The latest film to fall victim to the Censor Board’s aversion to kissing on screen is the Shimit Amin directed Rocket Singh — Salesman Of The Year. According to sources, the producers plan to ‘tone down’ two passionate kisses between Ranbir Kapoor and newcomer Shahzahn Padamsee to ensure the film doesn’t get an 'A' certificate.
Kisses have been a bone of contention between producers and the Censor Board for a while now. While most kisses have been discouraged by the Board, some have surprisingly managed to escape its disapproval.
The casual kiss between Deepika Padukone and Saif Ali Khan in Love Aaj Kal got the Board’s nod, and so did Saif’s more passionate smooch with Rani Mukherji in Hum Tum. Kunal Kohli, the director of Hum Tum, naturally feels the Board has always been fair.
“The board understood that the kiss was not to titillate but to show the romance between the lead pair. My other film, Fanaa, had the man making love to a widow, but there was no objection because the intention was clear. If the kiss is done crassly and unnecessarily added to get eyeballs, then obviously the Board will object,” he says.
An upcoming film, Kites, is already being talked about because of an apparent steamy kissing scene between Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori. Director Rakesh Roshan, however, is not worried. “The sensual scenes are not meant to titillate the audience,” he says.
Veteran director Mahesh Bhatt says that compared to the West, our Censor Board is still shy of bold kisses but getting more mature. Bhatt himself tries to play safe with kisses because a lot of money rides on films and no one wants to limit their audience by getting an 'A' certificate.
Since there are no fixed guidelines about on-screen smooches, the filmmaker is left at the mercy of the Censor Board. Says the Board’s regional officer, Vinayak Azad, “There are no set guidelines to certifying movies with kissing scenes. It depends on how the scene is handled by the makers. We haven’t seen Rocket Singh so far, so we can’t say what certificate we’ll give it.”
Interestingly, Bollywood’s first lip-to-lip on-screen kiss was in 1933 when Devika Rani lip-locked a record of 33 times with Himanshu Rai (her husband) in Karma. Mallika Sherawat tried to reach close to that in her debut film Khwahish with 16 kisses.
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