Kiss ka kissa: The story of the kiss

Girish and Amruta are looking for a place to kiss. Seated on a bench across the road from Marine Drive, the young couple fends off the sweltering Mumbai heat with an umbrella. Once the sun sets, they'll find a spot on the tetrapod rocks dotting Mumbai's most famous shoreline. It's a weekly ritual that the duo, travelling 21km from Mankhurd, indulges in.

"Kuch toh hai samundar ke baare mein (There's something about the sea)," says Girish as Amruta looks on, smiling. "Hum rooftop restaurant afford nahi kar sakte. Hamare paas gaadi bhi nahi hai privacy ke liye. Aur ghar mein privacy bahut dur ki baat hai (We can't afford rooftop restaurants. We don't even have our own car where we can have some privacy. And privacy is far-fetched at home)," he explains.

Theirs is the story of many couples who flock to Mumbai's promenades. In a city where space is a privilege, not a premium, they find solace in enjoying 'private' moments in public spaces. There's little they wouldn't do for a kiss.
The kiss is what unites the Marine Drives in Mumbai and Kochi. Kochi's Marine Drive was ground zero for Kiss of Love, the campaign against self-proclaimed purveyors of morality who believe public displays of affection are affronts to Indian culture.

"Would there be a word for kiss in every Indian language if it wasn't a relaxed part of Indian culture?" asks filmmaker and writer Paromita Vohra. "This includes sweet colloquialisms like chummi, pappi and kissi, which are full of affection for the act."

Vohra would know. Her 'O Darling, Kiss is India' project, birthed in the wake of Kiss of Love, documents each Indian word for 'kiss'. From dhoneh in Dhivehi (Lakshadweep) to tepango mechupba in the Ao language of Nagaland, each word contributes to a showcase of not just linguistic and cultural diversity, but also the myriad ways in which we express affection. "Love, sex, desire and choice go to the heart of heterogeneous living. Culture, as people live it on the ground, is a lot more diverse and irreverent than those who designate themselves as cultural gatekeepers on the right and left suggest. As a response to this, we chose a map for our image," she says.

So pivotal is the kiss in our lives that we often take it for granted. So far is its reach, so deep its impact that a branch of science, however nascent, is dedicated to it: philematology. Not surprisingly, kissing also has a rich history. "Kissing is humanity's only universal language spanning regions, culture and time," Michigan-based writer-scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum tells dna. Her book The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us chronicles the story of puckering up. Osculologists — scientists who study kissing — are a rare breed. But Kirshenbaum, a kissing expert in her own right, has lots to say about its glorious past — whose earliest written records, she says, are Indian.

Origins

Texts like the Dharmashastra have references to licking and "drinking moisture of the lips". Romantic kissing also found place in the Mahabharata, with a verse which translates to: "She set her mouth to my mouth and made a noise that produced pleasure in me" (3.112.12). The Kamasutra, which documents 30 types of romantic kisses, has how-tos on eight types of amorous biting or hickeys too.

The peck was also present in ancient Babylonian myths, Greek epics and ancient civilisations like the Persians. Lip to lip contact, believe some anthropologists, was a progression of the nose-brushing early humans indulged in when greeting one another. "Mouth-to-mouth feeding and nursing may have also led to kissing. These are intimate behaviours involving the lips and mouth that involve feelings of love, comfort, and security between two people," says Kirshenbaum, adding that such early behaviours could be why we associate lip stimulation with positive emotions.

Nineteenth century Sanskrit scholar E. Washburn Hopkins documented the non-conjugal 'sniff-kiss' in days gone by. "When returning from a journey," he wrote in The Sniff-Kiss in Ancient India, "a father does not kiss, but 'sniffs at the head of' his children." The sniff-kiss prevails even today in parts of south India, where some call it 'the grandma kiss'.

As humans evolved, so did kissing. The kiss had one of its highest pedestals in ancient Rome, which had terminologies like baseum (a kiss on the cheek or hand), saveum (the kiss of passion) and osculum (kissing on the lips with the mouth closed). It found its way into the law too. "The osculum interveniens was a specific kiss demonstrating a couple's status as a committed couple. If one member of a betrothed couple died before marriage, whether they had performed this kiss publicly determined how any gifts given to them would be distributed," shares Kirshenbaum. As for the origin of the term 'sealed with a kiss' — those in medieval Europe who were unable to read and write would draw an 'X' on a contract before kissing it to make it legal. "This carried over to how we use 'X' to represent kisses today," she says.

On-screen kisses

Reams are written about Emraan Hashmi's synonymity with kissing. But Indian cinema was never a stranger to puckering up — at least until the '30s. The Dinshaw Billimoria-Sulochana kissing scene in Anarkali (1928) may have been the first in the country. Then there was the lip-lock between Charu Roy and Seeta Devi in Prapancha Pash (A Throw of Dice, 1929). Ezra Mir's Zarina (1932) had over 80 kisses between Jal Merchant and Zubeida. But most talked about was the kiss between Devika Rani and Himanshu Rai in Karma (1933) which lasted a full four minutes.

Thespians in the '20s and '30s had a more liberal attitude to on-screen intimacy. But most films of that era, points cultural historian Rafique Baghdadi, had kissing because the studios and directors who made them were foreigners. "For example Karma was directed by Franz Osten, who was German. These films were also tailored for world rather than for the domestic market," he says.

