Chapter Two Mapping the Celluloid Journey of the Queer This Chapter

Chapter Two Mapping the Celluloid Journey of the Queer

This chapter focusesonthe celluloid engagement of Queer in the West and in India as it was essential to contextualize the central argument of the thesis and analysis of the selected films.The chapter maps the representation of the Queer and development of Queer Cinema as genre beginning with the Western Queer cinema, particularly American and European, then moves on to Indian Cinema.

2.1. Euro-American/Western Queer Cinema

A conscious existence of the non-heteronormative subject under various guises has had a century long history on Western celluloid as both „homosexuality‟ and „cinema‟ were invented in the West roughly at same time. Various Western Film scholars have attempted a mapping of the Queer celluloid; prominent among them are Vito Russo (1981) Richard Dyer (1990), Patricia White (1999), Alexander Doty (2000) and Barbara Mennel (2012). All the scholars give very insightful accounts of queer traces in the WesternCinema; however, it is Barbara Mennel‟s account that highlights key films that emerged at historical turning points throughout the twentieth century.„Schoolgirls‟, „Vampires‟ and „Gay Cowboys‟ are the phrases in the title of Barbara‟s book that summarize the history of Western Queer Cinema. Barbara identifies five key historical moments in Western Queer Cinema. The trajectory of Western Queer cinema can be marked with the help of Mennel‟s model.

2.1.1. Films during the Weimar Republic (1918-33) in Germany

Mennel‟s account brings to light the fact that queer figures from schoolgirls to vampires populated the films of Germany‟s Weimar Republic, a period that was inaugurated by the end of World War I in 1918 and was brought to an abrupt and violent end with Hitler‟s ascendance to power in 1933. It is during those fifteen years of Germany‟s first democracy that gay and lesbian political and social movements as well as movie industry prospered. The first film that explicitly depicts homosexual rights is Richard Oswald‟s

silent classic Anders als die Anderen (Different from the Others, 1919). It narrates a tragic story about homosexual lives ruined by extortion. The film advances the agenda of political gay rights movement in the Weimar Republic. As to shaping of conventions for queer cinema, this film created a blueprint for documentary realism that defines the gay activist documentary with equal-rights-claims. Leontine Sagan‟s Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform, 1931) is a tale that is now considered a staple of lesbian film. Mennel maintains that the film constitutes foundationof the genre of all-female boarding school as the setting for lesbian desire. Other films from this period include gays or lesbians as main characters or as minor figures or create the possibility of a queer but indeterminate reading. Schunzel‟s Viktor und Viktoria (Victor and Victoria, 1933) exemplifies the trope of cross-dressing in the tension between narrative and camp, which enables pleasures of same-sex fantasies but narratively contains them in a happy ending of heterosexual couples. G.W. Pabst‟s Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora‟s Box, 1929) marks the lesbian character with cinematic codes and narrative strategies, reflecting the understanding of lesbian desire at that historical moment and shaping cinematic conventions and audience expectations for some time to come. The politicization and social visibility of gays and lesbians in the Weimar Republic had its roots in the late 19th century where male homosexuality became both „extremely public‟ and, at the same time linked to secrets (Segwick 1990:164).

2.1.2. Films during Late 1940s to early 1970s in the US

In 1934, the production code, known as Hays Code formalised the verdict that homosexuality could not be represented in acts or words on the screen. The production code circumscribed notions of decency and taste as heterosexuality without nudity, adultery, illicit sex, miscegenation and physical expression of passion including kissing and sex acts. The code was abandoned in 1968 as filmmakers contested it in the 50s and 60s. The production code‟s explicit forbidding of the depiction of explicit or inferred sex acts or perversion necessitated a veiled language to express sexual desire and activity. As homosexuality could not be mentioned on screen, its unspeakable nature mobilized narratives which made homosexuality readable through its effects. Vito Russo in Celluloid Closet, (1981), Richard Dyer in his book Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian &

Gay Film (1990) and Patricia White in UnIvited:Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability deconstruct the superficially heteronormative codes and bring out the queer story of Western cinema to the fore very convincingly. Films such as Alfred Hitchcock‟s Rope (1948), Joseph Mankiewicz‟s Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) and William Wyler‟s The Children‘s Hour (1961), illustrate how queerness created a narrative problem because it could not be made explicit, which in turn became a defining feature of Hollywood films about gays and lesbians until 1970s.

Camp is one defining feature of queer aesthetics. Western cinematic camp has a special affinity to classic Hollywood of 1940s and 1950s, though the origins of camp point beyond film to earlier homosexual figures, such as dandy, which emerged in 18th century London and Paris and elevated aesthetics to a lifestyle and aesthetic practices, such as orientalism, which embraced Far and Middle Eastern styles, endowed with erotic decadence and excess. Jon Hall‟s Arabian Nights (1942) and Arthur Lubin‟s Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944) became the models for the flamboyant drag performer Mario Motez. Queer aesthetics links trash cinema and B movies to experimental films and high art. Mennel remarks, “[a] range of filmmakers, such as Edward Wood Jr., Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and John Waters created a queer aesthetic by embracing the abject and perversions in the form of trash, drag and camp”(38). Films such as Wood‟s Glen and Glenda (1964) integrated aspects of the horror film with a narrative about sexual deviance, thus suggesting the horror genre‟s cinematic language as sign system for sexual otherness.

Sexploitation films, as a result of the weakened production code, regularly portrayed sexualized lesbians, such as the predatory butch and the sexy but child-like femme. Joseph P. Mawra‟s Chained Girls (1965) creates a voyeuristic gaze at „deviant desire‟. Two lesbian films Radley Metzger‟s Therese and Isabelle (1968) and Robert Aldrich‟s The Killing of Sister George (1968) serve as examples of relatively high-budget films that reveal certain aspects of lesbian life such as butch / femme relationships and bar culture, but create a titillating voyeuristic gaze, transforming the lesbian characters into spectacles of deviance. The portrayal of lesbian relationship is exaggerated to the degree of

pathology. These films show traces of the subcultural lives of lesbians but turn those into images of sexualised and monstrous deviants that titillate by breaking taboos.

2.1.3. Post Stonewall Cinema

The two decades following the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 in New York‟s Greenwich Village as a symbolic turning point cast as a collective coming out in films that unapologetically showed gays and lesbians often as positive identification figure in realist settings. Documentary film titles such as Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg‟s Before Stonewall (1984) and John Scagliotti‟s After Stonewall (1999) signify the event as a watershed moment, separating gay and lesbian history into a „before and after‟. „Before‟ indicates the homosexual subculture, associated with bars, double life, coded language and role play and „after‟ implies contemporary politicized gay and lesbian identities, associated with „being out‟, pride and claims for equal rights. Mennel‟s comment is apt in this context:

„1968‟ has become shorthand for the international political movements that included international student protest movement against the Vietnam War, anti-colonial liberation struggles and civil rights movements in the US… the second wave feminism that claimed lesbianism as a political choice to undo patriarchy (49).

