Abstract
In some ways Koi Mere Dil Se Pooche (Someone’s Asking my Heart, Vinay Shukla 2002) epitomises the concerns of this chapter by stressing the themes of dress, sex/uality, pornography and gender relations in a supposedly ‘typical’ urban Indian setting. An early sequence between the hero and one of his female college friends, ‘Anna’, allows a glimpse of the treatment of ‘other’ sexualities in Hindi films. Having had her advances rejected by the hero, Anna proceeds to interrogate his sexuality, saying in English, ‘Tell me one thing, honestly.’ When Aman, the hero, asks, ‘What?’ She continues suggestively, ‘Log kehthe hai ki tumhe ladkiyoan me koi interest nahi, is it because you’re the other type?’ [‘People say that you have no interest in girls, is it because you’re the other type?’]. The camera lingers on both faces; his puzzled and then verging on incredulous as she insinuates, ‘Kya tum ladkoan ko pasand karthe ho?’ [Is it that you prefer boys?’]. In Aftab Shivdasani’s expression when he remonstrates, ‘Anna! Are you mad! Obviously I’m not into boys!’, the limits of most conventional Hindi films’ overt discourse on non-heterosexuality are traced.1 From that moment onwards, the hero — who works hard, studies fashion design and has a good relationship with his father — must actively woo a heterosexual love object, and defend her honour, in order to redeem himself.
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