Camera on Closet

“It was difficult to find people to tell their stories. I made Project Bolo with the idea that it will serve as an archive or reference material for students,historians and scholars,” says Rangayan,adding that the documentary not only looks into the interviewee’s everyday lives but also their sexual lives and relationships. “We have this inside joke,that the ‘closet’ does not have a revolving door. Whatever you say here,will stay like that forever. That’s why we had trouble finding volunteers,” he says. Nonetheless,he found prominent personalities from the LGBT community — who Rangayan describes as “well-adjusted people in their respective professions” — to feature. These include poet Hoshang Merchant,historian Saleem Kidwai and corporate personality Parmesh Sahani.

Anecdotes,some sad,some funny and some definitely curious,fill the DVDs. “Many of the people I’ve interviewed were married before they faced the fact that they were different. Some have related incidents about how their spouses reacted when they told them,and others have talked about their parents’ reactions. They are not all necessarily sad. I like the incident that Parmesh Sahani relates in his interview. He told his mother that he was gay,and she responded by asking him if he was sure. He said he was. Her next question was,‘What do you want for dinner?’” says Rangayan.

Kidwai,on the other hand,talks about Delhi in the 1970s,when “at the Connaught Place parks,you met people and made friends. There were also hustlers and blackmailers. And there were also cops”.

The collection also includes the stories of Laxmi Narayan Tripathi of Bigg Boss fame,who relates some proud moments. “I remember when I walked into the UN General Assembly (as part of an LGBT delegation from India). I just touched my Indian flag. It was a proud moment for me,that being a hijra,I could make it till here,” she says.