However, the new ways of thinking about relationship among politics and identity, ideology and desire did not immediately reflect on the big screen. Mennel notes that Queer cinema throughout the 1980s remained gendered phenomenon, mainly due to the feminist redefinition of lesbianism as a political identity and male homosexuality‟s confrontation with AIDS. The predominance of romance and a reflection of increasingly academic feminist concerns in representation of fantasy and desire shaped/ characterised lesbians on film. Female characters were shown exploring sex with other women without necessarily embracing lesbian identity or community. These films include Donna Deitch‟s Desert Hearts (1985), Robert Towne‟s Personal Best (1982) among others. Mennel observes:

Lesbian art-house films departed from traditional conventions of narrative film to engage with the possibility of the medium of film to connect politics and desire. Three lesbian/feminist films from the mid-1980s centrally feature fantasy, albeit in very different ways: Lizzie Borden‟s Born in Flames (1983), Monika Treut‟s Treut‘s Verfuhrung: Die grausame Frau (Seduction: The Cruel Woman) (1984) and Sheila McLaughlin‟s She Must be Seeing Things (1987)…These films search for a cinematic language to speak about psychic life outside of heteronormative assumptions by blurring the boundaries between fantasy and reality in their narratives (57).

Films about gay men, on the other hand, increasingly addressed loss and mourning whether reflecting the awareness of AIDS explicitly or implicitly. Paul Borgart‟s Torch Song Trilogy (1988) looks back melancholically at a formation of gay identity in the moment of its disappearance- the effeminate, cross-dressing female impersonator and Bill Sherwood‟s Parting Glances (1986) radically situates itself in the moment of mid-1980s capturing the ambivalence of gay normalcy. It inscribes homosexuality into the emerging popular mass culture of MTV, video and pop music. These films thus portray two different generations in the second half of 1980s and offer two diametrically juxtaposed responses to the AIDS crisis.

2.1.4. The New Queer Cinema (NQC) of early 1990s

Journalist and film scholar B. Ruby Rich (1992) coined the term „New Queer Cinema‟ (NQC) for the radical and highly aestheticised films that appeared between 1990 and 1992. The films often portrayed queers in margins of past and contemporary societies. New Queer Cinema belonged to larger political, social and cultural forces; while juxtaposed to mainstream cinema it nevertheless paved way for the presence of gays and lesbians in conventional films. The emphasis of The NQC was on portraying and investigatingdesires and behaviours more so than focusing on identity. It expanded in transnational cinematic practices and marked the return to access earlier forms of queer

cinema, such as camp, queer murderers and the black-and-white aesthetics of 1920s and 1950s.

This included Derek Jarman‟s Edward II (1991), Christopher Munch‟s The Hours and Times (1991), Tom Kalin‟s Swoon (1992), Gregg Araki‟s The Living End (1992), Isaac Julien‟s Young Soul Rebels (1991), Todd Haynes‟ Poison (1991), Jennie Livingston‟s Paris is Burning (1990), and Gus Van Sant‟s My Private Idaho (1991) (Rich in Michel Aaron 2004:15-18). These films broke the rules of continuity and disinterest in linear narratives went on with the avant-garde traditions of queer filmmakers and artists such as Andy Warhol.The figures of sexual outlaws invoke the work of pioneering gay writers, such as Jean Genet, and filmmakers, such as John Waters. Moreover, the films besides queering gender and sexuality brought out the class, race, nationality, gender intersections by embracing social outlaws such as disempowered immigrants, young hustlers, alienated youth, drug dealers, poor drag queens and those infected by AIDS as main characters. Instead of coming-out stories and tragic homosexuals intended to solicit tolerance, the characters of NQC, kings, poets, hustlers and murderers, unapologetically express deviant desires and engage in queer sexual practices in rough and gritty images.

Illegal immigrants, drunken poets and a clerk in a nickel-and-dime store for the down and outs are the main characters in Van Sant‟s Mala Noche; two HIV-infected young gay men take an aimless road trip in Araki‟s The Living End. These films reflect the immediacy of the moment through the conventions of low-budget films. Livingston portrays equally marginalised subjects in Paris is Burning about the subcultural practice of „vogueing, a cross between dance and walking the runway, by homeless gay men of colour in late 1980s/early 1990s in New York.

The conditions of low-budget filmmaking correspond to the marginal lifestyle of film‟s subjects. The black-and-white film footage (as in Go Fish) is both an aesthetic and economic choice. In his commentary Van Sant as quoted in Mennel mentions:

Black-and-white makes the production independent on finding perfect settings: if a colour does not match, it does not need to be painted over…

Aesthetically, the blackand-white style of hard lighting with one primary source has the effect of highly staged and stylised composition that emphasises and estranges at the same time. The lack of rehearsing and the on-location shooting captures a sense of immediacy and authenticity, while the high-contrast black-and-white with harsh lighting aestheticises and thus valorises life on the margin of society (Mennel, 76).

Low-cost and technological innovation made video available for political activism, performance and the cinematic engagement with older films. Video also opened up the possibility to cut and manipulate older film and television clip. Lack of funding encouraged the production of short films. Filmmakers like Pratibha Parmar were well- known for their short films before they made feature films.

Mennel observes that NQC was an international phenomenon from the outset, indicated by the film festivals but at the same time the US inhabited a position of global cultural hegemony and dominated global definitions of gay identity exemplified in the proliferation of „pride‟ around the globe and film, measured by Hollywood‟s global dominance(71). However, NQC has important predecessors outside the US, which includes Fassbinder in West Germany (Faustrecht der Freiheit/Fox and His Friends: 1975) and Querelle (1982)), director Stephen Frears and writer Hanif Kureshi in the UK (My Beautiful Laundrette, 1985). Mennel suggests that „Expanding our scope beyond „the moment‟ of NQC allows us to include more international, female and minority directors in a survey of NQC‟ (71). Films such as Jennie Livingston‟s Paris is Burning, Cheryl Dunye‟s The Watermelon Woman foregrounded race in their investigations of interracial desire, the limits of community, cross-racial fetishisation and political dimensions of desire. Though the NQC appears more diverse than the films before and after, due to the lack of funding did not enable a sustained and continued body of work to emerge. However, a changed funding structure, for instance, the support of innovate filmmaking by Channel Four, enabled the film productivity of queer filmmakers from Great Britain, jump-starting the career of Isaac Julien and Pratibha Parmar. Parmar‟s 26-minute film Khush (1991) which resonates with English word „gay‟ is about gay and lesbian desire of South-East Asian men and women.

