four generations of gay love
by
Douglas Messerli
Sridhar Rangayan (screenwriter and director) गुलाबी आइना Gulabi Aaina (The Pink Mirror) / 2003, re-released 2006 [40 minutes]
Sridhar
Rangayan is one of the best queer Indian directors of his generation, and in The
Pink Mirror is has created a campy masterwork about two transsexuals—these
are basically the Indian equivalent of drag queens, aware of their male
sexuality and interested in boys; they are not transgendered women—Bibbo
(Ramesh Menon) an older Bollywood fashion designer who is as campy as they get,
and still occasionally dances, and Shabbo (Edwin Fernandes), who sees Bibbo, as
her “mom,” but is a far more sensuous and seductive transsexual who seems to
still find many gay men to seduce.
Shabbo has taken on a young cute teenage gay
boy, Mandy (Rishi Raj) who speaks primarily in English as her “assistant,” and
when she visits her mentor Bibbo discovers that he has recently hired a
drop-dead beautiful driver, Samir (Rufy Baqal) even though he doesn’t own a
car. Samir, Bibbo explains, has the car to which he drives Bibbo to events
where the elder designer might introduce him to film directors, since Samir
clearly sees himself as a future film star.
Yet these two are fast friends, and when
Shabbo quickly is seen keeping a secret envelope in her purse, Bibbo takes the
opportunity while she is downstairs mixing drinks with Samir, to peek into her
purse, finding there a letter from her doctor diagnosing that she is
HIV-positive.
The shock is immediate as tears come into
his eyes. And later when the two argue about Shabbo’s attempt to seduce Samir,
he finally challenges her for not revealing her condition.
The two have long been arguing about
which event to attend, a party of older men to which Bibbo has been invited,
who might be useful to Samir’s career ideals, or to a party of younger men at
which Shabbo has been asked to dance.
The sad revelation changes their plans,
as Bibbo gives into Shabbo and the two together dance in a wonderful sequence
before a group of basically straight young men who love their performances.
Meanwhile, behind their backs, young
Mandy, immediately wowed by Samir’s beauty, has been doing everything possible
to himself seduce Samir, mostly through an infectious giggle and, when asked to
clean up some spilled makeup powder, through the motions of his anxious butt.
The women agree that both of them
performed brilliantly before the boys. And Mandy announces that Samir has
invited him out on a date. True order has momentarily been restored in comedic
terms, even if we know the future provides the elder dancers only sadness and
tragedy.
When this movie was first released in
India in 2003, the Central Board of Film Certification banned the film, the
censor board citing it as “vulgar and offensive.” Rangayan appealed twice but
was rejected, and the film still remains banned in India, despite the fact that
it was shown in film festivals around the world, winning awards on at least two
occasions. Rangayan went on to direct at least two other major LGBTQ+ films, Breaking
Free in 2015, a documentary about Indian gay rights, and Evening Shadows
(2018) both of which I review in these My Queer Cinema volumes.
Los Angeles, May 9, 2026 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2026).
