Fenil and Bollywood

KISS AND TELL: Rahul Bose and (right) Arjun Mathur

Madhur Bhandarkar had shot a gay kissing sequence in a car between Samir Soni and his screen lover for Fashion and deleted it even before it went to the censor board. But for his film I Am Omar, Onir is determined to keep the first gay love-making scene between the ever-adventurous Rahul Bose and the upcoming Arjun Mathur (seen in Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance and Farhan Akhtar’s short film on AIDS, Positive).

Onir feels the sensitive sequence may be unnecessarily sensationalised but has to be retained because the film doesn’t work without it. Explains Onir, “Arjun plays a sex worker. So we couldn’t do away with the physical aspect of the gay issue.”

The sequence has the actors making out in a public place. Abhimanyu Singh (seen in Anurag Kashyap’s Gulal) plays a homophobic cop who chances on the couple and harasses them. Says Onir, “Luckily none of my actors had any inhibitions. Rahul and Arjun did the scene which goes much beyond anything seen in Indian cinema. They behaved like thorough professionals.” Now he hopes the censor board would be just as professional. While Rahul, who had done Indian cinema’s first and only gay gangrape sequence in Bom-gay, refrains from comment, Arjun who wants to explore the dark side of sexuality, says, “For me as an actor it is always challenging to see what lies beneath the calm exteriors. I had absolutely no inhibitions playing the gay character and doing the kissing sequence with Rahul. I wondered what it would feel like. But it was done clinically and professionally.”

Adds Onir, “We haven’t taken any still pictures of the kissing because we don’t want it leaked out on the net. The whole idea is to look at the question of homosexuality in a proper perspective and not to highlight any specific aspect of it.” Onir’s film I Am (of which I Am Omar is one part) now goes to Rotterdam Film Festival.