Homosexuality in Bollywood films

Mumbai: While the Supreme Court has held homosexuality as a criminal offence, Bollywood has been quite open about it and several filmmakers have also depicted such relationships on the big screen. In `Bombay Talkies`, the anthology that paid tribute to 100 years of Indian cinema, a short film made by director Karan Johar dealt with a love story of two male characters played by Randeep Hooda and Saquib Salem. Previously, Karan depicted gay relationship in his film `Dostana`, where Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham pretended to be lovers so they could share an apartment with Priyanka Chopra. In Karan`s `Kal Ho Naa Ho`, the characters played by Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan are mistaken as gay lovers by Saif`s domestic help. It was portrayed in a fun way. The 2010 movie `Dunno Y...Na Jaane Kyon`, directed by Sanjay Sharma and written by his brother Kapil Sharma, who also played the lead, was about the life of a gay model forced to compromise on his morals for his career. The film premiered at India`s first mainstream gay film festival, the Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival. Filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar gave a glimpse of gay relationship in his award wining film `Fashion`. The subject was also shown in his previous film `Page 3`. Filmmaker Onir with his films `I Am`and `My Brother Nikhil` touched upon the subject. Actresses Eesha Koppikar and Amrita Arora took everyone by surprise with their film `Girlfriend`, in which they played lesbian lovers. Filmmaker Deepa Mehta`s `Fire` traced the love story of two unhappily married sisters-in-law -- played by talented actresses like Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das.