Bollywood: fantasy and reality

Psychologist, academic, feminist, disability activist and film buff Dr Anita Ghai radiates love of her subject when she talks about disability and sexuality in Bollywood. As befits this melodramatic genre her love affair with Bollywood has its share of frustrations and disappointments as well as moments of bliss

Five songs, three fight scenes, two tear-jerker moments and a couple of comic scenes; this is the “Masala” formula of mechanical Bollywood cinema (or rather DVD as access is not there for cinemas).

Films are a reflection of society and ideologies are inherent in film and TV. Disabled people are marginalised in Hindi society and are marginalised in Hindi film. As an activist I want to change this as it influences attitudes.

Paradoxically, disability is highly visible but not explored. There’s no recognition of the human potential of disabled people. Disabled film extras are used to evoke emotional reactions: for example, a fleeting scene of a crippled beggar leaning into the star’s car, or the star helping a blind person across the road.
Images of disability are deep rooted in culture and social anxiety about the human body.

It’s a defence to think: “It’s someone else’s problem.” And people don’t want to get into thinking mode at the cinema.

Bollywood films are fantasies of perfection about beauty and macho images but disability has its place. Any actor playing a disabled character overcoming adversity wins an award. Typically if the star marries a beautiful blind girl, she’ll be cured by the end. In another plot the amputee feels he must leave the beautiful girl: she then tries to get her leg cut off to be with him. Then there’s the cultural stereotype of the bad guy with the eye-patch. And speech problems are exploited for comic effect so there are issues of laughter and power.

Black, a Bollywood film based on the Helen Keller story, is really problematic for me. Many disabled people had an enthusiastic response and there are parts which touch on my experience but mostly I hated it. The deafblind student asks her teacher for a kiss, he can’t handle this and leaves, and she sadly concludes “maybe I’ve asked too much from life”. How is asking for a kiss asking too much from life?

There is so much silence about sexuality and disability that you end up silencing yourself. Up to the age of 28 I did not allow myself any of the emotions related to my sex life – because I knew this was not allowed.

I see this repression a lot through my work researching relationships between mothers and their disabled daughters. It’s fascinating. The repression: don’t think about it! This is why I love the psychoanalytical.

In India’s patriarchal society, it is worse to be a disabled woman than a disabled man. Arranged marriages are very important. Sexuality is tied to marriage and marriage is not accessible. There are clear gender differences. A disabled man can marry a poor woman.

In Sparsh, the drama is set in a blind school. It’s about the relationship between the blind principal and a widow. (Widow remarriage is difficult.) The actress says “my life is meaningful now I am with you” and refers to “doing my duty”. So marrying a disabled person is doing your duty? That’s enough to put an arrow through anyone’s heart!

Disabled people are often infantalised into adulthood so parents make their kids a burden as they don’t give them opportunities. I see parents who give love and support but not autonomy.

Paa is a film about a disabled child and his relationship with his mother and his father. There is a lot of mother blaming in India which pains me. The mother is blamed if the child is a girl or if the child is disabled. I’ve heard of a mother-in-law who refused to even visit her daughter-in-law when she had a third daughter. A disabled daughter is an even greater curse. There is prenatal selection with abortion allowed for disabled foetuses.

Mothers want hysterectomies for disabled daughters for fear of pregnancy. They have no confidence of protecting their daughters from abuse and the hysterectomies are, it seems to me, a way of legitimising abuse. In a slum a mother would not let her daughter be taken to an institution even though she was being abused by her father. She justified her decision by saying: “At least here she is only abused by one person.”

Class is very important in Indian society. The majority of disabled women are in extreme poverty. Better off disabled people have the resources but sometimes wealthier mothers will hide their disabled child because of prestige.

In Sixth Happiness the mother takes her son to his father’s workplace and his colleagues are surprised because he has never mentioned him. Sixth Happiness is a wonderful autobiographical film and includes a bisexual love triangle. It was made in London. It would never have been made in Bollywood.

Sixth Happiness has a disabled star but there aren’t any disabled performers in Bollywood. The problem comes from not realising that disabled people are capable.

Of 30 million disabled children only seven per cent are in education. There are reserved places for disabled students in universities but this is only a slogan.

We’ve only recently been allowed to join the civil service although thank God I wasn’t allowed to become a civil servant when I wanted to apply!

• Dr Anita Ghai was talking to Kelly Mullan at a trailblazer event for DaDaFest (Disability and Deaf Arts) in Liverpool.