2.1.5. The wave of gay and lesbian themed films for all

Targeting general mainstream audiences as well as specifically gay and lesbian moviegoers and addressing the proliferation of international queer cinema forms the next phase of Queer Cinema in the West. These films used traditional genres, such as melodrama, neo-noir and comedy, particularly romantic comedy. The mainstreaming of the Queer subject and theme implies thatthe films by designaddress a „straight‟, cross- over audience, desexualize gay and feminize lesbian characters to render them more acceptable to mainstream audiences (94). The films range from Jonathan Demme‟s Philadeliphia (1993) (the film coincided with NQC, but addressed itself to a straight, mainstream audience, evident through its narrative, the representation of the main gay character and casting of avowedly straight Hollywood stars like Tom Hanks, Antonio Bandores, Denzel Washington), Frank Oz‟s In and Out (1997) to Ang Lee‟s Brokeback Mountain (2005), Andy and Lana Wachowski‟s Bound (1996). Bound is a neo-noir film that mainstreamed the roles of butch and femme where a butch/femme couple takes on the Mafia. The film‟s over-the-top-sexualisation and hyperbolicstereotypes approximates camp, bringing lesbians out of the closet in a flamboyant way and offering the viewing pleasure of a queer fantasy.

Mennel notes „as a result of mainstreaming, homosexual characters and codes also appear in comedies that are not marketed as gay at all‟ (95). Films like Pawel Pawlikowski‟s My Summer of Love (2004), Katherine Brooks‟ Loving Annabelle (2006) that explicitly addressed a gay and lesbian audience, have become mainstream due to their following of traditional narrative conventions of the love story. Mennel marks a development from subcultural signifiers to features of mainstream entertainment where the commodification of the signifiers like the accoutrements / equipment/uniform of lesbianism rely on their ability to evoke transgression without subverting gender or sexual norms (98).

Ang Lee‟s Brokeback Mountain is seen as a preliminary culmination of the process of mainstreaming. The film is said to have intervened “in a public discourse about the self- understanding of the American nation and masculinity by rewriting the conventions of the Western, the unreconstructed, heterosexually masculine genre born out of the open

space of the American West (Mennel 102). The film revises the link between genre and gender by imploding the Western through conventions of domestic melodrama. Brokeback Mountain follows the genre conventions of the Western with long takes of wide shots that show open spaces of wild nature accompanied by the sound of a single guitar track. However, the Western gets subverted through conventions of the domestic melodrama.

Mainstreaming reflects larger cultural processes of acceptance and normalisation of gays and lesbians. Buried underneath the liberal politics of gay visibility, such films as Philadelphia and Brokeback Mountain rely on the feminine as abject to advance a positive discourse about homosexual rights. Mainstream films integrate gay and lesbian characters in genres, such as the Western, comedy and romance, include stars cast in main roles and follow conventional aesthetics and in that process desexualize homosexuality and feminise lesbians.

2.2. A Brief Note on the Global Queer Cinema

While the process of mainstreaming ruled American gay and lesbian cinema, overlapping and asynchronous practices, ranging from low-budget, alternative, underground to mainstream, big-budget production shaped global queer cinema from 1990s into the twenty-first century. These films continue the tradition of engaging with gay and lesbian desires in coming-of-age in films, reflecting different national cinematic traditions and set in diverse historical contexts. Among these are Hettie Macdonald‟s Beautiful Thing (1996) thatreflects British social realism in its representation of two working-class teenagers who fall in love; Andre Techine‟s Wild Reeds (1994) that updates the boarding school narrative which takes place in France during the Algerian war (Griffiths 2008). Ferzan Ozpetek‟s Hammam (Steam: The Turkish Bath) 1997, Le Fati ignorant (His Secret Life) 2001 and Saturno cantro (Saturn in Opposition) 2001. These films emphasise erotic attractions between different characters, often in queer communities of friends that include a broad spectrum of sexual desires. Even though gay and lesbian cinema from Asia had already brought forth an extensive list of films, the early twenty- first century saw an explosion of queer cinema from China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan,

Thailand and the Philippines (Grossman 2000). Chinese films Yu li‟s Jin nian xiatian (Fish and Elephant, 2001) and Stanley Kwan‟s Lan Yu (2001) have characters that are neither victims, nor flawless and realistic representations of China (Barbara 2012:109). Lan Yu complicates the presumedassociation of homosexuality with urbanity, modernism and a lack of tradition, roots and morality.

2.3. Indian Cinema: Queer/ing the Canon The last quarter of 20thcentury witnessed the ushering in of a globalized modernity in the wake of North America / to an extentWestern Europe-driven globalization and the subsequent increase in transnational mobility6, especially East-to-West. „Developing‟ nations like India reacted and responded to „liberal project‟7 of this globalized modernity in heterogeneous ways. The Western discourses around newly felt sensibilities and identities such as non-heteronormative sexualities are seen as significant, certainly not the only marker of this project. Sexuality became decisive factor of individual‟s identity. Moreover, the idea of community started building around sexuality. Expressions such as „gay‟, „lesbian‟, „bisexual‟ and „transgender‟, „queer‟ for individual identity and LGBTQ or Queer community for collective identity which originated in Western societies, achieved international currency mainly through escalating mobility of economic and cultural commodities and the „rights‟ based projects supporting the anti-AIDS and anti- discrimination campaigns of NGOs in non-Western societies.

India‟s response to this new development can be tracked through its social, political and cultural engagement which includes but is not limited to legal, medical, academic and cinematic discourses. Cinema culture in India, which includes viewership, production and distribution, can be taken as a case in point to map out this engagement of the nation with Queer sexualities.

6While Asian diasporas existed in many nations prior to the 1960s and 1970s, recent increases in transnational migration and circulation of cultural commodities have led to the reshaping of older communities, the forming of new diasporas, and the creation of new cultural processes and flows. (J. Desai 2002:67) 7 According to Hopgood (as qtd. In Shani) the liberal notion of a global civil society refers to a society where the public sphere is modeled on exchange and persons meet in order to arbitrate their pre-existing interests which have been chosen in the private sphere. (2003:1) Globalization in a neo-liberal sense refers to the attempt to universalize liberal-capitalist modernity. It is manifested through political, economic and cultural homogenization on a global scale. (46)

Alexander Doty (2000) fittingly defines queer visibility as:

Those aspects of spectatorship, cultural readership, production, and textual coding that seem to establish spaces not described by, or contained within, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual, or transgendered understandings and categorizations of gender and sexuality (7).

Though very small in number, there exists a visible and significant literature on queer viewership as well as Queer Indian Cinema. Indian scholars such as R. Raj Rao, Gayathri Gopinath, T. Muraleedharan have contributed to the understanding of queer viewership while film critics Vikram Phukan8 and film maker Shridhar Rangayan, offer us alternative guides to Queer films of India. Vikram Phukan published an “Alternative Guide to Cinema” in April 2009 issue of Bombay Dost. The same guide resurfaced with addition, as the list of “100 Queer Films of India” on Film Impressions, a Mumbai-based cinema appreciation website, in 2011. Sridhar Rangayan too published almost a similar list entitled bollyQueer Movies. This article approaches Vikram Phukan‟s list of 100 Queer Films of India as a point of reference. Through the analysis of Phukan‟s list, an attempt is made at mapping the development of Indian queer cinema culture from queering the canon towards the formation of a queer canon as well as, if and how it corresponds with its Western counterpart.

