‘One step at a time’: In ‘Kuch Sapney Apne’, the realities and hopes of India’s LGBTQ community

Kuch Sapney Apne (Dreams Such as Ours) begins like a typical Bollywood movie. A young photographer saunters through a pretty city in Europe to the accompaniment of a peppy song. He mushily declares his commitment to his live-in partner back home. But a rift soon emerges in the relationship that will require outside intervention to be repaired.

The difference between Kuch Sapney Apne and other Bollywood movies is the sexuality of its couple: they are gay.

There are other strands in the Hindi film by Sridhar Rangayan and Sagaar Gupta. The tension between Kartik and Aman runs parallel to the fractured ties between Kartik’s mother Vasudha and her orthodox husband Damodar. Vasudha’s efforts to defend Kartik are intertwined with her own resistance to Damodar’s stifling ways. A further sub-plot examines the journey of a repressed trans-man.

Kuch Sapney Apne consciously harnesses the tropes of populist cinema to look closely at the Indian LGBTQ community following the Supreme Court’s historic judgement in 2018 decriminalising homosexuality. Criminals no more, seemingly free to love and live openly with willing partners, the queer community nevertheless faces old and new hurdles, the movie sensitively explores.

“The struggle for coming out is perennial – no matter however empowered you are, you are put down and discriminated against in some...

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