Pride Month Special: How has gayness evolved in popular culture?

To what extent has gay representation in Indian popular culture evolved? Is it now simply trendy to include gay characters, or are these portrayals also becoming deeper and more meaningful?This week, to kick off Pride Month, we explore how the portrayal of gay lives in Indian popular culture has changed over the decades. Host Sandip Roy speaks to three queer voices from different generations to understand this shift.

Sridhar Rangayan is a filmmaker and activist who, along with his partner Sagar Gupta, founded the Kashish Pride Film Festival in Mumbai — the first queer film festival in India to be held in a mainstream movie theatre.

Santanu Bhattacharya is a novelist whose book Deviants follows three generations of gay men in a single family.

Rohin Bhatt is a queer non-binary lawyer practicing in the Supreme Court and the author of The Urban Elite v. Union of India.

Produced by Shashank Bhargava
Edited and mixed by Suresh Pawar