Unless you’ve been living in an isolated igloo with absolutely no internet connection, you’d know that mainstream Bollywood’s first-ever openly gay-love story Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhaan is creating ripples of revolution within our extremely homophobic society.
Forty-five minuted into the film, I was convinced that this was one of the few mainstream films that was going to change the representation of the LGBTQI+ community in Bollywood.
The story picks up from when a strong patriarch, Mr. Tripathi a.k.a Gajraj Rao walks in on his son kissing another man in a moving train and literally threw up after that.
In a world where physical contact between iconic heterosexual couple is craved by the audience, this scene normalised the concept of public display of affection within same-sex relationships. On the other hand, it also captured Mr. Tripathi’s homophobic disguise in its true form.
Amidst all the truth bombs laced with satire, humour and pop-culture Bollywood references, there was this one revolutionary scene that gave me some major goosebumps.
Trying to keep his son away from Kartik, Mr. Tripathi decides to get a “rebirth” ceremony for his son Aman to get rid of his “homosexuality” when Kartik makes a comeback with a megaphone in hand and a caped pride flag on his bareback.
Fiercely listing all the symptoms of homophobia and directly implying that Mr. Tripathi is a homophobe, Kartik literally represents and speaks on behalf of the entire LGBTQI+ community when he tells us that homosexuality is not a disease but homophobia is.
Just like any other Bollywood rom-com, Kartik wore his heart out on his rainbow coloured sleeve when he declared his feelings for Aman in front of the entire Tripathi khandaan.
And Mr. Tripathi being the conservative patriarch he is, decides to show his machismo by walking in with a wooden danda (that’s at least a few inches taller than him).
Looking at the series of events that were on the verge of unfolding, Aman supports Kartik by reminding him of the series of struggles their community had gone through to get where they are. He further encouraged Kartik to fight this by saying, “ab inke samne mat jhukna”.
And as Mr. Tripathi begins with his ruthless, unstoppable bashing, Kartik with his pride cape stays strong for the love of his life and the community. At one point of time, Mr. Tripathi’s danda falls and Kartik hands it back to him.
This scene is an analogy of the pride flag and the struggles it has gone through but has still managed to sustain itself. No matter how many boomers try to bring it down in the name of patriarchy, the flag stands tall and flutters higher and brighter than ever.
No matter how many homophobes try to bring it down in the name of patriarchy and “culture”, the flag flutters higher and the community shines brighter than ever.
With his strong will-power, Kartik doesn’t let the old conservative boomer win. He doesn’t give him the satisfaction of falling into his feet and begging him to stop. He wears every strike as a battle scar.
Realising the threshold of Kartik’s community, Mr. Tripathi figures that his thrusts can’t beat the “gay” out of Aman, nor can they make him love Kartik any less, so he stops.
And when he does, Kartik says something about his sexuality that really touched my heart and gave me the chills, before he unconsciously fainted on the ground.
His dialogue shook me to the core, making me realise how we Indians have a tendency to poke our nose into places where it doesn’t belong. But if we start jabbing our nose into other people’s sexuality, what does that even make us? Where do we draw the line for privacy?
It turned my attention to why do we have such an issue with someone else’s sexuality when it literally has nothing to do with our own sexuality? It shouldn’t affect us in any possible way, right?
