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When Bangla rock band Cactus raps about Oscar Wilde, Shakespearean sonnets, the Stonewall riots, Elton John, Martina Navratilova, Article 37...

When Bangla rock band Cactus raps about Oscar Wilde, Shakespearean sonnets, the Stonewall riots, Elton John, Martina Navratilova, Article 377, Freddie Mercury and the film Philadelphia in their new song Pakkhiraj Pegasus, the common note is alternative sexuality.

The issue has galvanised the band to support the rights of LGBT Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. And the audience for the song, according to vocalist Siddhartha Roy, 8216;8216;is a society that needs to be educated about the presence of people who are not special, just uncommon.8217;8217;

Aired for the first time last Monday at the Siddhartha Gautam Film Festival and the Rainbow Pride Week, the video gets a broader perspective today, when Kolkata hosts yet another Rainbow Pride Walk with an estimated 300 members of the LGBT community.

8216;8216;We try to involve public figures, including opinion makers and religious leaders in our movement. But artists like Cactus are the most visible and one needs to reach out through them,8217;8217; says Pawan Dhall of Saathii, an organisation working on HIV/AIDS prevention and gay rights, which produced the video with Roy.

In the video8212;the first time that any artist from Bengal, and possibly the country, has supported the LGBT population8212;Cactus blends eastern scales with an alternative rock sensibility. The imagery brings in metaphorical and sensitised references to the subject of same-sex behaviour among consenting adults.

During the shooting of the video at Rajarhat, in the northeastern fringes of the city, Cactus got an early attestation of its position on sexual minorities. 8216;8216;We were shooting in a rural area and slowly villagers started trickling in, till the crowd swelled to over 100. There were a few transvestites as part of the video and they garnered the occasional catcalls and all the attention,8217;8217; says Roy.

8216;8216;But when we were packing up for the day, some villagers were humming the tune. That8217;s when I knew that the song could communicate.8217;8217;

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What the video will also do, according to Tirthankar Guha Thakurta, a final year medical student at the Calcutta National Medical College, is 8216;8216;bring more people out of the closet and help them gain confidence while facing society with their sexual orientation.8217;8217;

In 2004, Guha Thakurta directed a film called Pikoo Bhalo Acche Pikoo is Fine, which drew on his own experience as a gay student, and helped him and his family come to terms with his choice.

8216;8216;When I shot the film, I was apprehensive about my medical career, since I was coming out as gay. But since then, my professors and friends have been supportive and the rejections I8217;ve faced are just those that are a normal part of life,8217;8217; he says. 8216;8216;I8217;m sure Cactus8217; video and their celeb image will create the same acceptance level among fans and listeners about the gay community.8217;8217;

While societal approval is subjective, what is not is the growing confidence of the LGBT community in Kolkata. 8216;8216;When we had the first Rainbow Pride Walk in the city in 1999, there were only around 15 participants. But last year, we had more than 300,8217;8217; says Rafiquel Haque Dowjah of Integration Society, a social communication agency that works with sexual minorities.

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Yet, Article 3778212;which deems same-sex behaviour as a criminal offence8212;and the stigma attached to the LGBT community is something that, says Anis Ray Chaudhuri of LGBT support agency Amitie, cannot be wished away.

Which is where the song Pakkhiraj8212;offering both solution and hope in its climax8212;comes in. Says Roy: 8216;8216;If there are 10 songs on the tsunami, the issue of the human rights of the sexual minorities should have 100. After all, you can8217;t stop a tsunami with a song, but you can change mindsets.8217;8217;