Madhuri Mohindar

NEW YORK, Jul 19 2005 (IPS) — Song and dance against a verdant valley. Good pitted against evil. Fantastical villains. Bright colours. Spectacle and turmoil. No more, no less, this is Bollywood as the Indian film industry has been known for decades.

Yet since the 1990s there has been a perceptible change in the quality and subject matter of Hindi films. Against this backdrop comes a commercial film about a homosexual boy grappling with AIDS called ‘My Brother…Nikhil’.

At the New York premiere held at the Asia Society, audience members gave a warm reception to the film. The story is related in flashbacks by the family and friends of the central character.

Loosely based on the life one of the first victims of AIDS in the Indian state of Goa in the 1980s, it recalls the severe social stigma that surrounds the disease.

Nikhil is a state champion swimmer who is cast out by his parents, arrested and put into solitary confinement in a dirty sanitarium under the law of the country at the time. It is only with the help of his sister and gay partner that he fights the law, creating awareness and public sympathy for his cause in the process.

“This film is primarily about human relationships,” said Onir, the director. “It is about a character who lives on the edge of a society that finds him unacceptable. I did not write the film as a platform for gay rights and AIDS awareness. But I am happy to know many activists have embraced this film.”

“In fact, many gay people are using the film to call their families in to come out into the open,” he said.

This is no light claim. India is a country where 5.2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. Despite growing awareness, social discrimination and outrage still marginalise those affected by the disease, and the burden is even heavier for gay people.

“Just recently, five men in a progressive city like Mumbai jumped out of a hospital window when they discovered they had AIDS. A woman in Gujarat was recently beaten to death for the same reason,” Onir said.

Bollywood reaches a mass audience, with 177 Hindi film releases drawing 2.7 billion theatre admissions in India in 2004 alone. Many of these films are escapist song-and-dance spectacles, featuring traditional themes of love, marriage and family. But the success of ‘My Brother…Nikhil’ has given optimism to those who wish to engage the Indian film industry in more realistic subject matter.

“It was no easy task raising money for the film. Traditional mainstream producers believed that we were committing commercial suicide, depicting a homosexual man with AIDS as the central character,” said Sanjay Suri, the producer of the film, who also plays the central character of Nikhil.

“One producer even told us that he would get us funding if we got a popular actress like Aishwarya Rai to give Nikhil AIDS. That wasn’t possible of course since Nikhil is gay,” he laughed.

Ultimately, the filmmakers chose to invest their own money rather than compromise their creative integrity.

Beyond Nikhil’s personal trauma, the film documents the outright rejection of a hapless young boy by a society that had previously nurtured and celebrated him. Its style is unusual, given the conventional norms of Bollywood blockbusters.

“The film was shot as docu-feature,” Onir said. “It is not meant to be a fairytale. Its technique is not unique to international cinema, but is experimental given the typical Hindi film.”

Interestingly, there has been no response from the religious right in India, a faction that just a few years back reacted violently to Deepa Mehta’s ‘Fire’, which depicts a lesbian relationship.

“This was one of the first mainstream Indian films where the lead character is gay. I was not graphic in my portrayal of the gay relationship between Nikhil and his partner because I did not want that to become a focus of attention rather than the film itself,” Onir said.

“I also did not specifically reveal how Nikhil contracted AIDS because in India the perception remains that if you get AIDS from a prostitute or if you are homosexual, then you deserve it, while if it’s through a blood transfusion then everyone is sympathetic. I wanted this film to be about acceptance, no matter what the circumstances.”

Even more surprising was the fact that the film failed to find a foreign distributor, given that Indian producers usually recoup a substantial 12 percent of their budgets from overseas sales.

“It was very disappointing. We need a little bit more support for changing India, especially for films that go beyond traditional stereotypes. This is the reality of India,” Suri said.

Mainstream Bollywood films that have gained popularity abroad tend to be as geared towards the expatriate Indian audience as to the emerging westernised, urban Indian middle class. ‘My Brother…Nikhil’ is no exception.

“Our target was the urban, multiplex audience. Yet despite the seemingly controversial theme, the film traveled beyond the urban metropolises to smaller towns and remote areas,” explains Onir. However, it has failed to find a significant audience abroad.

Among those who have had the opportunity to see the film in a few select screenings in New York, there has been a positive reaction.

“It is a very bold and brave film, fighting the ignorance that accompanies gender differences and AIDS. In our annual Indian Film Festival held in New York, we look for good films that engage society. The more they discuss the better,” said Aroon Shivdasani, executive director of the Indo American Arts Council.

Kevin Huang-Cruz, of the Asian and Pacific islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS, said, “The prototypical example of an Asian with HIV is denial. There is a sense that the disease is out there but I am not going to get it.”

“This film opens the door towards discussion and awareness,” he said. “It also shows how activism can change community and family attitudes towards homosexuality and AIDS.”