How often have you seen a woman getting raped in a Hindi film? Can’t keep count, right? But a man getting raped in a Hindi film? Or a man prostituting himself ? Never, because male sexuality is a topic which has remained under the carpet. Thankfully cinema, like time, is changing, and three new-age directors are making their debuts with films which discuss topics like male prostitution, rape and sexual identity crisis.
Manish Gupta, who’s written four hard-hitting scripts for Ram Gopal Varma, is ready with his Hostel. This is no romantic college caper, the film deals with the bold subject of rape, that too of a male student. “I studied in an engineering college where I met a guy who was raped in the hostel,” recalls Manish. “When I asked him if that was true, the expression on his face was like somebody had died.” For his debut film, Manish could think of no better subject than this. “I’ve blatantly shown all this and the censors have passed it,” he says. A safer subject would have been easier to handle. “But safe directors are a dime a dozen. Every film can’t be about loving your family,” says Manish.
Saurabh Sengupta’s It’s a Man’s World is equally stark, about male prostitution. Why this subject? “There have been many films made on female sex workers but nothing on men,” explains Saurabh. When he started work on the script, he wanted it to be a shocking film, “but when I started interacting with male sex workers, I realised their fears and problems.” When people see his film, they will be shocked, but he hopes to be able to convey the human side of male prostitution.
Sudipto Chattopadhyay’s Pankh, on the other hand, deals with the sexual identity of a man and is set against the backdrop of the film industry. A small boy who plays a girl in Hindi films grows up to deal with an identity crisis. “The young man is caught in a psychological matrix of gender confusion that has been imposed on him by his social circumstance,” says Sudipto. All these directors have one agenda, to make the audience aware that these things happen. “My film is supposed to shock people into thinking ‘This has to be stopped’,” says Manish.
