The Pink Mirror (Gulabi Aaina)
(40 mins, Hindi with English subtitles, 2003)
A comic-tragic evening with two Indian drag queens and a gay teenager as they attempt to seduce a handsome bisexual hunk.
Apart from being a drag romp set a la Bollywood entertainer with song and dance routines, the film is an exposition of the Indian gay landscape, the humanly tender bonds between drag queens in India who form unique, non-patriarchal families and the lurking impact of HIV/AIDS.
The film draws interesting comparisons between indigenous Indian Drag Queens who are a vanishing clan and the contemporary young gays of Bombay city’s queer culture with borrowed western gay identity.
BANNED in India because of its homosexual content, this underground indie film has been dubbed a cult film for being the first ever Indian film to reach so far and wide, offering a peep into the darkly closeted Indian homosexual world with empathy and sensitivity.