How Hansal Mehta's Aligarh changed the way I look at the LGBTQ+ community

Hansal Mehta's Aligarh starring Manoj Bajpayee was a tender and poignant telling of Professor S Siras’ tragedy that helped me understand the feelings of the LGBTQ+ community better.

As someone raised in a true blue desi family, my understanding of LGBTQ+ community was largely shaped by taboos and stereotypes. Not that I harbored hate or disdain towards the community but I felt distant. Bollywood’s caricaturish portrayal also conditioned me to look at them simply as flamboyant characters whose behaviors defy gender norms. To me, they were merely a concept, an idea, rather than a lived reality I could truly connect with. I thought I was open-minded, but the truth is I hadn't genuinely felt what it might be like to be in their shoes. 

Then I watched Aligarh. 

Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh wasn’t a documentary or dramatized account of the Aligarh University Professor S Siras’ tragedy but a tender portrayal of a gay man’s life in a society as conservative as ours which changed my perception subtly, yet profoundly.

What hit me the hardest was the sheer loneliness and longing in Professor Siras’ life. As someone well aware of the way the world prefers conformity I was taken aback as to how I never realized the magnitude of isolation that could come with being gay. The film offered an intimate look into their world and offered an understanding of the marrow of their melancholy. I remember being heartbroken at the scene where Manoj Bajpayee as Professor Siras is listening to Lata Mangeshkar’s ‘Aapki nazaron ne samjha pyaar ke kaabil mujhe’. The beautiful 3-minute sequence featured him swaying to the divine vocals of Lata ji as he finds solace in the poignant lyrics and tries to fill the void in his life through music. The sadness in Bajpayee’s eyes and the slight curve on his lips conveyed the absence of love and connection in life, and how deeply he feels it. But Aligarh wasn’t only about the act of being a homosexual, but the basic need for connection, respect, and dignity and how easily it could be stripped away from someone simply based on their sexual preference.

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The film also gently dismantled the stereotypes or taboos I was subconsciously conditioned to hold regarding the community because Siras wasn't a caricature or comedic relief here. He was a nuanced individual- a quiet, brooding, and artistic personality, who cared deeply about his poetry, music, and job. This helped me do away with my preconceived notions of the community and acknowledge how wrong and unfair they were. The film also taught me that a person’s identity is a lot more than a single aspect of their life. 

What still haunts me is the sheer violation of his fundamental rights to dignity and privacy. The very fact that his basic freedoms were taken away and he was judged and humiliated for something that was consensual and harmed no one truly enraged me. It came as a painful reality check that a person's private life could be intruded, and spied upon simply because they don't conform, and gave me an unsettling understanding as to how societal prejudice normalizes something as unacceptable as this. I remember feeling a protective empathy for him and all those who are vulnerable to such mockery of their lives because society perceives them as different. But that wasn’t all. Siras’ death under mysterious circumstances in absolute loneliness felt like a pang in my chest. I felt like we all have contributed, in ways big and small, in the creation of a society, which hounds an individual to death simply because of his sexual preferences. 

Aligarh wasn’t preachy but a quiet and meditative film that didn't just educate me, but also changed the way I look at the world and most importantly understood the hearts of people. It was a transformative experience that evolved an abstract concept into a tangible, emotional reality for me. After watching the film, I started looking at LGBTQ+ community more empathically and realized how important it is to do away with our unconscious biases that contribute to creating an unsafe and hostile environment for them. 

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