The foregoing discussion on the Western Queer Cinema shows that the dominant discourses on sexuality in late 19th century and second half of the 20th century in the Western world proved decisive in shaping a queer cinematic culture. As for the Indian Cinema it must be said that a Queer cinema culture is still evolving. The queer film scholar Thomas Waugh remarked on Indian cinema, that it “has not developed a recognizable domestic queer vector” (2003: 01). Waugh probably positioned himself in the „liberal‟ Western discursive practices and anticipated a similar „development‟ in Indian cinema. What needs to be argued here is that the Indian subcontinent did not share similar history; neither had Western discourses on sexuality entered it till late with an

8Vikram Phukan is the former editor of Bombay Dost: An LGBT Magazine and a film critic.

exception of section 377 of the Indian Penal Code introduced in 1860 during the British rule of India which criminalises sexual activities “against the order of nature”, arguably including homosexual acts. Hence, the narrative of development of queer Indian cinema culture needs to be perceived and written differently.

Having established the basis for the mapping of queer film journey in India, further discussion now moves to Phukan‟s list and what it has to offer. In his alternative guide Phukan uses representation of „queer issues‟ as the criteria to term these films as „queer‟. Secondly, he includes short, feature length and documentary films both in India and in Indian Diaspora worldwide. For the purpose of analysis, these films are clubbed in five categories.

2.3.1. Transvestite and Camp

The first category of films is the one which neither exclusively nor inclusively gives any queer plot, sub-plot, character or theme. The question arises as to which „queer‟ issues these films represent. Phukan has a very appealing logic, namely that of the queer viewership. For instance, Phukan finds a cross-dressed Sandhya, invoking the androgynous image of Ardharnatinareshwar in Holi song “Ja re hat Natkhat…” in V. Shantaram‟s Navrang (1959). Fascinating enough, the trend of cross-dressing quite popularized by the folk traditions like nautanki, tamasha, Kathakali, was carried forward by Bollywood, initially out of technical necessity, for the want of female actors in films, for instance, Raja Harishchandra (1913), and later on making it a necessary attribute of plot or subplot in films. However comic the intent might have been, these subplots have provided transgressive moments.

Figure1: Fearless Nadia acting as prince opposite Krishna Kumari (the princess) in Baghdad Ka Jadoo (1956) For instance, in Baghdad ka Jadoo (1956), there is a scene in which Hunterwaali fame Fearless Nadia, Indian cinema‟s first gender-bending actor, enters the palace in the guise of a visiting prince and meets with the unintended consequence that the young princess‟ heart is set aflutter by her gaily bearded countenance. Nadia then goes as far as to woo the young girl, even performing a romantic duet with her. With the on-screen-chemistry between Nadia and Krishna Kumari, the scene carrying a transgressive charge, gave one of the earliest homo-romantic moments in Indian cinema. Bollywood continued to produce such iconic transgressive images through cross-dressing. Over the years, actors from Mehmood to Shammi Kapoor and from Amitabh Bachchan to Imran Khan have donned kohl, lipstick and women‟s clothes to get sportingly into the drag act to generate laughs.

Some actors such as Paintal and Aamir Khan and Shreyas Talpade have donned the act time and again. This gender-bending however, the purpose might have beencamp and comic, made the male body clad in „feminine‟ attires and in a lesser frequency the female body in „male‟ attires, accessible to be consumed by the audience, thus making queer and ambiguous spaces available.

Gay film historians from Dyer to Vito Russo and, more recently, Brett Farmer (2000) in the West and Schoars like R. Raj Rao and Murleedharan have quite effectively illustrated

how the cinematic medium and the multifarious practices of film spectatorship play a vital role in the formulation and covert articulation of queer identity and desire. Farmer‟s remarks in this regard are very apt:

Cinema has long been a forum for the circulation of sexual meanings and pleasures. With its congregation of bodies in close, darkened spaces; its simulation of patently voyeuristic structures; and its lush supply of erotic visual spectacles, cinema has, from the beginning, been marked as a profoundly sexualised form (2000: 25).

Similarly, Indian Queer Historian, Ruth Vanita remarks that popular films enjoy an iconic status among gay and lesbian subcultures in India even though explicit references to homosexuality have been largely absent from mainstream commercial films (2002:207). There are films such as Pakeezah (1972), Helen, Queen of the Nautch Girls (1973), Umrao Jaan (1981) and Devdas (2002) that find entry in Phukan‟s list. Of Pakeezah, Phukan remarks that gay men have appropriated the magnificent mujra9 set-pieces such as the pulsating Thare Rahiyo… from this film as their own. Similarly, in Umrao Jaan (1981), Rekha in her many mujras in the film „demonstrates a flair for the most dexterously floral hand gestures that have for long become an essential part of any desi drag performer‟s repertoire‟. Phukan adds that Bhansali‟s Devdas „has acquired a cult…with drag performers for whom emulating Madhuri Dixit in Maar Daala is now de rigueur.‘

9Murjais a form of dance originated by tawaif (courtesans) during the Mughal era.

(Figure.2) Rekha as and in Umrao jaan (1981) (Figure.3) Edwin Fernandes as Shabbo in Gulabi Aaina (2003)

This is very much evident in Shridhar Rangayan‟s Gulabi Aaina (2003), which draws attention to Indian drag queen subculture. Moreover, Helen… (1973) fits this paradigm as the super-drag queen of Bollywood has been a great source of inspiration for many gay men. Jerry Pinto (2006) in his biographic narrative on Helen, records that Helen „the outsider‟ found a following in the gay community that has always been „othered‟ and held up to scorn by Indian cinema. He further adds that „stars matter because they act out aspects of life that matter to us; According to Pinto for homosexual men the very fact of Helen‟s existence and her defiant declaration of it is very important. The sense that one gathers from these observations is that there existed and continues to exist, a subculture of queer audience and it is the transgressive and „campy‟ appeal of the song-dance sequences and gay iconicity of the actors in many of these films that make them „queer‟.

2.3.2. Bromance/Dostana

The second category includesthefilms that have no explicitly encoded queer characters or queer plot nor do they have „campy‟ appeal. This includes films like Dosti (1964), Anand (1971), Zanjeer (1973), Sholay (1975), Dostana (1980), Saathi (1991). These can be considered films with potentially queer subtexts as the films offer homoerotic and homo- romantic pleasures to the queer eyes. According to Phukan, Ramesh Sippy‟s Sholay is cited in any discourse about queer elements mainly due to its reputation as one of Indian

cinema‟s longest running films, than any actual homo-erotic subtext. However, R Raj Rao‟s reading differs from that of Phukan. There is a moment in the film through the song „Yeh Dosti Hum Nahi…‟ which viewed in isolation presents one with a strong homo-romantic narrative.

