'Cine-Maa Da Laadla Bigad Gaya' - Bollywood in the Closet

The Delhi High Court’s amendment to section 377 was both historical and surprising. Even as it is the state's acknowledgment that India has a sizable and growing gay population, 'popular culture' has seldom seen gay characters in its stories. And when a gay character is included, he is often  portrayed as the 'over the top' drag queen or the lustful buffoon who hits, unsuccessfully, on the hero. Added for comic relief, gay characters are often used to reinforce the masculinity of the leading man, without much dignity.

Dostana (2008), Karan Johar's offering, was labelled India's first popular 'gay' film and has found support in a large section of the gay janta. The film features John Abraham's near strip tease, showing off a well rounded bubble butt, and presents an unabashed objectification of the male body. The song Maa da ladla Bigad gaya is a rage in gay parties. The song -- loosely translated -- means 'Mother's favorite son has been spoiled'. The boys going home from that party know that they are actually going home to that reinforced stereotype.

The irony, it seems to me, is that Dostana is Karan Johar’s least gay film. Kal Ho Na Ho's (2003) gay jokes where its attractive leading boys were found by Kantaben in a compromising position, paved the way for the non-stereotyped gay in contemporary Hindi cinema. Yet, very few films were willing to blur the line between heterosexual and homosexual and exact even one tender moment between its boys. This was the case even in Dostana, where in the climax of the film, the two macho men are drawn into lip-lock. Sadly, their faces are wrought with disgust, reinforcing public opinion that homosexuality is a disorder. No heart. No dignity.

Pakeezah (1972), Kamal Amrohi's tribute to his lady-love Meena Kumari, did much more for generations of closet gays who were desperately seeking role models. For years, frustrated gay men in an orthodox society connected with the tragic story of the sacrificing courtesan and her unrequited love. This often mirrored their own lonely lives where they spent nights with men that would never acknowledge them in daylight. In the 1980s, Rekha took over the mantle of India's gay icon from Meena Kumari with her immortal portrayal of Umrao Jaan (1981) , a story of the abandoned tawaif. The act was a repeat of the popular Muqaddar Ka Sikander (1978), also starring Rekha, where the lovelorn and heartbroken courtesan swallowed diamonds from her ring to take her own life. Once again the anguish and loneliness of the courtesan resonated within the gay community, and songs from Umrao Jaan, Pakeezah and Muqaddar Ka Sikander were sung and danced to at private gay parties. Pretty boys and aging queens alike, took center-stage, and passionately performed with quivering bee-stung lips and a longing in their eyes.

Interestingly, in the early 80s, around the time of Rekha's courtesan craze, a popular film magazine published pictures of the screen diva with her butch secretary Farzana, suggesting that the two were having a lesbian relationship. The 80's came to a close with Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) and the rise of Salman Khan. Salman's chocolate boy face and chiseled bare chest instantly found affection with the homosexual audience. The hot-bodied hunk faced very little competition in the gay space till the release of Main Khiladi Tu Anari (1994). In the film, the camaraderie between Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan  titillated gay audiences, who saw more chemistry between the two heroes, than they had with the heroines of the film.

Gay activist Ashok Row Kavi wrote in Bombay Dost's review that 'the film was highly homoerotic' and suggested that Saif came across as Akshay’s gay lover in the film. This review outraged the young and 'yet to make his mark' Saif who was accused of busting Kavi's home, and in his absence assaulting the activists mother. History has underlined that Saif's angry reaction to the gay writer’s homoerotic suggestion brought more attention to the social outcasting of gay men, than years of effort by Kavi. A few years earlier, a film reporter claimed in a popular magazine that Shah Rukh Khan was gay. A livid Shah Rukh, like his Khan counterpart, accosted the reporter at a hotel and slapped him. Models turned actors Milind Soman and Arjun Rampal, in the mid 90's, were quite straightforward about their sexuality. Readers recall the actors openly admitting to magazines that they were bisexual and had experiences with other men.

