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How queer representation in Indian cinema is going beyond the coming-out narrative

By Sandip Roy
02 June, 2022

Queer films and television shows in India are now focusing on navigating conflict and gaining acceptance from family and society


The 2020 film Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan was hailed as one of the first big Bollywood gay films, gay kiss and all. But unlike most love stories it does not start with the couple meeting cutely. They are already a couple when the film begins. It’s really a coming-out-to-the-family story; family acceptance is its happily-ever-after ending. Badhaai Do (2022), about the comedy of errors that ensues when a gay man and a lesbian have a marriage of convenience, is also ultimately about trying to find acceptance from their respective families.

“I think more and more films are moving towards stories of acceptance rather than coming out,” says Sridhar Rangayan, director of the Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival , now in its 13th edition.


Going beyond coming-out stories

The film festival, which, after two years of hosting iterations online, is back on the ground in Mumbai from 1-14 June, with 30 Indian films on its roster. “I would say maybe 10 are coming-out stories,” says Rangayan. But it’s still coming out with a twist. In the Kannada short film Dear Bhargava, a young man reads a letter his late father has written saying he should have confided in his parents about his sexuality. Kashish’s centrepiece film this year, the award-winning Sheer Qorma, is also more about family acceptance rather than coming out as such. In the film, a woman and her non-binary partner (played by Divya Dutta and Swara Bhaskar respectively) struggle to win the acceptance of Dutta’s mother (played by Shabana Azmi). The Muslim community setting adds yet another layer of complexity to their story.

The award-winning Sheer Qorma, is also more about family acceptance rather than coming out as such. Image:Instagram.com/aishrillustrations

In the Kannada short film Dear Bhargava, a young man reads a letter his late father has written saying he should have confided in his parents about his sexuality

“I would say gay coming-out stories are a bit passé now,” says Rangayan. “We are seeing more lesbian, non-binary or transgender or intersex stories, where it’s a different kind of challenge. For example, there’s a short film this year that talks about a love affair between a gay, upper-caste person and a Dalit. There’s also an international short film about a woman coming out as bisexual in a corporate set-up.”


Neeraj Churi, who is part of Lotus Visual Productions that focuses on bringing South Asian LGBT+ experiences to the screen, agrees. “As producers we are focusing more on stories where coming out is less of an issue and conflict revolves more on different facets of being queer,” he says. “The pitches we get are certainly reflecting this trend.” For example, the film The Last Letter (2016) which deals with a 70-year-old coming out to himself and his daughter. Or My Mother’s Girlfriend (2021) where a son has to come to terms with his mother’s desire for another woman. “Coming out is less of an issue but being accepted by family, colleagues, friends or society still plays a prominent role,” says Churi.

OTT platforms taking the lead


OTT platforms, have,of course, made a huge difference to queer visibility for Indians, so much so that sometimes ‘gay’ can feel like the flavour of the streaming season.

The popular series Made in Heaven (2019-), with its gay lead, with a well-fleshed out storyline opened the floodgates. Now Modern Love: Mumbai (2022) has its own gay-and-Muslim coming-out story. The Madhuri Dixit starrer The Fame Game (2022) on Netflix didn’t get the best reviews but viewers noted its queer content—a female cop raising a child with her same-sex partner as well as the star’s young gay son. Or Inside Edge (2017) with a gay kiss inside a cricket stadium. It’s raining coming-out stories!


Who is telling the story?

In 1995, Urvashi Vaid, the seminal Indian-American LGBTQ activist who recently passed away, told a South Asian queer conference half-jokingly, “If you’re going to come out to the extended family, the cover of Time magazine is the way to do it.” She had just been named one of Time’s 50 leaders of the future.

“AS PRODUCERS WE ARE FOCUSING MORE ON STORIES WHERE COMING OUT IS LESS OF AN ISSUE AND CONFLICT REVOLVES MORE ON DIFFERENT FACETS OF BEING QUEER”
Neeraj Churi

At that time, just seeing out-and-proud South Asian queers felt electrifying. Filmmaker and academic Sonali Gulati says when she started working on her short film Sum Total in 1998, there “was hardly any representation of us or our lived experiences.” Her film I Am (2011) started out as her personal story about the pain of not having come out to her own mother before her mother passed away. But it evolved into a film about parents and children. “I used to get a lot of requests from closeted people asking me to send the DVD to their parents as a secret present,” she says.

While the explosion of queer content is heartening, who gets to tell the story is almost as important as the story itself. Some viewers found Baai, the queer episode of Modern Love: Mumbai directed by Hansal Mehta, rather old-school despite having its heart in the right place. “I feel ready for portrayals of same-sex relationships that move past coming out and acceptance,” writes Krupa Joseph on the website Gaysi . “While, of course, these are very real struggles, why can’t we see portrayals of moments and struggles beyond this point?”

Neeraj Churi calls Sridhar Rangayan’s Evening Shadows, a “quintessential gay coming out South Asian film”

Gulati says the focus on a Western style coming out-moment also often obscures the many ways in which people are out in a place like India. Coming out is a spectrum, not a singular rainbow point. “Sometimes it’s silent and everyone in the village understands that this butch lesbian riding her scooter, living with her wife, is who she is without her having to say those words. Sometimes it’s just saying no to an arranged heterosexual marriage,” says Gulati. Instead, a coming-out film often ends up giving a Gay 101 bhaashan, sometimes with a megaphone. In Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, there is actually a megaphone.


Attempts to change the narrative


While the gay coming-out story might feel a bit been-there done-that in a film, some coming-out stories are still off-limits as filmmaker Onir found out when his true-life story of a gay Indian soldier was shot down by the Defence Department. Now, Onir is working on Pine Cone, a queer story, and coming out with his memoir which is unapologetically called I AM ONIR & I AM GAY. That real-life visibility can still matter more than a well-scripted coming-out story.

“I WOULD SAY GAY COMING-OUT STORIES ARE A BIT PASSÉ NOW. WE ARE SEEING MORE LESBIAN, NON-BINARY OR TRANSGENDER OR INTERSEX STORIES, WHERE IT’S A DIFFERENT KIND OF CHALLENGE”
Sridhar Rangayan

Gulati found that out after she agreed to be on Salaam Zindagi, a Hindi talk show in 2008. She remembers cringing when she was introduced on the show as someone who looked like an “aam ladki” but was a lesbian. The TV crew had come earlier to her barsaati to shoot some B-roll and wanted her to shut the door of her living room and then burst through it. “They wanted to capture ‘coming out’ as literally as possible,” remembers Gulati. “I refused to do that and made chai instead.” She told a friend she regretted having agreed to be on the show.

A few weeks later while on a flight, the air hostess asked if she was the woman who had been on Salaam Zindagi. The air hostess’ sister, who was being married off to a man, had seen the show and used it to come out to her. She managed to break off the engagement without outing her sister.

That’s why the need for a coming-out story will always be there. Churi calls Rangayan’s own Evening Shadows, a “quintessential gay coming out South Asian film”. That, too, is as much, if not more about, a mother’s journey in accepting her son’s gayness as him coming out. But what Rangayan is most proud of is that he was able to use some of the money he raised to help conduct a workshop and put together a parents group called ‘We Are the Rainbow Parents’ which counsels other parents.

“Now it has members not just from Mumbai, but New Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, even New Zealand and the United States. I’m really happy that we managed to kickstart it.” This shows that coming out is not the end of the story, it really marks new beginnings.

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