How many of us are aware that Amitabh Bachchan has long been a gay icon? Or that the popular Hindi magazine Mayapuri runs features in which the heads of male actors are superimposed on female bodies? Indeed, a homoerotic subtext has found expression in Hindi cinema long before the overt contemporary descriptions of alternate sexualities. While Kal Ho Na Ho, released in 2003, included scenes of seemingly gay encounters (see pic), fuelling rumours of a romantic connection between actor Shah Rukh Khan and director Karan Johar, such allusions are in line with a Western paradigm of homosexuality and stand in contrast to the homosexual subtexts of earlier films. Paradoxically, the subtleness in the earlier depictions of homosexuality also allowed such references to be more a part of Southasian sensibility. This, in fact, may be associated with the definition of a rather distinctive model of alternate sexuality – a non-Western, Southasian model.
Some of the concepts that characterise homoerotic subtexts in Hindi cinema reflect a discourse of sexuality already prevalent in Southasia. Many people here will accept their love for a person of the same gender, while at the same time resisting Western labels such as 'gay', 'lesbian' or 'bisexual'. Such bonding is instead identified in terms of dosti and yaari – Southasian concepts of the ultimate in male-male friendship, and key tropes in the Hindi filmi repertoire.
To look at Hindi cinema through the lens of alternate sexualities encourages a rethinking of films such as Zanjeer (1974) and Sholay (1975), which have been remembered largely as 'angry young man' movies. Some scholars and activists have pointed to a somewhat different interpretation of these films. According to them, Amitabh Bachchan's yaaranas (on-screen male bondings) are given as much weight in the script as his characterisation of the oppressed young man challenging the establishment.
It is significant that the concepts of yaari and dosti have been central to much gay reading of Hindi cinema. An often cited case is the Jai-Veeru (Bachchan-Dharmendra) yaari in Sholay, played out most tellingly in the song "Yeh dosti" (This friendship). So iconic was this dosti that newcomer Prashant Raj and Ajay Devgan have been unable to recreate the magic in the just-released, poorly received Aag, Ram Gopal Verma's remake of Sholay.