<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><img src="/photo/931016.cms" alt="/photo/931016.cms" border="0" /></div> <div class="Normal"><br />1968 (approximately): A rickshaw <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">wallah </span>is cycling in a small colony in Raipur.
Vest-clad urchins are running behind his rickshaw, which has two huge posters of an English movie on either side with a man sitting between the posters. <br /><br />The man is screaming into his megaphone in a gravely voice: "Come one, come all, come and see new <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">inglis </span>film, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang - Chooma, chaati, dhoom dhadaka</span>." <br /><br />Circa 2004: Movie information is just a click or flick away. Almost all channels have a surge of trailers, teasers and sneak peeks of forthcoming Bollywood movies or the filmmakers gassing about their new releases. <br /><br />While the rickshaw <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">wallah </span>and his megaphone might have given way to a TV with Bose speakers, the allure of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">chooma-chaati </span>seems to be just the same... or at least so think our filmmakers. Sample these: <br /><br />* "My movie talks about a housewife''s desires, it has 17 kissing scenes," says one director.<br />* "Mine is a movie about gangsters. Yes, there is a kissing scene," adds another.<br />* "What is wrong with me kissing on screen? It was done aesthetically," pouts a Bollywood blue-blood actress. <br />* "My film is a period film set during the British Raj. We have a beautiful kissing sequence," says a industry showman. <br /><br />No, it''s not that we have just discovered this ''trend''. But in all honesty, kissing, kissing scenes, who''s-kissing-whom, in fact anything to do with Bollywood''s on-screen osculatory exploration is getting on our nerves now.<br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><img src="/photo/930942.cms" alt="/photo/930942.cms" border="0" /></div> <div align="center" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="center" border="1" width="71.0%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" ffffff=""> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Dimple Kapadia and Rishi Kapoor in Sagar</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><br /></div> <div class="Normal"><br />The strange thing is, the kiss is nothing new to Hindi cinema. Dimple Kapadia and Rishi Kapoor rocked the BO with their kiss in <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Sagar</span>. But that was the <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Bobby </span>girl''s comeback vehicle. <br /><br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Raja Hindustani </span>had the audience thronging to the theatres to watch a taxi driver and an heiress smooch with copious rains, thunder and lightning. But then that was the movie which saw bushy-browed Karisma Kapoor transform into Rani Hindustani. <br /><br />In between there was the is-that-your-tongue-or-mine smooch between Pooja Bhatt and Rahul Roy (remember the silky haired <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Aashiqui </span>hero?) in <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayi</span>. <br /><br />But the movie didn''t work, so hardly anyone remembers that. Ditto for the kiss between Kamal Haasan and Rani Mukerjee in <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Hey! Ram</span>. <br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section3"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><img src="/photo/930995.cms" alt="/photo/930995.cms" border="0" /></div> <div class="Normal"><br />The point is, a kissing scene today has become an excuse for not having anything else in the movie. There''s The Beginning, The Kiss, The Interval and The End. <br /><br />You had a Reema Lamba change her name and gain instant ‘celebritydom’ thanks to her movie debut with 17 kisses as an attachment. Reema Lamba, now Mallika Sherawat, repeated the kiss and walked off with <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Murder</span>.<br /><br />Bad boy Emran Hashmi thought if Sherawat-can-I-can too and went ahead and kissed Dia Mirza in <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Tumsa Nahin Dekha</span>. The movie was bad, the kiss insipid and frankly, Mirza doesn''t have Sherawat''s curves. <br /><br />However, it seems Hashmi is convinced that all his movies need is a Kiss of Life and is repeating the oral exercise with Udita Goswami (<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Paap</span>) in Mahesh Bhatt''s under-production <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Zaher</span>. <br /><br />Will it work? Frankly, we don''t care.<br /><br />Beyond the Bhatt camp, others too joined the kiss-and-tell bandwagon. There was an obscure <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Sambandh</span> (don''t go huh? We said it was obscure) with 30 kisses and nothing else. <br /><br />Even the Gujarat riot-centric <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Dev </span>– a good movie, albeit serious – had Kareena Kapoor and Fardeen Khan kissing. <br /><br />Now we have the Sanjay Dutt-Sanjay Gupta-Mahesh Manjrekar trio coming out with <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Musafir</span>. Apart from releasing the movie''s music in two different formats, one of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Musafir''s </span>USPs is supposedly the smooch between Anil Kapoor and Sameera Reddy. <br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section4"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div class="Normal" style="" text-align:="" center=""><img src="/photo/930954.cms" alt="/photo/930954.cms" border="0" /></div> <div class="Normal"><br />Even Princess Propah Aishwarya Rai, had a blink-and-you-miss-it kiss with Vivek Oberoi in <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na.</span><br /><br />The audience said "Na" to that one, so now Mr Oberoi is trying his luck puckering up to <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">firang </span>babe Antonia Berneth in Subhash Ghai''s <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Kisna</span>. Why Mr Ghai, don''t trust your showmanship any more?<br /><br />The point is dear Filmmakers, we don''t need a kiss to watch your movies. We have watched a <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Lagaan</span>, a <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Dil Chahta Hai</span>, a <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Lakshya </span>(it was good, no matter who says what), a <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Kal Ho Naa Ho</span> and a score of new and old movies without the lead pair salivating over each other. <br /><br />And please, don''t tell us you are trying to show a ''progressive'' India with your kisses. We have a lot of other – and better – indications to know we are progressing, slowly but surely. <br /><br />As for movies – for all we care, go back to the two-roses-meeting to show on-screen couples making out. Or even have them duck under a shaking umbrella. <br /><br />Maybe that is passé, maybe it is retro. But if doing that will force you to work on stories instead of making kissing idiots out of us, so be it.</div> </div>
