Queer frames

After My Brother Nikhil,Onir turned his camera to romance and its various aspects but the experiment didn’t quite work. And what people wanted back was the old Onir who gave Bollywood one its most effective and sensitive film on AIDS and homosexuals. Now the camera comes back from where it started.So when Onir announced whilst in Pune on Saturday that he will be telling five stories in a single film we saw it coming. A short film on homosexuals is what Onir gives us at a time when repealing of article 377 is the burning issue. Though of course when Onir conceptualised the film,little did he know a couple of days before its due shooting,India will turn the most important leaf in history.

The historical judgment has Onirban keeping his fingers crossed for a positive change in the society. “A country which is so divided on various issues and there is so much violence,love is the only positive energy. I really pity those who say our social fabric is being torn into pieces. Go to Khajuraho,the Mahabharata,everywhere there areinstances and illustrations of homosexual relations. It is all about preferences and an individual’s own choice.” Speaking on the comment of religious leaders on the issue — if given a free reign all the heterosexuals will become homosexuals Onir says,“ It amazing to hear grown ups and literate people talk like that. While making Omar I met many gay couples. You will feel chill run down your spine listening to their plight.” Omar reveals the nexus between police and male sex workers to blackmail and abuse gay men who because of the archaic law created by the British article 377 were always under threat. According to the law any man caught in a homosexual act can be imprisoned for life. The film is a part of a series of five short films,which are connected by an underlying theme. In the sequence of five films omar is the second. After Ram Gopal Verma’s genre of horror and Sanjay Gupta’s Dus Kahaniyaan,Onir gives the trend a different touch with series of stories on social causes.

While the first in the series,Abhimanyu deals with child abuse,the second delves into homo sexual relations. Megha the fourth revolves around the plight of Kashimiri pandits. Set in Shrinagar it tells the story of a Kashmiri pandit who returns home after five years.