(Figure.4) In Anand (1971) the camera frames (Figure.5) In Sholey (1971) Bachchan (as Jay) and Dharmendra (as Veeru) sharing intimate Bachchan (as Bhaskar) and Rajesh Khanna (as spaces Anand)

Indian film song-dance sequences have always had a life of their own away from the film. Moreover, the yaari, yaarana, dosti, dostana (friend, friendship) trope became trendy in the buddy films of 1970s. Especially the films where the Bollywood Superstar Amitabh Bachchan coupled with other actors have been viewed and reviewed „against the grain‟. Rao in his article explored the homoerotic and romantic subtext by analyzing songs such as Yaari hain Imman mera yaar meri Zindagi (Zanjeer, 1973), Maine tere liye (Anand 1971) and Bane chahe dushman (Donstana 1980). Kavi comments the „only apparently most heterosexual‟ Bachchan appeared in a series of films where the heroine was replaced by a male „best friend‟ (2000:310). According to Srinivasan (2013), the lovers gave expressions to their „untamed passions‟ through these songs. Such songs have been sung at gay parades in New York and San Francisco (Gopinath 2000: 290). Besides, Satyen Bose‟s Dosti (1964), a film that does not label the protagonists gay but does not bother to offset the threat of homosexuality (Srinivasan 2013), must be mentioned here. According to Phukan:

The film resonates for gay audiences at so many levels from the alienation felt by the two disabled men (one is blind, the other a cripple) acting as a cipher for homosexual repression, to instances of affection so physically demonstrated, to the alternative hospice in which they take refuge, replete with androgynous dancers and women wrestlers (which for all purposes could be a gay ghetto) (2011 n.p.).

Ruth Vanita in her analysis of the film argues that the intensity of relationship between two teenage protagonists in the film is framed through the conventions of poetic speech, song and narrative in much the way as cross-sex relationships. References to their intimacy include sleeping in the same bed (2002:152). Phukan places many other films like Razia Sultan (1983), Mandi (1983), Hum Aapke Hain Kaun (1994), in the same paradigm using the same logic of queer spectatorship. Gayatri Gopinath offers an interesting reading of a scene (again a song-dance sequence) of what she calls “temporary transvestite film” from an Indian diasporic queer female perspective (2000:286).

This viewing also enables the viewers to recognize how an unacknowledged viewership existed and survived in the times when Indian cinema did not consciously produce stories that spoke of same sex desire and aspirations. This queer viewing subculture had the subversive power to challenge the assumptions about the spectatorial positioning. As Muraleedharan (2002) argues this reception of films rejects predetermined categories of spectatorial desires and suggests, the films that presumably addressed to straight audiences have greater potential for encouraging a wide range of queer responses. Oppositional readings allow the viewer to draw her own meanings from the portrayal of deviances. In Bell Hooks‟ words (in Srinivasan, 2013 n.p.) there was resistance and defiance in the act of looking, in which a queer readership indulged by locating itself in the midst of overarching patriarchal and heterosexual texts. This specific phenomenon can be considered as the queering of the film canon, (a phrase that is borrowed by the researcher from Alexander Doty‟s milestone book of the same title).

2.3.3. Out of the Closet

The nextset of films present us with a gamut of consciously coded and encoded queer character/s or (sub) plot. Some of the films in this collection, such as Jabbar Patel‟s Umbaratha (Marathi, meaning Threshold) /Subah (Hindi, meaning Morning, 1982), Padmarajan‟s Desatanakkili Karayarilla (Malayalam), (The Migratory Bird Never Cries, 1986), Amol Palekar‟s Daayara (The Square Circle,1996), Kalpana Lajmi‟s Darmiyaan (In Between, 1997), Mahesh Bhatt‟s Tamanna (Desire, 1997), have been critically acclaimed and/or are winners of national awards. These films can certainly be seen as significant stage of Indian cinema‟s peeping out of the closet. The films approached the „queer issue‟ from within the gamut of Indian cinematic narrative practices. Phukan considers Premkumar‟s Badnaam Basti (1971), to be the first such film that depicts homosexuality without necessarily employing the idiom of identity politics. The physical intimacy between men is alluded to, but in a more forthright than discreet manner. Pinto (2006) called it a tentative attempt at understanding homosexuality. Surprisingly, not much is available on the film at present.

Another film (though not included in Phukan‟s list) that could be placed near the beginning position on timeline of the development of Queer Indian Cinema is Malayalam film Randu Penkuttikal (Two Girls, 1978), directed by veteran director Mohan. The film was based on V.T. Nand Kumar‟s Novel Randu Penkuttikalude Katha (The Tale of Two Girls, 1974). Even before „Fire‟ fractured conservative sexual discourse in India, this film brought the first „lesbian‟ characters on the Indian screen. Due to the implicit/coded treatment of the theme and the regional medium the film has not been noticed by many. The film tells the story of Kokila, (Shobha), and a high-school senior who is almost insanely and possessively in love with her beautiful junior Girija (Anupama Mohan). Though bold for its time, the film ends with both the girls returning to the heteronormative mould dismissing the relation as just a phase.

(Figure.6) Cover page of the novel Randu (Figure.7) Sally (Shaari) and Nirmala (Karthika) in Penkuttikalude Katha (1974). Desatanakkili Karayarilla, (1986)

Nandakumar writes in the foreword to second edition of this story, “this passion is likely to be widespread among the young women of Kerala who, by nature, are extremely sensitive. Such relationships have some healthy and positive potential; and are hence important” (Vanita and Kidwai 2000: 312). The author felt that lesbianism – which was at the heart of his piece of work – was missing from the film. Another Malayalam film that used a similar trope of young school girls was Desatanakkili Karayarilla (The Migratory Bird Never Cries, 1986), by Padmarajan which hints at a lesbian angle to the relationship between two teen-age school girls, Shaari and Karthika thus making homosexuality just an under-current. The film that succeeded in bringing to surface the lesbian under-currents taking the same trope forward was Ligy Pullapalli‟s Sancharram (The Journey, 2004). Thus, Malayalum cinema made a significant contribution to the development of Queer Indian cinema.

Likewise, Marathi cinema too contributed to this development during the same period. Jabbar Patel‟s „Umbaratha/Subah (Morning, 1982), based on a Marathi novel Beghar (Homeless) by Shanta Nisal was the first film to consciously depict with explicit articulation a homosexual relation between two women, Heera and Jangam, the inmates of a women‟s reformatory home. The film narrative actually spells out the English word „lesbian‟ to refer to these two characters.

(Figure. 8-9) In Patel‟s Umbartha/Subah (The Morning, 1982) a coded message through song and playful exchange of gaze between the two inmates within homophobic homosocial spaces marks the beginning of a change. The film adopts an ambivalent point of view on the queer politics by offering two disparate tones. On one hand, Heera and Jangam are „outed‟ by the other inmates and then, receive sympathy of the protagonist Savitri Mahajan (played by the veteran Indian actress Smita Patil) on „pathological‟ grounds who expresses her willingness to help them out with psychological treatment; whereas the camera lens offers a few visual moments where it sensitively captures the tender feelings of the characters for each other. There are two instances in the film. The first is in a song where the two characters playfully exchange gaze to express their feelings for each other. The second time is when one of the lovers (Heera) suffers injury at the hands of a mischievous inmate. The camera follows Jangam to record the pain that she feels; moreover, the extra-diegetic sound of the background score too adds a sympathizing tone. The film places their love in the midst of an oppressive and homophobic homosocial space.

