Revealed: Kartik Aaryan character in Dostana 2

It is a sign of Indian cinema’s maturation that leading men are no longer apprehensive about playing gay characters. While the taboo broke long ago in the West, Indian cinema took a while to grow up in matters regarding sexual orientation.

Kartik Aaryan may well be the first mainstream Bollywood star to foray into this territory; he and newcomer Lakshya play gay characters in the sequel to Karan Johar’s 2008 hit Dostana.

“In Dostana, Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham’s characters were only pretending to be gay. In Dostana 2, Kartik and debutant Lakshya actually play gay characters,” says a source. However, it remains to be seen how Dostana 2 deals with a theme that’s still new and relatively taboo in Indian cinema.