The gay factor in Indian cinema

Love blooms at a home for destitute women in a remote Indian village.

On the terrace, two women embrace, aware that society will never accept their relationship. After all, they are living in India in the early 1980s.

The scene is from Jabbar Patel’s “Umbartha” (The Threshold), released in 1982, at a time when words like homosexual or lesbian were not part of the average Indian’s vocabulary.

Earlier this month, a Delhi High Court ruling overturning a British colonial era law banning homosexual sex put the spotlight on the issue.

Almost three decades after “Umbartha”, when homosexuality is at the centre of a social debate, director Patel is surprised his film was cleared by the censor board without a cut.

See The gay factor in Indian cinema Reuters India