Once upon a time it was a mandatory question, but today, it would be archaic to ask a Hindi film actor, male or female, if they'll do a kissing scene. After that self-conscious, sanitised brushing of the lips he did as a special favour to Yash Chopra in Jab Tak Hai Jaan, when even Shah Rukh Khan overcomes his coyness and kisses Anushka Sharma good and proper in Jab Harry Met Sejal, and Ajay Devgn follows up his first screen kiss in Shivaay, under his own direction, with another in Baadshaho, you know the last bastions of inhibition have fallen.

Well, almost, as Salman Khan and his protégé Sonakshi Sinha continue to hold out and won't pucker up for anybody. Salman, because he's sure that his image of a star who does only clean family films will get sullied; Sonakshi, because she believes it will go against the family-pleasing principles she came into the industry with.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but back in the 70s and 80s, when practically all the heroines (with exceptions like Zeenat Aman, Madhuri Dixit and Dimple Kapadia) would back off at the mention of a screen kiss and most of the men (including Raj, Shashi, Rishi Kapoor, Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna and Rajesh Khanna) were willing, Sonakshi's dad was an exception. Shatrughan Sinha had the image of an action hero and rather fancied being a ladies' man. But when it came to a kiss between him and Kimi Katkar in Zalzala, if I remember right, it was he who said, "Nahin". Kimi's mother, Tina, was once a junior artiste specialising in party scenes with Anglo-Indians doing western dance. When her daughter turned actress, Tina would wonder aloud, "What's wrong with a kiss?" Kimi, therefore, was game to kiss her co-stars. But it was Shatru who said "No", finally agreeing to just a passing touch of the lips.

But let's return to the present. Since every Kareena, Alia, Anushka, Deepika and Priyanka and their male co-stars are fine with it, it would be outdated to question any actor about filming a screen kiss.

What would be the relevant question to ask today is, "Are you willing to do a same-gender kiss?"

That's what they're doing in Hollywood. Almost every second film or TV serial, the mainstream ones too, has a lesbian or homosexual kiss. We saw it in House Of Cards with Kevin Spacey and his male security officer. Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis in Black Swan, Charlize Theron and Sofia Boutella in Atomic Blonde, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in Carol, one could go on and the biggest of Hollywood names would have featured in a gay scene.

In Hindi cinema, it's still at the experimental stage. Like the time Randeep Hooda and Saqib Saleem kissed for Karan Johar's Bombay Talkies. Web series that do not have the censors watching like Big Brother are getting rather explicit too. Watch the trailer of Maaya 2 on YouTube. It's the directorial debut of Vikram Bhatt's daughter, Krishna, and you'll find two pretty girls - Leela Jumani and Priyal Gor - comfortably filming lesbian lovemaking scenes. But none of them are mainstream.

After the success of Brokeback Mountain, when I had asked John Abraham if he'd do a gay kiss, he had said, "If push comes to shove, I would." But Hindi cinema is still a long way from it. Here's why.

High value stars Kareena and Sonam Kapoor's Veere Di Wedding is currently trending for its sheer shock value. It takes chick flicks to a level our commercial films hadn't been to so far. Which means popular Hindi movies have just about started getting into the Sex and The City space, where "sex", "vagina" and "orgasm" are happily discussed by four female friends. Sex and The City is 20 years old, by the way.

Going by that meter and by the fact that Section 377 still exists, gay sex will take a while to find a home in mainstream Indian cinema. I'm still old-fashioned enough to exhale with relief at that calculation.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author