The 90s also saw the phenomenon that was Madhuri Dixit, the last of the screen divas who made way into the popular gay-stream with her passionate gyrating number Choli ke peeche. Established South-Asian gay club, Kali in London often hosted dance nights with Madhuri-Queen of India, a popular drag queen who, for cheering gay men. dressed and danced like the actress  But since then, gay divas have been bullied out of Bollywood by bratty bad boys, who gladly donned female attire for the tried and tested slapstick cross-dressing act.

Naseeruddin Shah, Chunky Pandey and Aditya Panscholi scored big laughs in Tehelka (1992) by prancing around in long wigs and skimpy bathing suits. Aamir Khan also joined the cross-dressing club as Julie Breganza in Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Baazi (1995). The cross-dressing act has, over the years, found patronage in actors like Amitabh Bachchan (Laawaris, 1981), Rishi Kapoor (Rafoo Chakkar, 1975), Govinda (Aunty No.1, 1998) Akshay Kumar and Deepak Tijori (Khiladi, 1992). Riteish Deshmukh donned a female avataar in Apna Sapna Money Money (2006). Bitchy gay boys snickered in cinema halls commenting that Riteish looked more like a woman than his larded in make-up co-star Koena Mitra. Cheering galleries seemed to say to Riteish's character that 'as long as you play gay by playing a woman, we don’t mind.'

Surprisingly, it is Amitabh Bachchan, the lanky superstar, who is touted as India's most understated gay icon. Bachchan celebrated the male jodi in many of his early films, often sidelining the heroine. In fact Hrishikesh Mukherji's Anand (1971) had no heroine. It told the story of the love between a dying man, Rajesh Khanna, and his emotional doctor, Amitabh Bachchan. Bachchan's jodi with Shashi Kapoor however took the biggest leap in gay Bollywood yet. Silsila (1981) has a scene where Bachchan and Kapoor are showering together, completely naked. At some point the soap they are sharing slips to the ground and when each anticipates the other bending down, they both start laughing. Kapoor says. ‘I'm not going to bend down. I know what happened last time'. What happened last time? One wonders. Ma da laadla bigad gaya?

Bachchan was unstoppable. His super-hit male bonding spree continued with Sholay (1975) where he and the classically good looking Dharmendra sing Yeh dosti- a male duet which has become a sort of gay anthem for the closeted. Interestingly, Bachchan dies in a sobbing Dharmendra's arms and not in unrequited love interest, Jaya Bhaduri's.

It goes without saying that the gay construct is firmly entrenched in Indian society. And it is obvious that the portrayals seem to have degenerated over the years. Films like Page 3 (2005) and Life In A Metro (2007) feature shallow and manipulative gay men who live deceitful lives. Besides a few isolated cases like Excel Entertainments Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd (2007) which addresses the common phenomenon of a gay man marrying a woman and Onirban's My Brother Nikhil (2005), no other popular Indian film comes to mind where the gay character is humanized and has a story to tell. Even though My Brother Nikhil reinforces the exaggerated gay-AIDS nexus, Sanjay Suri and Purab Kohli's relationship is treated in a sensitive manner and with some dignity -- even if in death.

It wouldn't be presumptuous to say that most gay portrayals come with a Bollywood rule book with the following commandments:

Thou shall play gay if it is for comic relief (preferably in drag)
Thou can also play gay for villainous and frightful purposes
Or
Thou can play a character dying of AIDS.
But...
Thou MUST have a limp wrist and wear loud, feminine clothing
And...
Thou MUST hit on every other man just because Thou art gay.

Until the rules change in good old Bollywood, the good old gays might be searching in the dark for role models in popular culture. Till then, mothers of gay men will have to understand homosexuality with the help of these popular lyrics:

Chad ki saariyan, aie kawariyaan (Leaving all the unmarried girls)
Dil nu laiyaan ki bemariyan (Don’t know what kind of sickness he has taken to his heart)
Khwaab de maa ka ujad gaya. (Mothers dreams have been shattered)
Maa da laadla bigad gaya, (Mother's favorite child has been spoiled)
Maa da laadla bigad gaya. (Mothers favorite child has been spoiled).

