I was sitting in a theatre in London when I heard two puppets say these words in the hilarious musical Avenue Q. At the time the musical was considered risqué pushing the envelope of closeted behaviour, obsession with porn and other such “taboo” topics; at least from an Indian sensibility.
That was 2006. A lot has happened since then in India — Article 377 has been finally revoked, and our cinema is slowly but surely beginning to portray same-sex relationships with a bit of sensitivity rather than ridicule.
This week I have been conscripted to serve on the jury of Kashish — The Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, now in its fourth year. Watching these films in a multiplex and hearing people talk about how wonderful it is that the festival is taking place in a mainstream venue made me wonder what theatre’s own relationship with homosexuality has been.
Theatre, by virtue of being under the radar, has been far more sensitive when it comes to telling stories of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) orientation. There have been fine examples of powerful work in English theatre. Shadow Box, an American play that is revived almost every ten years has a beautiful subplot about a relationship between a dying old man and his young lover. Norman Is that You? directed by Pearl Padamsee (as Ah Norman!) in the 80s and then again in the 2000s (as One out of Six) is all about a father discovering his son is gay.
Home-grown stories too have begun to feature gay characters. As Indian writing in English has come of age, many contemporary plays feature gay characters. Mahesh Dattani’s plays have long had an undercurrent of sexual identity. His Dance Like a Man fights against sexual stereotyping, and his Tara has a protagonist who is gay, but who’s sexual orientation has very little influence on the main plot. His Muggy Night in Mumbai, however, ended up being a ramp walk of the different types of gays that can be found in society, but unfortunately lacked the subtlety and nuance of his other works. New playwrights like Neel Chaudhari have tackled the issue in works like Still and Still Moving. Even in the mainstream comedies there is comment. Clogged Arteries, a crazy farce written by Shiv Subrahmanyam, had a moment of pause and poignancy when the son “comes out” to his father.
The current commercial success in Bombay, The Bureaucrat has a similar plot line. The President is Coming also featured a gay contestant who is eliminated from the competition because of his sexual preference, highlighting the bigotry of the whole situation.
However it is in Marathi theatre, that LGBT issues have been given the strongest representation. In Satish Alekar’s seminal work Begum Barve (1979), the protagonist is a woman trapped in a man’s body. He yearns to fully embody the female characters he plays on stage and even wants to experience motherhood. The play has met with unprecedented success in its Hindi and Gujarati versions as well. Mahesh Elkunchwar addressed the teen angst of homosexuality in the violent and powerful Holi, set in a college hostel. The play, a campus favourite, has been staged virtually every year by different colleges because of its setting; and in turn been a “sensitiser” to the issue. More recently, Chetan Datar wrote a beautiful monologue in Marathi called No 1. Madhav Baug, about a mother who talks about her gay son. Sunil Shanbag then updated the play into Dreams of Taleem, of a group of actors working on No. 1 Madhav Baug.
As the lights dim for another Kashish screening, I feel proud to be part of a festival that supports brave cinema, and even prouder that I come from an art form where everyone’s sexuality is represented.