India's First Gay Filmmaker

Riyad Wadia [left], independent filmmaker–writer–gay activist who lived in New York and Bombay, passed away on November 30, 2003. The openly gay filmmaker broke new cinematic ground in 1996 with BomGay, a series of vignettes exploring gay identity in contemporary India. His other films include the documentaries A Mermaid Called Aida about India's famous transsexual Aida Banaji, and Fearless: The Hunterwali Story.

Wadia graduated from film school in Australia and returned to Bombay to inherit Wadia Movietone, one of India's oldest film studios and production companies, founded in 1933 by his grandfather. His first film, Fearless: The Hunterwali Story, which he produced and directed in 1993, was screened at over 50 international film festivals and was selected by the Indian government as one of the 10 best documentaries.

Riyad Wadia's brother Roy wrote in a letter, "My dearest brother Riyad passed away on Sunday, November 30, at approximately 230pm Bombay time. He had been ailing in recent weeks, and the end was surprisingly swift, with relatively little suffering. For that, my family and I are very grateful. But we are in shock, because we truly believed he was on his way to recovery, with a newfound spirit of renewal and healing and a commitment to, as he told me a few weeks ago, 'being around for at least another 20 years.' To deny that we are not heartbroken would be a lie. By the same token, I truly believe he is with us always and forever, in our hearts, minds and souls."

A Mermaid Called Aida is a fascinating documentary that reveals the enigmatic real life story of India's most famous transsexual - the fabulous Aida Banaji. Director Riyad Vinci Wadia reveals the bittersweet struggle of a woman trapped inside a man's body to explore the politics of gender; and in doing so boldly challenges perceptions of race, culture and social morality. Aida takes the audience on a voyage of discovery into her complex inner life as a transsexual. Through no-holds-barred interviews and various genres of story-telling, a dramatic, often harrowing, yet always compelling tale of life in contemporary urban India emerges.

"He made a very important contribution to the gay cause and was one of the central figures to begin the broad-basing of the gay movement in India," said gay activist Ashok Row Kavi, founder of the magazine Bombay Dost and the community organization The Humsafar Trust.

Journalist Vikram Doctor, one of the founders of the Gay Bombay website, posted on the website's mailing list: "I think one can't disassociate his work from his personality, since the two went together, each reinforced by the other. Everything Riyad did was done with style and splash, and that is exactly what the gay movement needed at that time. Through the efforts of pioneers like Ashok and others homosexuality in India had registered on the media screens, but it was still facing problems moving beyond the usual easy stereotypes. Riyad, who was a born media animal (he would not, I'm sure object to being described that way), forced the media to look at a new face, new voices, new images. Like him, laugh at him, loathe him - though I met almost no one who did - you couldn't ignore Riyad. Thanks to him gay issues took their place on those page threes of newspapers, that we all claim to sneer at, but nevertheless all read."

The BomGay shorts, structured around six poems by R. Raj Rao, is a stylized tour of the gay male underground and samples many a classic queer space, or transforms those that aren’t already queer: the breakfast table, a Warholesque nude library, a grimy tearoom. Rao and Wadia’s approach is both celebratory and satirical, the latter taking an amusingly scatological turn in lines like "Constipation is an occupational hazard!" The library scene, in which nude hunks eat eggs off each other’s tits, should assure limited release of this work in India.

"Riyad may be remembered for being one of the best dressed people in the city, and for being the life and soul of every party, but he should really be remembered for his spirit," wrote fashion columnist Sujata Assomull in a posthumous tribute.

Text Courtesy Between the Lines - Negotiating South Asian LBGT Identity - official Film Festival Website.

Reviews from PopcornQ Movies and Filmistan respectively.