                                                                                      
                                                                                      --by Apurva Asrani (twitter @apurvasrani)

The Big Naked Elephant In The Room

My yoga teacher squirms on his orange mat. A girlfriend of mine tiptoes around the living room looking for a pack of cigarettes while I sit in meditation. I don’t think the cigarettes offend Guruji as much as her short skirt and bikini top do. I hear him chant the Gayatri mantra more forcefully and he shuts his eyes tight. His otherwise bright aura recedes to a minuscule glow as she scampers off with the pack. I sadistically enjoy his discomfort and decide to broach my favorite subject.

‘Guruji, is she disturbing you?’

He clears his throat. ‘Never mind, lets do pranayam’. He blows out of his left nostril.

‘No. No. Please continue.’ I beg him.

‘Is it not cold this morning? His normally confident voice is somewhat shaken-up. 'I wonder why girls must wear such little clothes and roam around?’

‘But how does that trouble anybody?’ I pretend to not understand.

‘It causes trouble; for her and for the innocent man that she will tempt. Why must we ape western culture?’
Guruji’s aura begins to grow again. He has unknowingly reiterated what generations have believed. ‘Sex is a western concept’.

It is ironic that in the land that created the Kamasutra, the world’s oldest and most comprehensive guide to human sexual behavior, that non-reproductive sex is considered western and blasphemous. Mythology has it that the divine bull Nandi, Shiva’s trusted doorkeeper, overwhelmed after overhearing the erotic lovemaking of Lord Shiva & his consort Parvati, narrated the Kamasutra word for word, to sage Vatsyana, who in turn, penned the Kamasutra for the benefit of mankind.

Therefore it is baffling to understand why the India of today is a land where pundits get their dhoti's in a twist when the word sex is mentioned; Many religious centers separate the men from the women in the presence of the idols, hoping to keep their minds uncorrupted; Parents strictly discourage children from interacting with the opposite sex, afraid that this might attract the wrath of the gods. Sadly, sex education in Indian schools is also largely opposed to and the self appointed moral doorkeepers of India often confront sexual expression with intolerant and violent behavior. Ironically, the central idea of the Kamasutra says that the art of sex civilizes the violent impulses in man.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, believed that sexual repression to fit into social standards either led the subject to perversion or towards neurosis. He said 'All who wish to be more noble-minded than their constitution allows, fall victims to neuroses; they would have been more healthy if it were possible for them to be less good...It is one of the obvious social injustices that the standard civilization should demand from everyone the same conduct of sexual life.'

Some time ago, a granthi from a Ludhiana Gurudwara fled for his life after he was caught watching a pornographic video on his mobile phone. The granthi is the custodian of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh's holy book. He ceremonially opens the book in the morning and leads the ardas (prayers). Jasbir Singh Gill, who was praying at the Gurudwara gallantly 'caught' granthi Gurpreet Singh in the act. He says ‘‘He wasn’t concentrating in the prayers and was rather distracted by something else underneath the table on which the scriptures were placed’’. Upon investigating, Jasbir discovered the cleverly hidden porn-playing phone. The peaceful devotees then turned into an angry mob and chased the Granthi out of the gurudwara.

Osho Rajneesh, who enjoyed the unsavory reputation for allegedly heading a sex cult, once said 'It is because of a long, long repressive society that the dirty old man exists. It is because of your saints, your priests, and your puritans that the old dirty man exists.If people are allowed to live their sexual life joyously, by the time they are nearing forty-two, sex will start losing its grip on them. Just as sex arises and becomes very powerful by the time one is fourteen, in exactly the same way by the time one is forty-two it starts disappearing.’

