| With mega stars in the lead, the understated Kaathal is an unusual movie about a gay man who has been married for 20 years to a straight woman. It’s a story that is, tragically, all too true for India. Read on…. The Big Story A rotten core: Lavender weddings  (Source: IMDB) They’re calling it the movie of the year. Reviews are strung with words like progressive, bold and heartbreaking. And some see Kaathal: The Core as a logical extension from the same director, Jeo Baby who made The Great Indian Kitchen—a sensitively made film about patriarchy cooking in the kitchen. No spoiler alerts here, since Kaathal’s plot is revealed in the first few minutes. Mathew Devassy (played by superstar Mammooty; the audience in my theatre burst into applause when he appeared on screen) is contesting the local village elections when Omana, his wife of 20 years (played with elegant restraint by Jyothika) files for divorce on the grounds of cruelty. It’s not that Mathew is physically violent. It’s that he’s gay, and she has—despite a daughter she insisted on—had to live in a sham marriage, deprived of her physical needs, leading a life that is a lie while her husband is in a long-term monogamous relationship with another man. “Am I the only one to be rescued?” Omana asks her husband. “Didn’t you want to be rescued? Didn’t you want to live the life you desired?” The movie takes its time to peel back its layers revealing the pain of its central characters. The man, his wife, his lover. There is family and society and religion, the sniggers of neighbours, the bullying of friends. But behind the pain lies another layer and at its core, the film is about not pain but redemption. Remarkably, Kaathal has opened to a successful run in the theatres, collecting Rs 7.5 crore within a week of its release. The reviews have been positive, the comments on social media sympathetic. “Big applause,” says film critic Anupama Chopra about Mammooty, “for using his might and his talent to propel a project like this.” Anna Vetticad, another senior critic says she “really loves the voice in Mammooty’s head that is urging him to take up films that have something important to say while also challenging him as an actor.” In The Indian Express, Pooja Pillai writes: “Kaathal… takes on the holiest of cows—the Great Indian Marriage—and, with great compassion and sans any attempt at villainizing anyone, looks at what turns it into an oppressive institution.” Reflecting the times  (Source:LiveLaw) It's not just the critics. Senior advocate Kaleeswaram Raj weighs in. “This is a film that talks about constitutional morality. This is the true modernity of thought and imagination.” To be sure, the timing of the film coincides with the most significant contemporary debate on LGBTQI+ rights in the country: Marriage equality. After the historic 2018 decision of the Supreme Court to decriminalize section 377, a Colonial-era provision that criminalized sex “against the order of nature”, petitions were filed in various courts asking for marriage rights. These disparate petitions were clubbed together and heard by a five-judge Constitution bench headed by chief justice of India Dhananjay Chandrachud. In the split 2:3 verdict, justices Chandrachud and Sanjay Kishan Kaul wanted some sort of recognition by way of a civil partnership and the granting of some rights such as the right to adopt. But all five judges agreed that there is no fundamental right to marry and that judicial intervention in this regard would intrude into the domain of the legislature. All five also agreed that the LGBTQI+ community was discriminated against and denied the same rights that citizens are guaranteed by the Constitution of India. It is in response to this admission that a review petition urging the court to re-examine its judgement has been filed in the Supreme Court. The petition faults the verdict for failing to afford any legal protection to LGBTQI+ couples despite the acknowledgment that they face discrimination. It also makes clear that the petitioners are not asking for additional rights but merely an extension of the same rights afforded to any citizen. Coincidentally, the apex court agreed to listen to the review petition on the day Kaathal was released on November 23. A new conversation  This must end now We live in a society where homophobia and transphobia are, tragically, rampant. On November 21, a 16-year-old self-taught make-up artist Pranshu died by suicide in Ujjain after sustained bullying on social media. Pranshu had shared a reel dressed in a sari with make-up on Diwali. They reportedly received over 4,000 hateful and homophobic comments. India has a population of 4.9 lakh people who openly identify as third gender (the number is likely to be much higher), according to the 2011 Census. A government report submitted to the Supreme Court estimates the gay population at 25 lakh (another gross under-estimation, and if you were to subscribe to Alfred Kinsey’s controversial guess that 10% of the population is gay, then the number is closer to 130 million). In cinema as in life, we’ve certainly come a long way. Deepa Mehta’s Fire about two lesbian protagonists caused riots in theatres where it was playing. Kaathal had the audience in tears. In 2008, when the case to scrap section 377 was underway, the government’s attorney told the Delhi high court that homosexuality is a “disease” and to decriminalise it would put the cis-het community at harm. Earlier this year, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta opposed marriage equality on the grounds that it was “elitist” and also because it was not the job of the judiciary to decide. Arguing for marriage equality, senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal who is openly gay (and whose elevation to the bench has been inexplicably held up) argued about the danger of lavender marriages. “If non heterosexuals are prevented from marrying, what happens? In our society, lavender marriages would occur. Two lives would be ruined. There’s nothing more detrimental than a gay man marrying and cheating a lady that way,” he argued in court. In Kaathal, Omana is asked in court why she had waited so long to speak up and she explains that until 2018, her husband had been a criminal in the eyes of the law. She then quotes Justice Indu Malhotra who in the 2018 judgment had noted: “History owes an apology to the members of this community.” But, adds Omana, history owes women like her an apology too – women who were compelled or tricked into marriages by families aware of their son’s sexual orientation, but nonetheless forced into it to conform with social and religious expectation and, even, the erroneous idea that a marriage could be a “cure” to what is inherently a person’s identity. In the end, the message of Kaathal is universal and applies to all, regardless of which way they are sexually oriented. It is this: Love yourself and live an authentic life. [Read also: Badhai Do and lavender marriages] | 