In 1990s Hindi cinema turned to telling the stories of transvestite/transgender characters, known as hijra10. Their stories occupied the significant spaces of sub-plots. The characters, though not all, started shaking the stereotypical position they were allotted by the earlier cinema.

10 Hijra is a term used to refer to cross-dressed biological men, eunuchs, or hermaphrodites in India.

Figure 10. Pinku (Anupam Kher) and Inspector Sher Singh (Shakti Kapoor) in Mast Kalandar (1991)

The queer and comic villain of Mast Kalandar (1991), who started the journey of a hijra to a „gay‟ character, carried the name „Pinku‟ which had a blend of every imaginable stereotype of a gay character. The film presents him as a hypersexual gay man who adores his father‟s masculine body, desires to sleep with men. Pinku‟s lip-syncing of an old Hindi song

Bas yahi apradh main har bar karata hoon Adami hoon Adami se pyar karata hoon (I commit this crime time and again/ I am a man who loves another man)

However, Shakti Kapoor, who plays a police inspector in the film, goes ignored as he openly expresses his sexual craving for Pinku. With this encoding, the film introduced the „Western‟ construct of a pansy gay man. The terms like „gay‟ and „lesbian‟, however, were still not in use when the film was released. In Tamanna (Desire 1997), Tickoo, the protagonist marks a space of resistance to the binaries of sex through his sexual deviancy. For him, gender doesn‟t necessarily flow from sex nor is it a fixed category. Tickoo does neither embody the stereotypes of masculinity nor of femininity. Tickoo‟s fluid sex- gender identity is further nuanced by his relationship with his friend Salim (Manoj Bajpai). Many scholars find a strong same-sex love in their relationship (Vanita 2002). With his vibrant and sensitive role of a Hijra in Tamanna Paresh Rawal, set the grounds

and trends for more actors to come forward to accept „challenging‟ roles on the Indian screen.

What one can draw from the films discussed in the second collection is that the Indian cinema through1980s and 1990s started its gradual and sporadic move towards a queer canon. The queer subplots and characters were still very much placed within the heteronormative order of the film narrative. The films appealed to the tolerant outlook of presumably heteronormative heterosexual audience. Up to this stage the Western discourse of sexual politics had not made any visibly observable impact on Indian cinema. However, this was not the case with diasporic Indian cinema.

2.3.4. Indian Queer Cinema of the Diaspora

Let us then club in the next category the films made in diasporic spaces by Non-Indian/ diasporic South Asian film makers telling the stories of / and involving South Asian queer characters. A major viewership for these films consisted of the South Asian diaspora. Phukan includes both short and feature length films from the diaspora. Some of the significant films are My Beautiful Launderette (1985), Flesh and Paper (1990) Fire (1996), Sixth Happiness (1997), Chutney Popcorn (1999), Summer In My Veins (1999), East is East (1999) Bend It Like Beckham (2002),Bollywood/Hollywood (2002), Many People Many Desires (2004), Tedhi Lakeer (2004), Touch of Pink, A (2004), Chicken Tikka Masala (2005), Nina‘s Heavenly Delights (2006), Can‘t Think Straight (2007), Jihad For Love, A (2007), Straight — Ek Tedhi Medhi Love Story (2009), Migration (2007), Milind Soman Made Me Gay (2007).

Many of these films located the Indian queer tales in either American or European settings in the background thus making the Western discourse of sexual identity and desire accessible. It was mainly this discourse that shaped the narratives of these films. However, from the point of view of the development of a Queer canon at home the films that really made difference are Deepa Mehta‟s Fire and Nishit Saran‟s Summer in My Veins. Deepa Mehta‟s Fire is the first among such films that makes visible and central the invisibilized lesbian by placing her in the centre of the narrative. Fire, though labeled as

unIndian by the extremists, made an unprecedented impact on the Indian public discourse on sexuality and also on Indian cinema. The film gave rise to many controversies owing to its „lesbian‟ plot. Despite the outcry from right wing and conservative political outfits the film was passed for „A‟ certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification without a single cut. The Hindi version of the film was released in major Indian cities in 1998 (two years after its release in America and Europe). Commenting on the impact that Fire had created, Ghosh (2002) declares that it was with Fire that the queer vocabulary forcibly pushed its way into not just the public discourse but also people‟s private homes. Rama Srinivasan echos Ghosh as she affirmatively states that Fire „heralded an exciting new age where queer…became a part of the everyday vocabulary of popular culture‟ (2013). Thus, Fire ushered in along with it an era of „Self-aware‟ films. With Fire, queerness became a „political identity‟. Fire ended all the ambiguity. If the queer sighter had to imagine „a wink‟ (Waugh 2003:292) it became impossible.

(Figure 11) Nishit Saran captures on camera his mother‟s unscripted reaction to his sudden „coming out‟.

In Summer… Nishit Saran manages to create one of the most ever-lasting images of Indian queer cinema with just a hand-held camera. The film captures his mother‟s unscripted reaction to suddenly being confronted with the revelation that her son is gay (Phukan 2011). What is remarkable about the film is that it made visible a „real‟ queer subject. The film thus inaugurated a new era of personalized „Coming Out‟ narratives in Indian Cinema unexplored before at home. While Fire was crucial in making the Indian cinema at home „coming out of its own closet‟, Summer… encouraged the private circles

of queer film making at home. Thus, it is clear from the discussion how the diaspora influenced the Queer Indian Cinema culture.

Now as the word was out, two evident concurrent trends developed in Indian Cinema at home in constructing „gay‟ and „lesbian‟ and „bisexual‟ characters / themes in the narratives. These films from Phukan‟s guide can be grouped, in a new category. The first trend is depicted in the films which have a subplot involving a Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender character where the character / theme is presented with dubious sympathy and sensitivity, however on the margins of the main narrative. Such categorization may also help in giving an overview of, how Indian Cinema especially Bollywood, came to terms with its uneasiness with such subject matter. This category includes films like Kaizad Gustad‟s Bombay Boys (1998), Parvati Balagopalan‟s Rules Pyar Ka Superhit Formula (2003) Madhur Bhandarkar‟s Page 3 (2005) and Fashion (2008), Reema Kagti‟s Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd (2007), Anurag Kashyap‟s Life In A…Metro (2007). As this trend continues even now, the list can be extended to include films ex post facto the publication of Phukan‟s guide.