One wonders how Osho arrived at the precise age of forty-two for sexual desires to ‘disappear’, but it is well known that a boy round-about the age of fourteen is either beaten or berated for exploring his thriving sexuality. He is conditioned from an early age to suppress his sexual desires, as he is terrified of the moral custodians who, through his elders, enforce these rules.

Unfortunately, the young boy is unaware that this enforced sexual repression is not a thread from India's true moral fabric, as is claimed by the religious extremists. It is in fact a dusty old tenet of the conservative Victorian church, imposed during colonized India. So move over the Vedas and the Upanishads, considered by many to be India's true wealth, our lessons are still coming from an outdated version of the Bible. The irony is that our notorious religious fundamentalists, who shout themselves hoarse against western culture, actually seem to be ‘Bible pushers’ in a clever disguise.

One of India's well-known, anti-western, voices is Baba Ramdev of 'Patanjali Yogpeeth'. He is the latest propagator of the 'sex is evil' hypothesis, announcing passionately that sex was 'to be used' for procreation only.

As the saffron clad baba sat in padmasan before a pretty young interviewer (known for being comfortable with her sexuality) he declared his staunch opposition towards those who had sex before marriage, The generation-next interviewer seemed appalled by his intolerance, yet failed to make mention of Shiva/Parvati's 'sex for pleasure'. The lazy-eyed Ramdev, who seemed to blush before the attractive girl, stood his ground.

Interestingly, neither of Shiva & Parvati’s children, Karthikeya and Ganesha, were born out of sexual intercourse. They were both divine & creative conceptions. Therefore, it would be safe to say that all sex between the god couple, popularly worshipped in the phallus-vagina form, was for non-procreative pleasure.

Interestingly, Ramdev, who believes that homosexuality is a mental illness, has challenged the High court verdict to amend section 377 (decriminalizing homosexuality).

Once again, someone needs to refer him to the very mythology he often quotes. Lord Ayyappa, the child god who is fabled to have slain the eternal demon goddess Mahishi and is worshipped extensively across the south of India, was born out of lovemaking between Lord Shiva & Lord Vishnu (who took the form of a female consort-Mohini, with Shiva’s consent). But even in Ayyappa's various shrines in Kerela and Tamil Nadu, one will hardly talk about this unusual sexual union.

Tourist destinations like Manali & Goa, frequented by white skinned holidaymakers are rife with groups of Indian boys bursting with testosterone. These destinations are seen as hunting grounds where they hope to find a 'gori' for sex. In aggressive packs they frequent bars, shacks and parties where they stare with dropped jaws at foreign girls in skirts and bathing suits; many even take pictures. Some, aided with alcoholic courage, circle single girls and harass them by forcibly dancing with them or by touching them inappropriately.

Most of these boys, brought up in an environment where sex is only permissible after marriage, have failed at attempts to seduce morally upright local girls. Thinking that white girls are 'easy' and not knowing how to win over the opposite sex, the boys' carnal approach is lascivious, vulgar and sometimes dangerous.

It seems like we are fast cementing the reputation of being a hypocritical nation, staunchly defending morals on the outside but filled with suppressed 'starers' and dirty old men on the inside. It seems like it is high time that India talks openly about its thriving sexual history.

Here I am, lying with eyes shut, in sarvangasan on the floor. My Yoga Teacher, who is back to his old composed self, is calmly instructing me to direct my breath to each part of my body. Just then, the girlfriend of mine tiptoes back into the living room, I can hear the breathing of my teacher getting heavier and warmer. As she rummages through the drawers, looking for matches, Guruji’s instructions get more garbled. I keep silent and in my full awareness I hear his body weight shift uncomfortably on his mat.

Suddenly Guruji announces "Class over. We will continue tomorrow”. Before I can open my eyes, my teacher has hurried out of the front door, slamming it hard in protest. Once again, the big naked elephant in the room is left ignored and un-addressed.

                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                                  --Apurva Asrani

Originally appeared as 'The Big, Naked Elephant In The Room', published in 'Man's World'