Why Bollywood Must Transform

The recently released film Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui portrays transsexuality with a fresh empathy, but much like its other Hindi film counterparts, it fails to offer India’s trans communities the dignity and representation they deserve

- Poulomi Das

ON PAPER , ABHISHEK KAPOOR’S Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui follows commercial Hindi cinema’s template of modern romance: Girl meets boy. Sparks fly. They fall in love and have sex. But on screen, the same story is underlined with a long-overdue narrative subversion—Maanvi (Vaani Kapoor), the film’s svelte, zumba trainer heroine is a transgender woman. Naturally, the revelation is tough to digest for Manu (Ayushmann Khurrana), the film’s protein-ingesting, keto-dieting, bodybuilder hero.

Kapoor’s film, co-written by Supratik Sen and Tushar Paranjpe, attempts to upend conventional romantic iconography in Hindi cinema, habituated to traversing the length and breadth of cis-gender, heteronormative romantic anxieties. Over its two-hour runtime, it tackles themes of hyper-masculinity, gender identity, social discrimination and equality with sincerity. Even its empathetic gaze toward trans identity feels revolutionary—one scene features a montage of trans women, there are matter-of-fact scenes in which Maanvi is seen taking pills in the morning, and sex reassignment surgery. Still, written by three men and featuring a character essayed by a non-transgender actor, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’s noble intentions remain weighed down by narrative conditioning. For instance, the film’s protagonist isn’t its transgender heroine—it’s the man falling in love with her.