Purple Skies, a documentary about lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders was recently screened at the Bangalore Queer Film Festival and the film’s director Sridhar Rangayan, also a profound thought leader of the LGBT movement and a conversation starter as far as gay rights go in India, was in town. When the award-winning filmmaker, editor of India’s first bravely gay magazine Bombay Dost, founder member and trustee of The Humsafar Trust, the first gay NGO in India, and the director of the Kashish Mumbai Queer Film Festival looks back, he can barely recognise the diffident Mandya boy he once was.
In the early eighties, sexuality was not discussed in conservative families. Asserting alternate sexuality was ofcourse out of the question. Rangayan recalls, “It was only when I joined IIT Bombay and later switched over to graphic designing and met other artistes that I learnt how much freedom to be true to one’s identity is afforded by the anonymity in Bombay.”
He by now also knew, “sexual orientation is about identity… not sex.” He became deeply involved in designing and ideating Bombay Dost, the first gay publication that dared to, “reach out and touch… not in a physical sense… but in terms of providing a space to share concerns, a voice to express selfhood’’ to a community that had till now been invisible and unheard.
He says, “When we took the content to the printers, there would be derision and giggles but now things have changed.” A big part of that change can be attributed to his cinematic work. He says, “I made a film for the hearing impaired and the idea of advotainment took shape (advocacy via entertainment). Cinema to me is about information packaged in an entertaining format but the layers are mine and they must speak of a larger, broader perspective.”
About his richly textured and wrenchingly honest films like The Pink Mirror and Your’s Emotionally, and of course Purple Skies, he says, “It is important to look issues in the eye but also to offer hope. I want to convey that change does not come from others and every one of us can be an agent of change. It is not about rabid, angsty activism but telling people stories they may be unfamiliar with in their language. “
Making such films and creating a platform for authentic LGBT stories through the Kashish festival is crucial because there is a dearth of respectful gay narratives in mainstream cinema. He shares,”I once had a chat with Karan Johar about the gay characters in his films and he attributed them to ‘’narrative convenience.’’ I will not be drawn into commenting on the AIB Roast because I did not see it but it is disturbing that the maker with such a big following has made films like Student of The Year where the climax revolves around the humiliation of a gay principal and even Bombay Talkies where a gay lover is a home breaker and a dysfunctional deviant. Not to say that a gay man cannot be all of those things but in a space where gay characters are already depicted either as effeminate stereotypes or as comic caricatures, why not have stories that accord them dignity? Mainstreaming of gay characters in cinema will happen when they are shown as ‘normal’ and when they are treated ‘normally’ by the people around them.”
He continues, “Dostana normalised the idea of a gay relationship but even there the characters were just pretending to be gay. In films like My Brother Nikhil and Dedh Ishqiya, relationships are so coded that few people get an idea of what a same sex equation is like.”
Things however have changed for the better. He says, “In bigger cities no one looks down at you for being gay but in smaller cities, there still are challenges. It is also encouraging that we receive over 60 films for the Kashish fest every year but yes, resources are still an issue. In the end, what we are trying to do is to take our stories everywhere. To educational institutions. To families because real change happens within that unit. We need to sensitise our educators, politicians, doctors, law makers, policemen. And film makers too. I am not saying, be social activists but be responsible. Make films that are sensitive, empathetic but because such films are in short supply, we must turn to short films and documentaries for a realistic portrayal of the LGBT community.”
Even though his work spans over 25 years and all forms of media, he is clear that, “I will not create something just to sensationalise sexuality. I make films to empower myself. It is not about ego and militant posturing but the simple fact that if by empowering myself, am empowering someone else, I have done what I started out to do.”
with The New Indian Express Reema Moudgil works for The New Indian Express, Bangalore, is the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, an artist, a former RJ and a mother. She dreams of a cottage of her own that opens to a garden and where she can write more books, paint, listen to music and just be silent with her cats.