Love unsilenced

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Love unsilenced

Saturday, 23 March 2019 | Chahak Mittal

Love unsilenced

Director Faruk Kabir and actress Maanvi Gagroo believe that belonging to the LGBTQ community makes one no less than a human. It is absolutely normal. By Chahak Mittal

Not too long ago, a global survey indicated that the views of the Indian youth have become less rigid about homosexuality over time. However, even though Supreme Court’s historical verdict decriminalised Section 377, it also indicated that societal acceptance from the older age group might still be a long way off.

Director Faruk Kabir’s new film, 377 Ab Normal, currently streaming on a digital platform, showcases the journey of four petitioners and highlights the common struggles arising out of the social stigma which the LGBTQ community has been saddled with over the years.

It was after the Supreme Court’s verdict that Faruk conceptualised the film. It was not to encompass all the stories that he had come across into one, rather “the idea was to tell a few stories in this journey that could represent the collective mindset or feeling of a majorly heterosexual society. This is not a film about just the LGBTQ community, it is also for the heterosexual population, their sensibilities and their acceptance of the otherness.”

As part of research, the director had gone through a lot of case studies and files from real petitioners. “There were some really powerful, human stories. It makes you realise that being a lesbian or a gay makes him/her no less of a human being. At the end of the day, they are people with just a different sexual preferences. These are just two people falling in love, irrespective of the gender,” he says and goes on to add that one size doesn’t fit everyone after all. Hence, “the same goes for the society and its people too.” With the film, the director wanted to show that with this diversity in human preferences, “all consciousness has to be represented and accepted in  society.”

He questions that if for different communities, there are particular quotas, isn’t it time for some for the LGBTQ now? “They also represent the Indian society as much as the heterosexual population does. We need to normalise it,” says he.

Talking about why the abolishment of Section 377 was necessary not just for the LGBTQ community, but for the heterosexual population as well, he says. “Under Section 377, certain public acts were illegal. Before this verdict was passed, any Indian, irrespective of his/her sexual preference, caught in a harmless act of togetherness could also be charged under Section 377 for unnatural offences and be imprisoned.”

Elaborating further, he says, “It was a very regressive law that did not include many other sexual acts apart from the ones that the Church had listed,” he informs.

The film stars Tanvi Azmi, Four More Shots Please-fame Maanvi Gagroo, actor Sid Makkar, Made in Heaven-fame Shashank Arora, Zeeshan Ayyub, Paras Tomar and Kumud Mishra.

Maanvi, who had been busy with her two back-to-back online shows, says that when she heard what her role was about in the film, she instantly agreed as it cast her in three different layers and characters with three differently-conceptualised shows. However, the stronger reason turned out to be that she had never played a role like this one before. “It was a first of its kind for me. I have always been an avid follower of this subject. I had gender studies as one of my main courses during my college and had a number of gay friends who had different stories to tell. Some of them kept quiet as they did not have the courage to step out of the closet and accept the reality in front of their families. This role made me realise that their stories were just as human as anybody else’s,” she says.

She says that she stopped seeing it as a gay relationship and saw it as one between two people, “It is about two people falling in love and building a connection, living their lives together. We need to stop labelling it as gay or lesbian. It is about two souls connecting beyond the physical realm. While working in the film, I learnt that it is as normal as a boy and a girl falling in love. I just hope that one day, they get rid of the label of LGBTQ completely.”

Talking about how her perspective about the issue transformed, she says the society’s fault is its ignorance and misunderstandings. “When I started the project, I had a different view on gay relationships. By the end of it, they became just normal human relationships to me. The same goes for the society which lacks information and due to their pre-conceived notions and stereotypes, they ignore facts. Until and unless the society gets the right exposure, it will be difficult for them to understand and accept it,” says she.

(The film is now streaming on ZEE5.)

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