In Shonali Bose’s ‘Margarita with a Straw’.
By Jasmine Raskoti
NEW DELHI: Kalki Koechlin is one talented actress who knows the kind of films she must choose according to her acting prowess and what content is needed to be shown to spread the word around.
In a new role, she will play a paraplegic patient in Shonali Bose’s Margarita with a Straw, in she comes out in favor of homosexuality. Newcomer Sayali Gupta will be her lover in the film, creating an irresistible lesbian relationship. Bose is the award winning director of Amu, a film based on anti-Sikh riots.
The first screening of the film will take place on Sunday at the film festival in Toronto, so the whole team will be departing for its premiere.
Kalki is uncertain if India’s Censor Board will give the go=-ahead for the film as it is based on the forbidden theme of LGBT’s face in India. She, however, expressed her complete comfort level in romancing Sayali, in the film.
Kalki had prepared a lot to play the role of an immobilized wheelchair bound girl. She worked and observed clearly the behavior of a person suffering from cerebral palsy.
Kalki told Bollywoodhungama.com of her character in the film, “she is a lady named Malini Chib-Alur. She is one of the prominent members of a disability center. She has cerebral palsy. I worked hard to give it my best shot. It’s been tough work getting right the physicality of the character with cerebral palsy. I worked for six months at a center for disability in Bandra (Mumbai) called Adapt.”
Indian cinema is not a stranger to the showcasing of lesbian relationships but has not been receptive to it. Deepa Mehta’s Fire had Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das in a lesbian relationship. Right wing Hindu protesters had then forced several film theaters to stop screening the film.
More recently, the TV show Yudh shows actress Mona Vasu getting cozy with another actress to get vital corporate information.