Abstract
Until the 1990s overt representations of homosexuality were almost unknown in popular Indian cinema, but examples of intense male homosociality have been prevalent throughout the hundred-year history of the medium. Most critics agree that this reached an apogee in the “buddy” film of the 1970s and 1980s; in works such as Namak Haram (Forbidden Salt) and Andar Bahar (Inside Outside), male homosocial attachments eclipse male–female bonding, with the male protagonists frequently declaring their indissoluble commitment to their yaars or dosts.1 This relationship, often articulated in song, is portrayed as all-conquering and eternal. To see this in action, we need only turn to “Yah Dosti,” Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) and Veeru’s (Darmendra) famous duet in Sholay:2
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Notes
As I noted in Chapter 3, both terms may be translated as “friend,” yet they tend to be more multi-faceted, encompassing an emotional intensity and possibly romantic and/or sexual dimension which are largely absent from the present-day Euro-American concept of male-male friendship. **See Raj Ayyar, “Yaari,” in A Lotus of Another Color, ed. by Rakesh Ratti (Boston, MA: Alyson Publications, 1993), pp. 168–169.
Raj Rao, “Memories Pierce the Heart: Homoeroticism, Bollywood Style,” in Queer Asian Cinema: Shadows in the Shade, ed. by Andrew Grossman (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2001), pp. 299–306;
Tharayil Muraleedharan, “Crisis in Desire: A Queer Reading of Cinema and Desire in Kerala,” in Because I Have a Voice, ed. by Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2005), pp. 70–88.
Shohini Ghosh, “Bombay Cinema’s Queer Vision,” in The Phobic and the Erotic, ed. by Brinda Bose and Suhabrata Bhattacharyya (King’s Lynn: Seagull Books, 2007), p. 435.
Eve Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet (London: University of California Press, 1990), p. 47.
Amartya Sen, “Foreword,” in AIDS Sutra: Untold Stories from India, ed. by Negar Akhavi (London: Vintage, 2008), p. 14.
Ravi K. Verma et al., eds., Sexuality in the Time of AIDS: Contemporary Perspectives from Communities in India (New Delhi: Sage, 2004). Paradoxically, the public opprobrium they cite, including communal beatings and immolations of infected individuals, has had the unintended effect of normalizing discussions of HIV/AIDS and sexuality among the Indian media.
Naz Foundation, Emerging Gay Identities in South Asia: Implications for HIV/AIDS & Sexual Health—Conference (London: NAZ Project, 1995).
Arvind Singhal and P. N. Vasanti, “The Role of Popular Narratives in Stimulating the Public Discourse on HIV and AIDS: Bollywood’s Answer to Philadelphia,” South Asian Popular Culture 3, 1 (2005), 5.
Sudhir Kakar, Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality (New Delhi: Penguin, 1990), p. 135.
Devdutt Pattanaik, The Mother Goddess: An Introduction (Mumbai: Vakils, Feffer and Simons, 2000), p. 10.
Eve Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 28.
Rachel Dwyer, All You Want Is Money, All You Need Is Love—Sexuality and Romance in Modern India (London: Cassell, 2000).
Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla, Ode to Lata (Los Angeles, CA: Really Great Books, 2002).
Sangita Gopal and Biswarup Sen, “Inside and Out: Song and Dance in Bollywood Cinema,” in The Bollywood Reader, ed. by Rajinder Dudrah and Jigna Desai (Glasgow: McGraw Hill, 2008), p. 151.
Parmesh Shahani, Gay Bombay (London: Sage, 2008), p. 207.
Nivedita Menon, “Introduction,” in Gender and Politics in India, ed. by Nivedita Menon (New Delhi: OUP, 1999), p. 10.
B. R. Trivedi, Constitutional Equality and the Women’s Right (New Delhi: Cybertech, 2010), p. 138.
Thomas Waugh, “Queer Bollywood, or ‘I’m the Player, You’re the Naive One’,” in Keyframes, ed. by Amy Villarejo and Matthew Tinkcom (New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 296.
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© 2016 Oliver Ross
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Ross, O. (2016). Transitional Mediations: Homosexuality in My Brother Nikhil, 68 Pages, and Quest/Thaang. In: Same-Sex Desire in Indian Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-56692-8_6
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