Soon after independence, our films became increasingly conservative. It reached a point where the decision to not kiss or be kissed was venerated. When Hollywood actor Errol Flynn tried to kiss actress Nimmi's hand during a London tour of the 1953 film Aan, she reportedly pulled back saying, "I'm an Indian girl, you cannot do that." The Indian press went into raptures. "They called Nimmi the 'unkissed girl of Indian cinema'," laughs Baghdadi.

From being nonchalant about kissing to now viewing it as amoral, India had come a long way. The laughable symbolism of fire burning, birds grooming each other, and two flowers filling out the screen gained ground in the '60s. Baghdadi feels such montages were influenced by Russian cinema, where anger, for example, was represented by a vat of boiling water. "Our metaphors for romance were covers for discomfort," he says.

At a time when Hindi actors shied from kissing on screen, Shashi Kapoor became a trailblazer. Whether it was Satyam Shivam Sundaram, Siddhartha, or his 1967 English film A Matter of Innocence (or Pretty Polly), he sent out a clear message: that kissing is no biggie. So did leading ladies Zeenat Aman and Simi Garewal. Aamir Khan became the next torchbearer of on-screen kissing in films like Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Dil, and the much-talked about scene with Karisma Kapoor in Raja Hindustani. Also far ahead of their times were kissing scenes in Mera Naam Joker (1970) and Dayavan (1988).

Addendum

The kiss is a potent symbol in India because it also touches upon class and caste divisions, feels Paromita Vohra. "Some historians feel there's a discomfort due to the idea of 'jootha' that is so taboo in our culture," she informs.
India isn't the only country with an on-again, off-again relationship with kissing. Roman emperor Tiberius tried to ban it since he believed it spread leprosy. In the 13th century, the Catholic Church came up with the 'pax', a metal or wood disk church adherents had to kiss instead of kissing each other. Public kissing also became a no-no in 17th century London due to fears of the Great Plague.

But as we know, there's always a way to circumvent imposed morality. "If history teaches us anything about kissing," says Kirshenbaum, "it's that such bans are always broken."

Somewhere on a tetrapod rock in Marine Drive, Girish and Amruta are nodding in agreement.


DID YOU KNOW?
The Thomas Edison-distributed The Kiss in 1896 was the first ever recording of a celluloid kiss. Also known as the Rice-Irwin Kiss, it featured a man and woman talking, laughing and kissing for less than 50 seconds. The Kiss was scandalous for its time, with a critic even having remarked that it was 'beastly' and 'absolutely disgusting' enough to warrant police intervention.


THE BIOLOGY OF KISSING
When we kiss, we exchange pheromones — air-borne chemical signals that are strongly tied to arousal, stress management and social bonding. Most anthropologists believe kissing is a way to help us 'sniff' out a good mate, albeit subconsciously. "Because kissing puts women in very close proximity to a partner, we sample their scent — which is a strong indicator of whether he is a good genetic match," says Kirshenbaum.

Neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, which fuel our brain's reward centers, are also triggered by kissing. A 2009 study by Wendy Hill, Professor of Neuroscience at Lafayette College, showed that kissing also lowers the levels of cortisol or the 'stress hormone'. Such chemical changes were less pronounced when participants merely held hands.

A German study in the '80s found that men who kissed their wives before work extended their lifespan by five years compared to those who didn't. So go ahead, pucker up.

KISSING AROUND THE WORLD
- The inhabitants of Trobriand Island near Papua New Guinea nip each other's eyelashes during intimacy.
- Eskimos, Maoris, and many other tribes of the south Pacific practice nose-kissing instead of lip-to-lip kissing.
- Kissing may be the most expressive romantic gesture, but it can also have nefarious undertones. There's the kiss of death Judas gave to Jesus — something even mafia kingpins do before 'finishing someone off'.
- The Germans have a word each for the 30 types of kisses they recognise, including Nachküssen, which means 'making up for omitted kisses'

THE SYMMETRY OF KISSING
Ever wondered why we tilt our heads the way we do while leaning in to kiss? Neuroscientist Onur Güntürkün has an answer. Over 10 years ago, he'd observed 124 couples exchanging kisses in airports, parks, railway stations and other public places. His findings, published in Nature, showed that an overwhelming majority — two-thirds of people — turn to the right.

This, says Güntürkün, may be linked to our tendency to turn our heads right in the womb. "We later also discovered that right kissers are more often right handers," he told dna.

The brain, predisposed to recognising symmetry, has much to do with this. If you tilt your head to the right and your partner turns left, you'll end up bumping noses. This won't happen if both lean to the left or right.
Güntürkün's study also revealed another interesting finding: that pecks on the cheek, as opposed to lip-to-lip kissing, are deeply influenced by culture. "This was most common in Mediterranean countries," he says.

HOLLYWOOD'S BEST ON-SCREEN KISSES
Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh, Gone with the Wind (1939)
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, Casablanca (1942)
Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, From Here to Eternity (1953)
Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, Dirty Dancing (1987)
Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, Pretty Woman (1990)
Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, Ghost (1990)
Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst , Spider-Man (2002)
Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, The Notebook (2004)

roshni.nair@dnaindia.net, @savagespacetaco