Bollywood gay actors

There’s a scene in the classic 2003 Gurinder Chadha film Bend It Like Beckham, where the main nature Jess, a juvenile South Asian young woman, is speaking to her mate Tony about her infatuation on Joe, the dreamy soccer coach. This is when Tony makes the confession to Jess that he too has a crush…on David Beckham. Watching this interaction act out, I realized that I had never actually seen a gay South Asian before, onscreen or in genuine life for that matter. In a community that puts appearances and status above all else, and where the latest scandal is gossiped about by a cadre of intimidating “Aunties” prepared and ready to pounce on uncovering your shortcomings in love and existence like a pack of wild animals, being gay was simply not talked about or even recognized as anything but shameful in Indian society. If anyone in my community was lgbtq+, I had not encountered them. So one can conceive how it felt being a closeted gay South Asian dude at the time. It was like I was the only one of my species. A lost, lonely 22-year-old with no sense of self whatsoever. Some weird anomaly created by a glitch in the queer Matrix, but nowhere close as cool as Kean

.

.

.