{"id":1315,"date":"2005-04-06T17:08:48","date_gmt":"2005-04-06T22:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=1315"},"modified":"2005-04-06T15:26:26","modified_gmt":"2005-04-06T20:26:26","slug":"i_care_about_my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2005\/04\/06\/i_care_about_my\/","title":{"rendered":"“I care about my brother Nikhil. Do you?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several tipsters sent us this NYTimes article<\/a> about a new Indian film<\/a> that surprisingly has not stirred up much controversy as of yet:<\/p>\n\n

Late last month, a low-budget drama called “My Brother Nikhil” opened in movie theaters across India, telling the story of a gay man’s struggle with his family and his country after contracting the virus that causes AIDS.\n
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\nQuietly, gently, “My Brother Nikhil” has tested the limits of the Indian cinemagoer’s sensibility.\n
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\nCommercially, it is no runaway Bollywood blockbuster; nor is it meant to be. Rather, its impact lies in having served up a story about love and loss – sentimental staples of contemporary Indian cinema – with a gay man at its center, and having done so without kicking up the slightest fuss from India’s cultural conservatives<\/strong>. As one review published in the latest issue of Outlook, a mainstream newsweekly, put it, “The two lovers seem just like any other couple.”\n
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\nPlaying here in Mumbai, formerly called Bombay, and in about a dozen other major cities in India, “My Brother Nikhil” is part of a new breed of Bollywood pictures known here as the “multiplex movie” – appealing to an urban middle-class audience, peppered with English phrases, and easy on the song-and-dance numbers and potboiler story lines usually associated with Indian commercial cinema.<\/blockquote>\n\n

The Indian Supreme Court is currently reviewing<\/a> the ban on homosexuality in India.<\/p>\n\n

“My Brother Nikhil” has faced none of the protests that six years ago greeted “Fire,” Deepa Mehta’s film about two women in love. Actors and athletes have been plugging “My Brother Nikhil” in television spots, an extraordinary marketing ploy in an industry where few people plug movies that are not their own. “I care about my brother Nikhil. Do you?” is the punch line<\/strong>. “This film has shown it’s possible to show a committed gay couple,” said Vikram Doctor, a journalist here who is active with a support group called the Gay Bombay Group. “It’s passed the Censor Board without any comment. Theaters have not been attacked. There’s no catcalling. It’s treated respectfully by the audience and the filmmaker<\/strong>. I’m happily surprised.”<\/blockquote>\n\n

View movie trailers and listen to the soundtrack here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several tipsters sent us this NYTimes article about a new Indian film that surprisingly has not stirred up much controversy as of yet: Late last month, a low-budget drama called “My Brother Nikhil” opened in movie theaters across India, telling … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}