'I Am'- thoughts and learnings...

In my five-year career as cinematographer, I’ve worked on several different kinds of films- shorts, corporate films, music vides, documentaries, ads... I’ve even assisted on one and a quarter feature films. Of all these, some of the most satisfying experiences have been documentaries, and none more so than the film I saw a few days back, the documentary ‘I am’.
In the filmmaker’s own words, ‘I Am chronicles the journey of an Indian lesbian filmmaker who returns to Delhi, eleven years later, to re-open what was once home, and finally confronts the loss of her mother whom she never came out to. As she meets and speaks to parents of other gay and lesbian Indians, she pieces together the fabric of what family truly means, in a landscape where being gay was until recently a criminal and punishable offense.’
The film flows seamlessly through the several ‘coming out’ stories interspersed with Sonali’s own, of coming home, of the regret of not having come out to her mother when she had the chance, the wonder at what her mother’s reaction may have been, and the closure she must reach, further interspersed with a look at the largely homophobic society we live in, the telltale everyday signs in advertising and communication that reiterate heterosexuality as the only normal, the struggle by queers to reclaim their space and freedom, both individual within the family set up and collective in the society at large, and the discovery of a ‘cure’, that most bizarre of ideas propagated by some ‘sex clinics’, all set against the backdrop of the historic judgment, the repeal of article 377, decriminalizing homosexuality in India. Hats off to Sonali and to Anupama (the editor) to have made sense of the enormous amount of footage they had to deal with, and to have come up with this sensitive, moving and layered film.

When I started work on this film, I did not understand the importance of a ‘coming out’. Heck, I didn’t even know such a thing existed. My first introduction to it was through the brief that Sonali gave me over the phone. I have homosexual friends of course- a few, not too many. But we never broached the topic of what it may mean to them to be so. I suppose my friends are urban, aware people who, difficult as it may have been at first, are now comfortable with themselves and their sexuality, so that it no longer shows up in their behaviour or our conversations as something that they may once have struggled with. I had some idea of how it might strain relationships with family members through conversations with one friend, who sometimes spoke of spats he had with his mother over her desire to see him married, in spite of his orientation. But this small window was pretty much all I had.

Shooting this film was revelatory. I was brought face to face with the all consuming confusion, agony and struggle that so many of the people we met had to go through, as they spoke of the process of accepting themselves as being different, and understanding why it was so, in an atmosphere where sources of reliable and unbiased information were few and talk of sex and sexuality was taboo, let alone alternate sexuality.

There are apparently, several stages to coming out. The first is to oneself, perhaps the most important one. The second one is to family, possibly the most difficult one. And the third is to the world, which in turn may happen in steps. It is these coming out stories and the relationships with their family in their aftermath that formed the essential core of the film.
But families are units that live in societies, according to rules set by them. I should know, I have been fighting a slightly different, ongoing battle being the black sheep in the family in choosing a wildly different profession from what everyone was used to, and being single while well into my thirties. My family has been wonderfully supportive, much to my surprise. Even though I realize that they agonise over it every single day, and are occasionally embarrassed by questions raised by friends and extended family. So it was not difficult to see how much more insanely difficult it would be for Indian families to accept a loved one as being anything other than ‘normal’ in their sexual preference, at least for those from an earlier generation.
During the course of shooting the film, we spoke to many people, and their families. Everyone had stories to tell. Some of them were stories of love and acceptance, some of struggle, some of pain, many of confusion and of living in fear and stealth until that moment of liberation, and some of defiance. Of course there were some cases where the families hadn’t accepted their children as they were, and therefore getting to shoot with them was out of question.
It reminded me all over again of what a comfortable life I’d led. I remember writing about my maid back in 2007. Of how she was a mother at an age when my primary concerns were the length of my school skirt or my marks in Maths. It seemed bizarre to even imagine that someone else might have been dealing with pregnancy at the same age. Or feelings of extreme confusion and guilt because she didn’t have a crush on a boy like the rest of her friends.
Most of the people we shot with came from privileged backgrounds. That’s why they could be out there, in the open about their sexuality. These are people for whom it has been relatively easy (though only relatively) to fight society’s prejudices. These are people who are aware and informed, and are able to form themselves in groups and fight for their rights, who are able to publicly party with others of their own kind (no mean feat this, up until a couple of years back when it was decriminalised; before that being gay/ lesbian was actually illegal, and led to much oppression and harassment,) and who are able to navigate the spaces one needs to everyday whether at work or while socializing, with confidence, without letting stares and attitudes affect them adversely.
I got reminded also of an irritation that I sometimes felt towards my dear friend and batchmate in all those years of film school. I had wondered then why he insisted on wearing his sexuality on his sleeve. Why he was always as vocal as he was. The same questions arose as I shot the film. As day after day passed, I wondered why it had to be such an important part of their being, this matter of sexuality. I found the answer soon enough, a two way answer too. As it turned out, when you’re different from the crowd you’re reminded of it, overtly and covertly, by any and all, all the time. You may think that sexuality is a personal matter, but once you’re in the open, a self confessed digresser, our society does not let it remain so. These people seemed to have no choice but to fight prejudices, sometimes on an everyday basis. How then could it possibly not be an essential part of their being, a defining feature, when every single day, day after day they are being judged for it, in places and ways that ought to have nothing to do with it.
The other reason was more altruistic so to say, and I heard it voiced over and over again, by many. And that was to reach out to others like them, all those thousands, maybe millions, who are shackled by the mistaken sense of ethics coded into their consciousness, who may be beating themselves down with sense of guilt and despair, unable to deal with feelings that they’ve been told are not only abnormal, but also sinful, all those without the benefit of a concerned and informed person to confide in and be guided by. Many of them have been in a similar situation, and therefore understand the necessity to speak out, so that others may find the guidance they seek, and the courage to come out themselves.

As we shot the film, travelling from one location to another, and one city to another, I had a lot of questions for Sonali. If she was amused by my curiosity, she never once showed it, always answering in the same controlled voice that I have come to associate with her. Even when talking about her mother, her voice never faltered. It had a tinge of sadness, I often thought to myself, and a restraint that never seemed to come loose. The voice in the film and the trailer is hers, and if you listen closely, you will perhaps understand what I mean.
While shooting films, one often ends up forming friendships, especially between key crewmembers. Not so with Sonali. There was a distance she always maintained, a formal disposition that was not easy to break through. She was polite and fair and funny. She talked a lot, laughed and cracked jokes. She was almost never perturbed by anything. The most excitable that I saw her would have to be at the Pride March in Delhi. But there was something about her that still seemed distant.
Her story, only a part of which one sees in the film, was for me the seed around which the film developed and the key to understanding her motives. To say that it is an intensely personal film would yet not do justice.

You can see the trailer here and I do hope you get to see this lovely film in full sometime.