Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga could be an important film for inclusivity in mainstream Bollywood

Very few film trailers have gotten discussed as much in recent times, as the one for _Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga_. The trailer has been dissected and analysed, scenes have been freeze-framed to draw conclusions and dialogues have found multiple meanings. The buzz about a lead actress supposedly playing a gay character in a mainstream Bollywood film isn’t without reason. When the film releases in theatres this Friday, it could make history of sorts, but that remains to be seen. Bollywood has gone through years of using homosexuality either as a comic plot point, or as sleaze. [caption id=“attachment_5856351” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Still from Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga title track. YouTube screengrab[/caption] Picture a bro gang sharing a drink at a bar and a testosterone-laden conversation. The male gay character is a subject of ridicule to be bullied and used as comic relief. But when it’s about lesbians, there are sniggers all around, and heavy innuendo. That our writers and directors have let this ‘philosophy’ dictate the narrative for years paints a picture of the gallery they’re playing to: a deeply homophobic one. It isn’t like we haven’t had stories of lesbian relationships in our films before. The first one that comes to mind, of course, is Fire (1996) where Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das get into a passionate relationship after their respective husbands turn celibate. There were widespread protests in the country asking for the Canadian-Indian production to be banned, reflecting India’s dominant ideology of heteronormativity. More recently, Margarita with a Straw (2014) had two disabled women, one with cerebral palsy and the other visually-challenged, falling in love. Neither of these films, however, can be labeled as mainstream, and indie cinema has never particularly  been known to reflect the fallacies of the big boys. There have been allusions to same-sex desire in mainstream Bollywood films over the years, but that’s just what they’ve been: allusions of desire. The concept of a ‘sakhi’ has always existed in Indian literature — a woman who’s there for another woman with no strings attached. It’s this relationship that is usually picked up by male Indian directors to create titillation and sleaze, without the burden of having to explore ‘The Great Uncomfortable’. Who can forget the deeply intimate images of Parveen Babi lulling Hema Malini to sleep in Razia Sultan (1983)? [caption id=“attachment_4404427” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Kalki Koechlin in Margarita With a Straw/Image from YouTube.[/caption] In the past few years, we’ve seen a similar blueprint explored between women who are close, but apparently not close enough for the public’s eyes. You think Kareena Kapoor and Shahana Goswami might have had a passionate encounter in Heroine (2012), and there are shadowy indications of lovemaking between Madhuri Dixit and Huma Qureshi in Dedh Ishqiya (2014), but all of this is left to the viewer’s imagination; the true nature of these relationships are always left unexplored. One can argue that all of these attempts were at least tastefully done. The one time Bollywood has tried to tell a full-fledged lesbian story, it’s been rife with negative stereotypes that can only emanate from the mind of the genius, Madhur Bhandarkar. His 2004 film, Girlfriend, has Amrita Arora and Isha Koppikar playing two women sharing a sprawling beach-house that surprisingly has only one bed. While one of them develops feelings for the other, you’re taken on an educational journey: lesbians ride motorcycles, fix things with tools, hate men and they’re that way because of childhood sexual abuse. They target straight women who, of course, only yield when they’re too drunk to know what’s going on. The sex is sleazy and caters to an audience looking for viable soft-core in an age when broadband wasn’t quite as cheap as it is today. The internet has been playing its own little role in opening up minds in this country. Selection Day (Netflix) is based on Aarvind Adiga’s book and if the show is faithful to the book, we’ll have a protagonist in a same sex relationship in the second season. One of the main characters in Four More Shots Please (Amazon Prime) is bisexual, and the treatment of this character is a far leap from the stereotyping we’ve seen in mainstream cinema. These are important baby steps towards telling more inclusive stories. And while baby steps are fine, a little boost every now and then from what’s mainstream to the masses is always welcome. A toast then to this Friday. We’re all rooting for Sonam Kapoor, and  Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga .