Too much of anything is bad. Even if it's Bollywood's newly found dalliance with the kiss.

In the last two years, Hindi film stars seem to have lost their coyness about matters erotic, so the kiss is no longer a censored issue. But excessive freedom has fuelled an inverted defiance that could diminish the charm of the on-screen kiss.

If there's one trend that appeared in 2004, it was the urge to put lips where words fail.

Emran Hashmi, whose only claim to fame - other than being Mahesh Bhatt's nephew - is that he indulged in deep-throat kissing with Mallika Sherawat in "Murder", is back at it.

In the Bhatts' new film "Zaher", Hashmi has apparently completed a hat trick of smooches.

The ever-committed method actor will be seen locking lips urgently with an African model in Pooja Bhatt's "Rog".

Even traditionally shy and conservative superstars like Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan fell for the kiss this year.

Abhishek Bachchan kissed Rani Mukherjee in "Yuva" and Antara Mali in "Naach". "But that was the need of the moment. I certainly won't do it just for the heck of it," said Abhishek.

Kareena brushed more than furtively against Fardeen Khan's lips in "Dev".

"It was for Govind Nihalani's film. That isn't the same as kissing for some run-of-the-mill film," Kareena defended herself.

And she's right. Kareena's lip-to-lip in "Dev" or for that matter, Aishwarya Rai's stolen smooch with Vivek Oberoi in "Kyun...Ho Gaya Na", were not as explicit as Mallika Sherawat's locked lips in "Khwahish" and "Murder", which exceeded all limits of decency.

Otherwise, mainstream stars have certainly not broken the prescribed parameters of mainstream intimacy.

But the kiss is not alien to our films. Even in the pre-perestroika days of sexual inhibition, Raj Kapoor kissed his Russian co-star in "Mera Naam Jokeer", Shashi Kapoor and Zeenat Aman locked lips in "Satyam Shivam Sunderam" and Aamir Khan planted a passionate kiss on Karisma Kapoor's trembling lips in Dharamesh Darshan's "Raja Hindustani".

Yet now at the end of the year, with suggestive titles like "Kiss Kiss Ki Kismet" and "Kiss Ke Liye" biting the dust, the kiss no longer seems like a big deal.