Curated for Pride Library, University of Western Ontorio, Canada
Copyright Sridhar Rangayan, 2009
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CREDITS
Title: Parinda
English Title: Bird
Year: 1989
Language: Hindi
Subtitle: English
Genre: Feature / Popular Entertainer
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
SYNOPSIS
Kishen the henchman of a psychotic don, Anna tries to keep his younger brother Karan away from the world of crime by sending him abroad. Karan is best friends with a cop Prakash and in love with his sister Paro. Karan comes back to Bombay and fixes up to meet Prakash, but Anna's gang kills Prakash in front of Karan. Karan is shocked to know of his brother's involvement with Anna's gang and against Kishen's wishes joins the gang to get revenge for Prakash's killing and starts giving tip offs to the rival gang playing one gang off against the other. Kishen gets Karan married to Paro and convinces him to get away from it all but Karan and Paro are brutally killed on their wedding night. Kishen finally takes revenge for Karan's death by turning against Anna and setting him ablaze.
QUEER NOTES
The relationship between Kishen and Karan is so intense and all-consuming to the exclusion of all other relationship. They vow to live and die for each other. There is so much physically between the two characters that a homoerotic subtext cannot be ignored. In a song they even role-play as man and woman, and also significantly disappear inside a closet !
ACTOR/S IN QUEER ROLE
Anil Kapoor as Karan and Jackie Shroff as Kishen (male bonding)
LINKS
Imdb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0102636/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parinda
queer portrayals in Indian films