Real reason why Bond is not snogging

One would think that a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply as time goes by. But it turns out that the Central Board of Film Certification — which gets terribly upset each time it’s referred to as the Censor Board — thinks otherwise. The board has arm-twisted the makers of the new Bond movie, Spectre, to tongue-twist out four scenes depicting 007 locking lips with the ladies. Considering we’re no longer in the philematophobic 1950s-80s — when on-screen kissing seemed to depict not amorous adults but grown-up children mixing up cheeks for lips — it’s odd for the censors, sorry, certification boardwalas, to object to a Bond shaken and snogged.

In the 1933 Karma, Devika Rani was in a passionate fourminute lip-lock with Himanshu Rai (Rani initiating and controlling the process). And since the liberal(ised) 1990s, we haven’t had to depend only on ‘foreign films’ to pick up smooching skills. The 2003 Khwahish had Mallika Sherawat hogging 17 kissing scenes — although with little effect on the box office. Until we see the tongues-firmly-out-of-cheeks Spectre via less direct — and probably illegal — means, all we can do is let our imaginations and fantasies run riot during the absent sequences. Which is, we are sure, why the censors did what they did.