In a freewheeling chat with ETimes, Onir speaks about his film, homosexuality, mental health, surrogacy and more. Excerpts:
There are many who don’t know about the ongoing conversation around your film. Could you please elaborate on that to start with?
The film is called ‘We are’, which I was planning as a sequel to my 2011 film ‘I am’ primarily because I wanted to celebrate the Supreme Court verdict on 377 and tell four stories which celebrate true love – one gay, one lesbian, one trans and one bisexual. When I was working on the stories, the first story that I wanted to work on was the gay love story and I came upon Major Suresh’s interview where he spoke about how he was feeling very suffocated in the army, not being able to talk about his identity. I thought that after the Supreme Court verdict, it should have been a normal process that other institutes also adapt to the new law and also make an inclusive policy where we as a society celebrate diversity. I thought it’s a story that should be told and I decided to write a fictitious story about an army man who falls in love and is not able to express his love because of his situation. Because he knows that in the army, it’s illegal and he finally quits the army to reach out to his love. My film is about the celebration of love. So it doesn’t really portray the army in a negative way or it doesn’t get into discourse of discrimination, it just shows that a man is in love and he realises that he cannot continue to be where he is. Because that (place) doesn’t accept his identity and he decides to sacrifice his love for the job he does, because he’s not being able to be true and honest to himself.
Do you feel that in India, people still try to suppress certain things? Even though we have progressed in a lot of areas, people don’t appreciate same sex relationships; they look at the person in a very different way.
I feel that as a society we’ve gone through different phases. We were a society that once upon a time was extremely open. We are the country which had Kamasutra. We were the country that celebrated Shikhandi who won the Mahabharata for the Pandavas and he was a trans person. Similarly, if you look at our old scriptures or architecture, you see references of same sex relationship, and as a society I feel we were far more inclusive. I don’t say that we were the perfect society, we all have things which can always become better. I feel that if these are colonial British laws that have stayed back for so long which took us so many years to get rid of, and we are often busy changing names of buildings, streets, to get rid of colonial hangover. But we don’t want to get rid of some really regressive laws that have come. Whereas in UK, in the year 2000, the army had formally accepted that LGBTQI people will be accepted in the UK army. In 2007, the Defence Minister apologised to the queer community in UK saying that you were discriminated for too long and that should not have happened. I feel that in 2022, when the Supreme Court has already decriminalised, we should become the part of the progressive nation. 56 countries in the world accept LGBTQI in the army, we should quickly become the 57th country instead of becoming a part of those nations who do not accept. Because why should one’s sexuality decide whether you’re fit enough to serve your country, to show how patriotic you are? What should be the factor is your skill, your intelligence, your valor, your patriotism, not your sexuality. It’s sad if you’re discriminated on the basis of that, because it doesn’t tell you to become asexual to serve the army. Being heterosexual (is) okay, but being homosexual is not okay. So it is kind of giving a privilege in a country where we are all supposed to be equals.
Do you think people have matured about such situations? When it comes to laws, is there a better regulation over certain things?
I feel people are much more accepting sometimes because you can see that in the recent years, there have been many mainstream films that have come out and people have accepted and watched them. And change doesn’t happen overnight. The fact that it took so many years for article 377 to go is sad because people were already ready and now once we are there, there are very basic things that are being fought by the institutes which are holding on to some old regressive laws. For example, civil rights of same sex couples, if they want to get married, they’re not being allowed. Similarly the rights to adoption, there are so many children that are orphans and why would they be denied the possible love and parenting by a same sex couple? They’re as giving and as loving as any other human being, so what makes them less competent? I feel that same sex couples should have the rights for adoption, for marriage and to be able to serve in any institute of the country. We will only enrich. Today if you’re in the army or if you’re a doctor or an engineer or a nurse, what does your sexuality matter?
What do you have to say about the Marriage Act that has been passed recently? What do you have to say about the marital rapes that a lot of women go through?
I feel the fact that in the year 2022, we are even having a discussion and the court is even thinking about whether marital rape is wrong or not is sad. Today, nobody has a right over a woman’s body than herself. When it’s a no, it’s a no. Marriage does not mean that the husband owns a woman’s body. It has to be mutual, everything has to be with consent. People are coming with ridiculous excuses, some people will say that women will fake, there’s always this thing about ‘women will fake’. But for hundreds and hundreds of years, the fact that women have been sexually assaulted, that doesn’t matter. If you see, for the longest time, women were also not accepted in the army. The laws are often addressing the insecurities of the patriarchal society. It’s always their insecurities for which the women, the queer community suffer. Then they say that rape law should be gender neutral. You have to be very stupid to be talking about something like that because it is such a rarity that a woman would be raping a man. It is really sad and I feel that when it comes to anything that’s forced, obviously the laws are to address it. But making it an excuse to not have laws against marital rape, it just shows how patriarchy driven our society is.
While women go through a lot, there’s also a percentage of men who experience trauma. But the moment they express, it’s taken in a very different manner. There are men out there who might be going through a mental health issue, but they have to stay strong. What are your thoughts?
