I am not suggesting that gay men (or some of them, at least) are not how they are portrayed by Johar. But caricaturisation takes away from the breath of vision that a director must, of artistic necessity, bestow on his creations. Consider, for example, another of Johar’s films, Student of the Year. From the pink ties to the rainbow umbrellas, Rishi Kapoor’s Dean Vashisht is reduced to an archetype, a comic spectacle bowing to majority perceptions of how a gay man ought to behave. Every time he appeared, there were hoots and whistles in the cinema hall. Young girls giggled. Young boys made wry faces.



I wish effeminacy was shown deeper than just mannerisms in films. I wish it played in the eyes, and modulated the speech of the gay character. I wish it nudged its owner, while being among people, in conversation, to indicate a richer, inner world with the mere flip of the head or shifting of the hand. I wish it emerged in a slender and benevolent vision that encompassed everything, pain and pleasure, in a mighty river coursing through the heart. I wish that was the sort of effeminacy I got to see on the screen.