Harshavardhan Kulkarni: Today, it’s about becoming their allies

Badhaai Do director says Raj-Bhumi’s film on lavender marriage doesn’t stop at accepting queer love, instead celebrates it

It’s heartening to see how far Bollywood has come in the past few years. In 2019, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga — which featured Sonam K Ahuja and Rajkummar Rao — gently explored the subject of same-sex love. Three years and a few brave films on the subject have paved the way for a more sure-footed offering. Rao’s next, Badhaai Do, pushes the envelope to discuss lavender marriage.

For director Harshavardhan Kulkarni, his social comedy  starring Rao and Bhumi Pednekar is an attempt to take the dialogue around queer love further, nudging people to not only accept it but celebrate it. “When we started writing the film, there weren’t many [same-sex romantic dramas] that had released. Even today, it’s not enough. Finally, [these films] are reaching towards acceptance or tolerance [of queer love]. But we are way beyond that stage right now. I think today’s youth have accepted and moved on.

Harshavardhan Kulkarni, director

Today, it’s about becoming their allies. That’s the major difference of our film,” asserts the director. The movie sees the lead characters, who have yet to come out of the closet, settle into a marriage of convenience. Kulkarni says that handling such a sensitive subject involved several rounds of rewriting and being open to advice from those who knew better. “We had a script consultant on board. We were clear that just because we may be unaware [about certain aspects], it doesn’t give us the license to be wrong. Our endeavour was to be authentic. If it was a matter of doing more research, taking some more pain and more help, [so be it]. We even had sessions where we read out our script to people, and altered it [on the basis of their feedback].”

Where Pednekar portrays a physical education instructor in Badhaai Do, Rao plays an alpha male cop. Delving into the male lead’s backstory, the director says, “Raj worked hard to transform his body. The character wanted to be Mr India before he became a cop. Being an alpha male, it becomes all the more difficult for him to work in a feudal set-up and survive in this society.”

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