Bombay Boys as the record shows was released in India the same year as Fire. However, it played in theatres smoothly without arousing „public‟ ire. The film not only shows one of the three main characters‟ (Xerxes) journey towards the disclosure of his sexual self but also offers a peep into a vibrant gay subculture in the suburbs of Mumbai, a prime metro city in India. How is it that the moral police did not halt the screening of this film? Was it the indifference to the gay subplot due to the racial identity and citizen status of the character (Xerxes is a Parsi and NRI living in Australia) that his claims of being Indian are rendered weak? Was it the absence of physical intimacy between the male bodies on the screen? Or could the opening of the film only in small screens in metropolitan cities be the reason? Thus there could be more options, however the question remains valid. Rules – Pyar Ka Superhit Formula (2003), out of its liberal intentions sensitively emphasizes the difficulties of a gay couple in living a conventional love story, whereas Page 3 and Life... in their depiction strongly relate homosexuality with promiscuity, thus perpetuating the mainstream discourses of hetero-normativity. The only change in the perception of the otherwise naïve straight audience these films offer, is

that not all the gay men are pansy/effeminate. Talking about the limits of the mainstream cinema Abhimanyu Singh (2008) says, “Mainstream cinema has it codes set firmly. The „visual pleasure‟ of „narrative cinema‟ is not innocent and innocuous; it‟s based on a history of suppression of „deviant themes‟ that informs its narratives” (n.p.).

The second trend is of films that created gay stereotypes either effeminate, colour-me- pink gay sidekicks or the tropes of fake or mistaken gay episodes. The film that has been responsible for changing the discourse on alternate sexualities in popular culture is Karan Johar‟s Kal Ho Na Ho (If Tomorrow Never Comes, 2003). The film introduced not only a fake gay love subplot but also positioned a homophobic sighter, Kantaben within the diegetic spaces of the narrative. Many films followed the same trope and made it clichéd. The films constructed homosexuality on the screen making it a commodity to be consumed presumably by the audience for whom heteronormativity is the order of the day. Tarun Mansukhani‟s Dostana (Friendship, 2009) further affected this discourse by extending a short subplot into the main plot maintaining the humorous tone but at times becoming ambivalent in its positioning of the audience. The object to be laughed at keeps oscillating between homophobia and homosexuality. There is a scene in the film where in the midst of light and comic mood, the film assumes a serious tone for a moment. Moreover, the film‟s opening scene has John Abraham (Kunal) in his scintillating look. Though there is a female audience, it would be naïve not to acknowledge that it is intended for a gay audience as well. However, commenting on both Kal Ho Na Ho and Dostana Srinivasan laments “while the two films are huge steps towards de-closeting homosexuality in Indian society, they also signify the loss of close reel relationships between men which dominated the Bollywood landscape for decades” (2013).

2.3.5. Explicit Queer Cinema

Let us now club the films in the last category that includes Riyad Wadia‟s short film Bomgay (1996), Mahesh Dattani‟s Mango Soufflé (2002), Sridhar Rangayan‟s Gulabi Aaina/ Pink Mirror (2003), Yours Emotionally (2006), 68 Pages (2007), Ligy Pullappalli‟s Sancharram/The Journey (2004), Onir‟s My Brother…Nikhil (2005), Sachin Kundalkar‟s short film The Bath (2005), Sanjoy Nag‟s Memories in March

(2011), Kaushik Ganguly‟s Arekti Premer Golpo/ Just Another Love Story (2010) and Rituparno Ghosh‟s Chitrangada (2012). These are the films which made a significant difference to the queer politics. The films placed a queer issue and the character right at the centre of the narrative. They are marked by unapologetic tone and irreverence in their handling of theme and characters. Many of these films either screened in specified circles such as Queer film festivals or were denied a certificate by the Censor Board.

Figure 12. Rahul Bose in Bomgay, 1996 Phukan terms Bomgay as „India‟s first bonafide gay film‟ (2011). Both the director and the writer whose poems inspired the film were „out‟ gay. The short film, based on a collection of six vignettes from R. Raj Rao‟s gay poetry, was shot in guerrilla style in such locations as St. Wilson College library, the gay cruising spots of Victoria Terminus urinals and the Bombay local tracks along which people defecate. The film thus combined acidic verse and insightful imagery to reveal the emerging gay community in post-liberalized India of the 1990's. “[A] stark naked Rahul Bose…almost willingly ravished by the object of his longing at the Fort campus library” (Phukan 2011) marks the stupendous visual sensual blast on screen. The film had a limited release in India as Wadia did not apply for a certificate fearing that the Censor Board would reject it. It got screened in a number of international film festivals and finds mention in research works on the history of queer themes in Indian Cinema, as the first queer themed film from India. The director of this epoch-making film passed away untimely. To pay tribute and revere his contribution to Indian Queer Cinema the Riyad Wadia Award for Indian emerging filmmakers was instituted in 2011 for films that win the competition section in Kashish, an international queer film festival based in Mumbai.

Sridhar Rangayan, popularly known as the principal organizer of one of India‟s longest running and most successful queer film festivals, Kashish, started Solaris Pictures, a film production company in 2001. Solaris Pictures is considered to be the first and probably the only company that has made films exclusively on the issues of HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, gay rights and transgenders. It champions Indian queer cinema by providing opportunities for young filmmakers to produce and distribute queer films. Films under its banner have been showcased in many international film festivals and contributed to making visible Indian queer characters and issues to a global audience, through a unique style that combines Bollywood melodrama with international avant- garde film techniques.

Dubbed as India‟s first film on drag queens and banned in India, Gulabi Aaina/ Pink Mirror is a risqué and over-the-top frolic in which a couple of ageing queens vie for the attention of a hunk. This is the first film to come out of the activist director‟s camera lens. Transsexuals or drag queens that usually are mocked at, get the midpoint position of the narrative and a voice to articulate their aspirations and pains. Rangayan‟s other films 68 Pages and Emotionally Yours access the Western discourse of Queer Politics but negotiate it with local spaces and identities. Anticipating the possible ban on his film Emotionally Yours, Rangayan tied up with the UK based film production company, Wise Thoughts.

Mahesh Dattani, director, playwright and writer, known for his remarkable contribution to the queer cause through his writing and theatre production had his stint with film making too. His film Mango Soufflé, a screen adaption of his own successful English play On a Muggy Night in Mumbai was promoted as the “first gay male film from India”. The narrative is woven around the politics of identity of an urban Indian English educated upper class group of young people. This shows no sign of resistance to the use of identity labels based on the West influenced global sexual category. The film created ripples in the print media but was not strong enough to initiate public debates as „Fire‟ had done.

Another film which is believed to have made a deeper impact on the minds of mainstream audience is Onir‟s My Brother…Nikhil. The film was based on Dominic

D'Souza, a gay swimming champion from Goa. Surprisingly the director was not allowed by the Censor Board to mention this anywhere in the film or its promotion. Moreover, the film was distributed under the banner of Yash Raj Films. In India, the film was promoted neither as HIV/AIDS film nor as „gay‟ film, as the director had apprehensions about the public reactions. It was quite clear from the strategies of the film maker that he wanted a mainstream audience to watch this film. The film was received positively by both, mainstream and queer audience. The narrative deployed the „family‟ and „yaari‟ trope strategically to push the sensitive issues of HIV/AIDS and same sex love relation without causing unrest. After the success of My Brother …Nikhil, Onir made I am (2010) a film anthology of four short interlinked stories drawn from the real life incidences. It is the firstIndian filmthat was funded voluntarily through social networking. The film is an interpretation of India as a modern nation. One of the four stories, I am Omar, is about the harassment of urban gay men by the police machinery under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. Bomgay-fame Rahul Bose appears in another gay role. Besides narrative strategies, production and distribution of this film, offers an insight into the specificity of Indian Queer Cinema culture.

