“We live in times of fear and imposed silence,” said actor Nandita Das at South Asian Conference on Gender and Sexuality held at IIT-B in Powai on Tuesday.
Ms. Das had starred in Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1998), which was one of the first mainstream Indian films to highlight homosexual relations and portray lesbian relationships in a sensitive manner. She said, “Fire is really one of those few films where you can actually see the impact. It compelled us to talk about homosexuality, whether you hated or liked it or if it made you feel uncomfortable. I don’t know if a Fire can be made today, or if we are liberal enough as a society to make a film like that again. Even the artistic fraternity has been self-censoring itself.”
Filmmaker Onir’s directorial debut, My Brother...Nikhil (2005), was one of the first Indian films to address the need for AIDS awareness from the eyes of a homosexual swimmer.
Taking Ms Das’s point on censorship forward, Onir said, “In 2005, when I made My Brother... Nikhil, it was inspired from a documentary that I was editing. I did not realise at the time that releasing the film might be a problem. I was made to add a disclaimer saying that it was fictitious, after which I got a universal certificate. When I made I Am in 2011, I thought that we had moved ahead as a society but it took me six months to get an adult certification because one of the stories in I Am spoke about Article 377.”
Aditya Joshi, an IIT alumnus, spoke about his directorial debut, Darwaze, a short film that talks about discrimination against people of diverse genders in rented apartments in cities. Mr. Joshi said, “As a gay man living and working in Mumbai, I watched Indian cinema very closely. On the last day of my M.Tech course, I remember somebody referring to the most macho person of the batch as Sunny Deol, while I was voted as the Bobby Darling of the group. As I had still not come out, these terms affected me substantially.”
He added, “I remember watching English Vinglish and noticing how the gay character was mocked by the audience. When Sridevi’s character stood up for him, she silences not only the characters in the movie but also the hecklers in the cinema hall.”
