How often do you find someone lost and still content with himself? How often do you see someone despised by the world, yet not at war with it?… how many times have you met a person who for the world is a lonely man, but has a world of music and literature with him for company? I just met someone like that. His name is Ramchandra Siras. He hails from the land the Hindu right wing group, RSS, calls home. Yet he lives in Aligarh, which is Muslim dominated. A connoisseur of Marathi literature, he teaches the language at Aligarh Muslim University. One way of looking at him would be to brand him as a man of many paradoxes, the other would be to look at him as a champion who is able to maintain his identity in a world that wants him to be a carbon copy.
The film Aligarh that peeps into the life of Ramchandra Siras, who was a common man, just as common as the 60-year-old conservative Marathi man who you meet in every street of Bombay… no one would notice anything special about him. There is also nothing really uncommon about him being an old gay man.
Aligarh is a film set in time but yet is relevant for all times. The film is a showcase of indifference and disregard shown towards people who are different. A rickshaw puller has sex with his lover who is a professor in the confines of the professor’s bedroom. Both are adults. They get busted by a group of professors and media channels. That’s exactly the problem with 377. Section 377 gives impetus to such anti-social elements. I hope you understand that by anti-social I mean - the ones who peep into the bedrooms of consenting adults. Section 377 gives a boost to the habit of voyeurism. Things have not changed now. Section 377 has given rise to people who meddle with the lives of LGBT persons putting them in the puddle of helplessness.
As mentioned here, it’s another version of the “honey trap”. Section 377, besides being a potential threat to the lives of gay people, this also puts the lives of straight men at risk. There are many of cases filed by wives on their husbands. It is considered as a ground for divorce. Not so long back a techie who was cheating on his wife with a man was caught on spy camera. The same was used as evidence to book him under Section 377.
That’s the problem. We do not live in an equal society. Till we have Section 377 in its original form, we really don’t. The film Aligarh makes small references to Prof Siras’ wife. She seemed to be a fleeting reference. In real life though, reports suggest that she emerged to stake claim on his property, post his death. Was that her redemption for getting married to him? Or was she just vicious? Maybe this could be her point of view could be made into a new film by itself? What do we call it… Nagpur?
Speaking about Rajkummar Rao, well, this cute boy-next-door even sports a Malayalee accent when he plays the character of a journalist called Deepu Sebastian. Of the many taboos this film breaks, it also highlights that not all Mallus speak Mallu-ized Hindi.
The editing and the screenplay is just too perfect. The juxtaposition of some scenes in the film that are just wow. Like for instance, the scene where Deepu makes out with his lady editor on a wide open terrace, which is followed by a scene of Professor Siras making out with the rickshaw puller in the confines of his bedroom, gave me goosebumps and cinematic orgasms.
Director Hansal Mehta and Apurva Asrani’s understanding of the character is as perfect as the depiction of it by everyone. I was invited to a special screening of the film by Apurva, and the first thing I did after getting out of the screening was to wrap him up with a warm embrace followed by Manoj and Hansal.
This film is a classic. There is not a single element in the film that is not praiseworthy. Truly, this is the film that India needs to send to the Oscars. Let’s trend #SendAligarhToTheOscars. Truly, madly, deeply – I urge you – do yourself a favour - this is a film that each and everyone should see.
(Harish Iyer is an equal rights activist working for the rights of the LGBT community, women, children and animals. ‘Rainbow Man’ is Harish’s regular blog for The Quint.)
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