The other side of the story

A new wave of web series are addressing the lives of the LGBTQI community in a realistic way sans the caricaturish antics

Some of the most popular shows on Indian television take pride in the length of time they’ve been on air — thanks to the soap opera revolution brought in by Ekta Kapoor and her ilk. Scriptwriters are known to have spoken about how they’re compelled to portray prominent characters in certain ways to ensure maximum eyeballs during prime time. Breaking into the clutter with a more open and realistic depiction of characters and their genders, new Indian web series are now taking baby steps towards shattering these stereotypes. One of the first series on the web about same-sex stories is The Other Love Story, a story of two Indian women in love.

“I never realised that it was the first same-sex web series. When I came up with the idea it was just a love story between two girls, just like any other normal love story,” says Roopa Rao, the director of the series. The story of Aadhya and Anchal is set in ’90s Bengaluru, at a time when there wasn’t much information about the queer community. “Today one can go online and find a lot of information and many groups that support them, but back in the ’90s there was nothing,” Roopa says, adding that when she first approached the producers for the series, they thought it was a porn series!

Another such series is All About Section 377. As the name suggests, it aims to normalise the LGBTQI community and change the way they are portrayed, through the story of a young homophobic man who moves to Mumbai and has to live with a gay couple for the first time in his life. He begins to understand them as time passes. “By making fun of the LGBTQI community in the mainstream media, we are only closeting them further. We produced the series so that we can bring a change in their portrayal,” Amit Khanna, the director of the series, shares. Although this series could use a finer script and editing, it makes an honest attempt at normalising the queer community. Despite not having any nudity or obscene language in the series, the CBFC has been obstructing them from airing on television channels, says Amit, hoping to be on television soon.

Coming from the Yash Raj Films’ subsidiary Y-Films is the show Sex Chat with Pappu and Papa, which has been bringing out the closeted topics of sex, homosexuality, and a lot more, through questions from an adorably inquisitive seven-year-old boy Pappu. Papa in the show, played by the Udaan actor Anand Tiwari, is at the receiving end of various questions on sex and homosexuality. This papa, unlike many others we see in society, finds intelligent and hilarious ways of answering the questions, and doesn’t brush them off or make them seem taboo. “We wanted to bring out information about sex and gender in a sensible way with a tinge of humour. Sometimes, while trying to talk on these issues, one can go so horribly wrong so we had to be very careful with the script. This series is a way of delivering fulfilling experiences as storytellers, and breaking the taboo around some key topics. It is always better that children understand sex and genders through their parents and not through pornography. After this series, we’ve noticed discussions being initiated on sex and gender, which is a great achievement. My favourite part in the series is how I explain homosexuality to pappu in a way that it is easy to understand yet not silly,” elaborates Anand.