While the former had kisses between Askhay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor, and a much publicised lip-lock between Akshay and Hollywood actress Denise Richards, 'New York' had a quick peck between John Abraham and Katrina Kaif.

Former Bond girl Richards even went on to describe her co-star as a 'good kisser'.

'Akshay was so down to earth and very genuine. He made me feel very comfortable; plus he's a good kisser! I can see why he's India's sexiest actor,' Richards had remarked.

Other recent films that have the lead actors sharing kisses are 'Ru Ba Ru', 'Karma, Confessions And Holi', 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' and 'Yuvvraaj'.

Also, the actors don't seem to mind kissing each other's real-life partners either. While Akshay kissed Saif's girlfriend Kareena in 'Kambakkht Ishq', Saif kisses Ranbir Kapoor's lady love Deepika in 'Love Aaj Kal'.

Ranbir on the other hand smooched John Abraham'S real-life partner Bipasha Basu in 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' and John recently exchanged a kiss with Salman Khan's girlfriend Katrina in their hit 'New York'.

Bollywood also has its 'serial kisser' in Emraan Hashmi, who earned the nickname for having passionate smooches in most of his films.

It's not as though kissing never existed in Hindi cinema earlier. Filmmakers of today seem to be bringing back the 1920s and 30s trend when actresses were not averse to kissing on screen. Released in 1921, 'Bilat Ferat' was the first love story that was interspersed with loads of intimate scenes and kisses.

The lingering kissing scenes appreantely disappeared from the Indian silver screen ever since a large group of women in Delhi presented a petition in 1954 to then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, asking him to curb the evil influence of films as it made their children acquire precocious sex habits and indulge in vices.

For Nehru, films were linked to modernisation. But this medium had to be checked and stricter censorship laws were enforced. After that nudity and intimate scenes became a no-no in Indian movies till the late 80s.

(Robin Bansal can be contacted at robin.b@ians.in)