for spontaneous celebrations, thousands had descended, having left their hotels, offices and apartments, to be in close proximity with each other, some openly crying, while others hugged or shook hands.

At the very moment when Greta Zimmer was wandering into Time Square, 21-year old US Navy Ensign, George Mendosa was inside a cinema with his date, Rita, watching a war movie with Robert Mitchum in it. All of a sudden the show was halted and the lights came on and over the theater’s PA system came the announcement that the war had ended. Those inside the theater, George and Rita included, sprang up and rushed out into the street.

They couldn’t find a bar that wasn’t jam-packed, so the couple decided to simply mingle with the crowds that meandered around Time Square and soak up the historic moment. George had been enjoying the last few days of his shore leave and now he was overjoyed that he may no longer be redeployed in the Pacific.

If you had been a woman on Broadway or Times Square that day, chances were good that you would be scooped up and kissed by random strangers and most likely you wouldn’t mind it even a bit. Still, Greta Zimmer was shocked when she suddenly found herself jostled and then before she could gather her wits, she was grabbed and kissed by a brawny young man in a sailor’s uniform – Navy Ensign, George Mendosa.

Navy Ensign, George Mendosa, kisses nurse, Greta Zimmer, on a euphoric impulse. Greta has her left arm up, perhaps in instinctive defense.

Every man was kissing every woman that day, so George’s date, Rita, wasn’t even a bit ruffled when he scooped Greta up. In fact if you check out the photo closely, that’s Rita, visible over George’s right arm, with a grin on her face. (pic courtesy Life Magazine)

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This photo is a different one, perhaps taken seconds after the previous one. I figure this one was a few moments after because the nurse no longer has her left arm up in defense, resigned perhaps to the sudden assault. The kiss must have been a sloppy one, because Greta’s fist is clenched in cringing, grudging acceptance.

Judging by the reactions of others in the photo, the action has universal approval.

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I am sure the feeling among most women in America that day must have been one of gratitude, like they owed the men in uniform a debt. Letting themselves be grabbed and kissed (aka sexually assaulted) was seen by them as a gesture of that appreciation perhaps.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the two kissers, noted Life Magazine photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, had captured the moment. The photo was published a few weeks later but both, Zimmer and Mendonsa, would go years without knowing about “the photo that ended the Second World War” and of their newfound status as icons. The sailor kissing nurse photo has since spread around the world, as an iconic representation of the power of collective euphoria.

I recall sensing that same euphoric feeling once, in 1983, when India won the Cricket World Cup for the first time. The whole city of Pune – at least a million folks – had gathered around the Lakdi Pul and girls were out dancing with abandon, letting themselves be hugged, squeezed and cuddled openly, by total strangers. Straight-laced as I am, I found all that open rub-a-dub very gross, even though I remember having hormones that were barking like a Doberman pinscher, urging me to grab some of the action.

Later on I walked into a store to buy cigarettes and gestured at the still running commentary and on-pitch interviews on TV, saying to the store keeper – a young Muslim woman in hejab, “Wasn’t that simply awesome?”

“Mubarak ho! Mubarak ho!” she replied and smiled, as her hubby looked indulgently from behind her. The woman, someone who had probably been schooled to not speak with male strangers, was bubbling with the desire for release.  Historic moments seem to break barriers, peel off those layers of social norms that we wrap around ourselves.

I am sure that this dropping of all inhibition would hold true for even doomsday events of biblical proportions. Just suppose an asteroid the size of Greenland was a week away from wiping out all life on earth and any hope that it would pass us by had evaporated. You would be able to walk out into the streets and make love to just about anybody right there and then, wouldn’t you?

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George Mendosa later married Rita and stayed that way until 2012, when George passed on, at 90. Greta meanwhile lived to be 92, passing away in September 2016. Folks who knew both are unanimous that they lived happy and healthy lives.

But here’s a piece of advice to all my male readers – don’t get carried away thinking the moral of the story is – grab and kiss any random woman and she’ll grab and kiss you right back and you’ll live happily ever after. Remember that it works only if there’s just been a World War and your side won or if the world is about to come to an end.

On all other occasions, you’ll end up with a knee in your nuts.