Effeminacy, a trait that has been associated with homosexual men, is deployed by the majority of mainstream films, to create stereotypical caricatures in the portrayal of homosexuality. Thus it rendered homosexuals as lesser beings. These tropes placed within the main narrative, had a specific cinematic function of arousing laughter. This deployment was in line and at times a replacement of the existing stereotypical images of „Sardar‟11 or a Parsi12. Many films that attempted a „sensitive‟ portrayal of homosexuals erased effeminacy by deploying „straight‟ and „masculine‟ traits in the portrayal of a homosexual man. However, a film maker who challenged both the trends and brought back effeminacy with dignity to the screen through his sensitive and revolutionary portrayal of effeminate characters in Memories in March, Arekti Premer Golpo/ Just Another Love Story and the film which he directed, Chitrangada: A Crowning Wish,was

11Sardar is a term used for a male from the Sikh community in the state of Punjab. However, the image of sardar serves as idiot who he is always laughed at. 12Parsee is one of two Zoroastrian communities (the other being Iranis) primarily located in South Asia. The very presence of a Parsee character in Indian films, especially Bollywood has been as a butt of laughter.

the Bengali director and actor Rituparno Ghosh. Though none of these films, finds even a mention in Phukan‟s guide, Rituparno Ghosh‟s name has become almost synonymous with new Indian Queer Cinema. The latter two films even have autobiographic undertones.

Arekti Premer Golpo is historically a significant film as it was the first queer film to be released after the historic judgment of Delhi High Court in which the court read down section 377 of IPC. The film brings out the existential struggle of a new generation gay film maker, Abhiroop Sen (Rituparno Ghosh) and an old generation jatra actor and female impersonator, Chapal Bhaduri (Chapal Bhaduri himself). The film while acknowledging and accessing the Western discourse on sexual identity, routes the narrative through the local cultural spaces. The folk song “Bonomali Tumi Poro jonme Hoyo Radha....” and the image of Lord Chaitanya are deployed with transgressive charge in expressing the fluidity of gender binary.

Phukan‟s alternate guide to Indian Cinema did not include films post 2011. However, it must be noted that the regional film industries in India, have been increasingly making films on queer themes. Indian Queer cinema has come a long way from an underground guerilla styled cinematic experiment, Bomgay in 1996 to Aligarh in 2016, a feature film with top Bollywood actors in lead role, based on the real life story of a gay professor in an Indian University. A brief comment on this film is pertinent here.

Hansal‟s Mehta‟s Aligarh offers a defining moment in the Queer canonical continuum of Indian Cinema. Apparently labled as a „gay‟ film, Aligarh succeeds in bringing out a brave new „queer‟ subject on Indian commercial screen. The character of Shrinivas Siras essayed by Manoj Bajpayee in many ways is iconoclastic. What defines the dissidence in him is his ability to subvert any attempt by the system to break him. Old Hindi film songs, wine and poetry acquire meaning in the midst of the existential absurdity after the scandalous „outing‟. Though the film places its protagonist within the contemporary discourse around section 377 and with a „coming out‟ frame, it nowhere plays a reductionist card in constructing the queer subjectivities of Siras. Siras‟questions „how can one understand my feelings in three letters?‟ and „why do you get trapped in words?‟

effectively brings out any attempt at labelling him „gay‟. The film certainly is a valuable addition to the archives of Indian Queer Cinema.

The implication that one can draw from the discussion of these films is, that there is a decisive transformation in Indian cinema. However peripheral, a visible Queer Cinema, an equally visible league of self-identifying Queer filmmakers, film productions and a concrete audience have emerged. Hence, it would be reasonable to assert that Indian cinema has reached the perimeter of a Queer Canon and has developed a “visible domestic vector” (Waugh, 2003).

2.3.6. Growing Presence of Queer Film Festival Culture

Another significant development that has positively influenced the production, access and mobilization of Queer films in the last ten years, is the growing culture of Queer film festivals in India. The first recorded international film festival was held in New Delhi‟s Max Mueller Bhavan in 1993. However, the festivals began to be organized with consistency only from 2000 onwards. Chennai International Queer Film Festival (since 2004), Dialogue: Annual Calcutta LGBT Film and Video Festival (since 2007), Bangalore Queer Film Festival (since 2006), Kashish-Mumbai International Queer Film Festival (since 2010) and Nigah Queer Festival, Delhi (since 2011), have encouraged Indian film makers to screen their films.

The concept of collective effort in canon formation needs to be explained in relation to these film festivals. Supported by NGOs and film production houses, these film festivals have not only made international queer films available to Indian audience, but also have played catalyst in the production of homemade queer cinema. The festivals have been beneficial in many ways. These festivals:

1. Encouraged and also made sponsors available for new film makers to tell their stories. For instance, Sappho, a Kolkata based organization, Humsafar Trust, Mumbai Based Organization, Nigah, a Delhi based organization have also partly sponsored some film productions. For struggling and aspiring student film makers and first time film makers, these festivals proved to be the platform for social

networking and showcasing their talent. For instance, Marathi student film maker Rohan Kanawade, shot to success after his film Ektya Bhinti/ (Lonely Walls) was screened and won him accolades at Kashish- Mumbai International Film Festival 2013. This encouraged him to produce another Marathi/Hindi short film Sundar (Beautiful), a crowd funded film, which won him yet another award in the Indian Masala Mix-II category. 2. Made platform available for short films with bold subject matter and visual imagery, documentary and short films made about the oppressed and neglected communities such as Hijra, Kotis, Aravanis, working class lesbians, transwomen. The film makers who feared a ban on their films by the Censor Board got a confirmed space for exhibition and also a specific audience. For instance, Ranadeep Bhattacharyya, Judhajit Bagchi‟s short film Amen (2012) was denied even an „A‟ (Adults only) certificate by the Censor Board. 3. Increased the presence and involvement of veteran actors, directors from Indian film industries, theatre personalities, corporate and statesmen. Thus, the festivals have created a „nation-space‟ of its own without the support of the State. These factors will certainly play a crucial role in defining Indian Queer Cinema, at least in its initial phase.

This alternative guide of cinema by Phukan could be considered India‟s Celluloid Closet waiting for some insightful study and deliberations. Having stated this, let us look back at the title question. Does this alternative guide attempt to queer the cannon? One can certainly see the queering of the canonwith group IV. The classification may help to see various phases of Indian cinema‟s engagement with the non-normative sexualities. The above discussion affirms that there is a need to move from an enthusiast‟s position to the scholarly investigation of the „Queer‟ in Indian cinema and work towards the construction of what may be called „Indian Queer Cinema‟.

Through the mapping, this chapter attempted at drawing out that, the spatio-temporal and incidental elements contributing to the development of Queer cinema in West, and India, are so disparate that considering Indian Queer cinema as a mere copy of Western cinema will be an error of judgment and shortsightedness.