Pride Month: Looking at loud and proud queer Indian celebrities
From making homosexuals a butt of jokes in films such as Kya Kool Hain Hum to eventually portraying the matter sensitively in dramas such as Badhaai Do, Bollywood has come a long way. This landmark development has also been possible through some popular queer Indian celebrities who have been proudly out of the closet. Let's take a look at five such personalities.
Filmmaker Apurva Asrani has been unabashedly proud of his sexual orientation and has spoken about his homosexuality on public platforms. He had penned Manoj Bajpayee-led Aligarh, now considered a landmark film in the Indian homosexual landscape for underlining the community's ordeals. The National Film Awardee was in a relationship with musician Siddhant Pillai, but they amicably called it quits in 2021 after 14 years.
The Sky is Pink helmer Shonali Bose is openly bisexual. She has talked about how the realization dawned upon her during an education program where she met a girl, Sheral, a co-participant. Bose modeled the protagonist of her lesbian drama Margarita with a Straw on her own experience since there was little to no awareness about the queer community while she was in college.
Late fashion designer and author Wendell Rodricks was an instrumental member of the Indian LGBTQ+ community. Openly homosexual since the age of 19, he had acknowledged his homosexuality on national television way back in 2002! The Padma Shri recipient also established a helpline for the community in 2018 and was also a member of the KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival.
Late legendary Bengali filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh was one of the first few Indian celebrities to embrace their homosexuality. He came out of the closet in the early 2000s and his creations pivoted around same-sex relationships. Examples include acclaimed films like Chitrangada, Aar Ekti Premer Golpo, and Memories in March. Winner of 13 National Film Awards, he sparked dialog by often sporting "feminine" clothing publicly.
We all remember Pakhi Sharma, or Bobby Darling, through her "comic" roles in Hindi films in the 2000s. Ahead of her time, she broke shackles in the industry in the pre-social media era. However, it's tragic that most of her roles were comic relief devices and bereft of gravitas. Nonetheless, she opened the pathway for other queer actors to make their mark in Bollywood.