The whole notion of masculinity, patriarchy does not only harm men but also women, because they have to constantly live up to the expectations of what it is like being a man. So it’s very often traumatic to people who are from the queer community because there’s this whole concept of ‘someone is like a woman’, ‘someone is like a man’, someone is strong or not strong enough. I get trolled on Twitter because of this whole army saying, ‘Oh, queer people are not mentally strong enough to be in the army’. I mean, which century do you live in to even say something as ridiculous as that! But having said that, I think mental health is anyway a big problem in a society that looks at mental health like someone is crazy and is looked down upon. And for men it is often seen that when you speak about it, ‘you’re weak, you are not man enough’. So victims of patriarchy are also men, but much more women and people with different sexual preferences.
Till date mental health is not taken seriously in India. Those dealing with depression are judged saying they’re either doing drama or trying to get sympathy. Many are unwilling understand their situation. What are your thoughts on that?
I feel because, one – it’s a society with so much of stress anyway that everyone’s dealing with their stress. Very often, they don’t realise that it’s very important, sometimes just hearing or listening to someone. It can mean so much more for the other person. We have lost our ability to listen and a lot of this is also (caused by) social media, because sometimes when I see people attacking on Twitter, I feel that very often they don’t even read or try to understand what is being told. For them it is more important to just rant and that way we’re becoming a society where empathy is not cherished. You’re always looking at what is not there instead of cherishing what’s there. And I feel that that is what happens with people with mental issues, they do not get people who are willing to just listen to them and also they’re themselves afraid, because we don’t have enough awareness that it needs counselling and people don’t easily go for counselling. Even if they go, they have to keep such things very private. They don’t come out in open unless and until they’re fit enough to talk about it.
What are your thoughts on the Surrogacy Bill?
Recently when Priyanka Chopra announced about bearing a child through surrogacy, she got trolled. What are your thoughts on that?
I feel that this is because people want to have a control over, especially, women’s bodies. I feel that it is totally a women’s prerogative between the two women, the surrogate mother and the mother, if they want to do this. Sometimes it’s also necessary for health reasons. There are various reasons why one would want to do it through surrogacy and no one has a right to judge that person. We are always judging people. Why do you have to judge someone’s happiness. As long as that person is being kind and fair to the person who’s being the surrogate mother and as long as everything is being done legally, why should anybody have a problem with that? Someone else is finding happiness, it’s something which doesn’t harm anybody. It’s not harming you or me the way someone else has a child. Why are we bothered about it?
Surrogacy is a very personal decision, but whenever a celebrity goes for it, they become the talk of the town. They are ridiculed saying they just want to maintain their figure. Do you think that puts a lot of pressure on Indian celebrities?
Honestly speaking, we sometimes give too much importance to trolling. People who want to rant will rant. I have learnt that if I get a hundred love messages, there’ll be 10 hate messages, so why do I even have to think about the hate? Let me cherish the love. I think that when you start ignoring this hate, it won’t matter. At the end of it, there are few thousand people who are screaming and shouting on Twitter. Who are they? Maybe they don’t even exist. So why do we give it so much of importance? To live a beautiful life is more important than reacting to negativity. I personally don’t give any value to these trolls.
Coming back to your film, will you continue making it despite the hurdles, and opt for an OTT release?
The thing is that this law applies for everything, it’s about OTT platforms also. So today, you cannot release anything which depicts the army without an NOC on OTT platforms too. So it is a blanket. When you have a ‘no’, that means you cannot release it anywhere. Because it cannot be certified, no platform will show it. So I will appeal to the ministry once again, hoping that they will see a reason, because first of all it’s based on something real. So how can you not allow me to show something which is real? I’ll have a dialogue with them. You can have problems with some areas of the script, but you can’t tell that the story is not very healthy. Our army is known to be progressive and I would like to believe that it would be an army which is open enough to change, to celebrate inclusion and diversity.
This was a project which you were very excited about and it is very close to your heart. Is this all heartbreaking?
Yes, I’m absolutely heartbroken because I was already done with the casting, I was looking forward to start shooting in March. And for me, I don’t do projects, I don’t do films that come to me. I do films that I really feel strongly about, through which I grow as a person and it has a dialogue with my society. It’s okay when once you make the film, you have a dialogue, but to be stopped at this stage which has never happened to me… for me the irony is that I’ve done ‘My brother Nikhil’ in 2005, ‘I am’ in 2011, which won the National Award and ‘Shop’ in 2017. All these three films dealt with a lot of LGBTQI narrative, when being queer was criminalised by law. Because it was decriminalised in 2018 and I did all these three films before that. And now in 2022, when it’s decriminalised, I can’t tell my story. So that makes me feel sad. I love and respect the army and I want to continue doing that, and I want them to equally respect me and my identity because I feel that when I show an army man as gay, I’m not demeaning them. I’m enriching them, because we’re beautiful.
