The Loves of Others

We cannot be what we cannot see. Jaydeep Sarkar was delighted at the thought of directing Rainbow Rishta for Prime Video, six beautifully crafted stories of people who love and live differently. “If I had seen something like this when I was growing up, I would have come out much earlier,” says Sarkar. Attitudes have changed in the last few years and representation on screen has evolved with it. Yet, says Daniella Mendonca, a transwoman who marries the man of her dreams in the documentary, education and class have nothing to do with acceptance of otherness. “I have lived in Khar in so-called posh Mumbai and I live in Bhayandar, which is working class. And I tell you there is much more love and no judgement here.” Acceptance is the biggest issue when it comes to queer loves and lives. Aishwarya Ayushmaan, a human rights lawyer who lives in Delhi, and has an alternative drag identity as Lush Monsoon, didn’t come out to his parents in Patna even while the documentary was being shot. His greatest challenge though was self acceptance, which he found in his extravagant alter ego. Sarkar knows the power of moving images in showcasing and normalising diversity, and has managed to do so with Rainbow Rishta. The documentary focuses on their search for love, rather than on their struggles, which is a welcome relief from the pity parties or comedic cartoons that pass off as movies about LGBTQIA+ people on the Indian screen. “We don’t want anyone’s sympathy,” says the feisty Mendonca, who refuses to dwell on the many tragedies in her life, including a horrific gang rape. “We just want empathy.” Sarkar, who has directed the short Nayantara’s Necklace (2014) and an episode of the 2021 Netflix series Feels Like Ishq, delivers it in spades.

An Unconventional Woman

Ektaa R Kapoor’s speech while accepting the Directorate Award at the International Emmy Awards in New York recently put the spotlight on one of the Mumbai film industry’s most unconventional families. Kapoor, the producer of some of the most critically derided but hugely popular kitchen soaps, has spent a lifetime eulogising the joint family with its carefully calibrated roles. Yet, as she pointed out in her speech, her own life as a single mother is anything but usual. Her brother is a single father with a son born of surrogacy, as is her own son. Her father, a popular dancing star of the ’60s and ’70s, is her occasional babysitter, and her television company was co-founded with her mother, till then a star wife in search of an independent identity. Kapoor has often tried to resolve this dichotomy through her more progressive choices in cinema. As a producer, she has backed some of the most unorthodox movies of our time, from Dibakar Banerjee’s Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), one of the first films to chronicle the intersection of love and technology, and Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016) which was one of the first Hindi films to showcase female pleasure. Kapoor’s new movie Thank You For Coming, this year’s film that premiered at the 48th Toronto Film Festival, is only its latest manifestation. Her choices in streaming have been almost risqué, but on television, family dynamics continue to rule the roost. Perhaps the award will give her the courage to pivot that too.

Scene and Heard

Ae Watan Mere Watan, starring Sara Ali Khan, has just begun its publicity overdrive and says it is inspired by true events. Those happen to be centred around the brave Usha Mehta, who organised Congress Radio, an underground radio station that functioned for a few months during the Quit India Movement. It is a story based on reality, yet not much remembered. The radio started broadcast with her words: “This is the Congress radio calling on [a wavelength of] 42.34 metres from somewhere in India.” Her associates included Vithalbhai Jhaveri, Chandrakant Jhaveri, Babubhai Thakkar and Nanka Motwani, owner of Chicago Radio, who supplied equipment and provided technicians. Vikramaditya Motwane, now a well-known movie director, most recently of the brilliant Prime Video series Jubilee, comes from the same family. Congress Radio broadcast recorded messages from Gandhi and its organisers moved the station’s location almost daily. Mehta was imprisoned for her role in the broadcast but refused to turn traitor.

BollywoodcinemaEktaa R KapoorJaydeep SarkarSara Ali Khan