Curated for Pride Library, University of Western Ontorio, Canada
Copyright Sridhar Rangayan, 2009
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DISCLAIMER: All interpretations and readings is by the author. All the images and videos on this site have been used only for reference, collated from sources on the internet.
CREDITS
Title: Sadak
English Title: The Road
Year: 1991
Language: Hindi
Genre: Feature / Popular Entertainer
Director: Mahesh Bhatt
SYNOPSIS
A young man falls in love with a young prostitute, and must overcome the social stigma, as well as face her pimps and criminal elements, to succeed in his love for her. The brothel is ruled by a cruel villain who is a eunuch and calls himself / herself 'Maharani' (Queen Empress)
QUEER NOTES
Turning the usually macho villain in Hindi cinema into a dreaded eunuch (hijra) was unusual and sensational. The character of Maharani was portrayed as quirky, aggressive and ruthless. Though the portrayal fetched the actor a coveted popular film award, it came in for a lot of flak from the film critics who dubbed it as a vile, inhuman portrayal thereby demonizing and criminalizing the hijra sexual minority. 19
ACTOR/S IN QUEER ROLE
Sadashiv Amrapurkar as Maharani (eunuch)
LINKS
Imdb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0156985/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabnam_Mausi
queer portrayals in Indian films