A brief history of bollywood kisses

A brief history of mwah is impossible without the briefest history of dishum-dishum.

When the first caveman began to first punch the first cavewoman, he found that her lips were the softest part of her, did minimum damage to his hand and that they visibly swelled upon assault, adding to his macho image.

When exactly did his mouth replace the fist depends on the femme fatale quotient in the woman’s DNA. Maybe from saying ‘I walked into the door’ to explain the bruises to neighbours, she walked out the door and the guy had to kiss and make up.

Anyway, for the purposes of making all advanced acrobatics in cave etchings somewhat polite, some time before the Kamasutra was put together, bussing became official.

Soon Bollywood took it upon itself to teach the nation about the birds and the bees. All was well while the hero shook a leg and the heroine shook a leg and together they sang of love eternal and pure. But then two flowers smooched violently on screen and all hell broke loose.

After two mouths mash up each other the story can only go to unwanted pregnancy or the sound of shehnai.

Now of course Emraan Hashmi is single-mouthedly battling the Censor Board’s outdated notions of morality. Hopefully, lessons will be learnt before his lips wear out; poor chap has only two.

Which brings us to Hollywood kissing. For the longest time, the Third World presumed only white people kissed, preoccupied as they themselves were with procuring roti, kapda aur makaan. Good Indians used their lips only for the holy purpose of pursing them inward to tch-tch against others. But American films made kissing look exotic, like tadka over the main dish.

Stolen kisses, practice-on-own-arm kisses, first kisses, forbidden kisses, baby raspberries, bye-bye kisses… here are some main types:

French kiss: Not for Ken-Barbie types. Or for the tongue-tied.
Judas kiss: A sort of distraction technique while stabbing with knife.

Flying kiss: This kiss travels through air like a gymnast.
Air kiss: Basically sniffing for earwax. Highly popular among socialites. Hygienic too as kissing is only implied.

Kiss ass: Not as gross as it sounds; neither a kiss nor an ass is actually present in the act. Also called sucking up.

Kiss off: Used to be an HMT watch during days of yore. Anything to sweeten the pill of ‘get lost, we don’t need you anymore’ at the workplace.

Kiss and tell: Trophy puckering up. This kind uses their mouth more to brag about the mwah than to mwah.
xxxxxxxxxxxx: Virtual kissing. Look ma, no mouths.

Side effects of kissing include loss of lipstick, a bee-stung look and numbness in the jaw. This gets a man closer to the possibility of all-the-way action and a woman’s maw closest to an Angelina Jolie pout.

Of course kissing per se is passe now and only a prelude to more matured things that I cannot handle due to my chaste Doordarshan past.

My children let me watch a TV film these days only after carefully studying its adult content. The hero only has to look at the heroine and I’m promptly blindfolded as this is ‘not suitable for you, mom’!