On October 18, the Supreme Court of India passed a much-awaited judgment against the petition to legalize same-sex marriages. As poetic as some of its observations were, the judgment was a limp passing of the baton that amounted to nothing specific or encouraging. People on the other side, hanging onto the unravelling threads of hope, couldn’t have done much more than wish and wilfully nurture expectations. Roughly a month on, a documentary, rehabilitates all that lost hope by advocating for the many indistinct forms of love. Amazon Prime Video’s Rainbow Rishta is an endearing little document about the flawed, messy universality of love which helps you recover, at least momentarily, from that judicial low.
Directed by Jaideep Sarkar, Rainbow Rishta follows six different stories set in different corners of India, that embody gender and love in its many disparate but ultimately familiar forms. In Mumbai, Daniella, a transwoman with a difficult history is on the cusp of nuptials with Joel. The chemistry between the two is possibly the most earnest of the lot. In Guwahati, youthful Aneez and Sanam hopelessly look for a landlord who’d accept them as a lesbian couple. In Imphal, Manipur, Sandam signs up for the dating roulette while coming to terms with trauma and grief. In Delhi, rights activist Ayushmaan moonlights as the drag legend ‘Lush Monsoon’. Suresh and Sonam wait to assign their relationship legitimacy and in possibly the documentary’s most recognizable arc, Trinetra Haldar - last seen in the second season of Made of Heaven - opens up about her life, search for love and longing for identity.
Served across six episodes, but mixed together like a collage, each of these stories carries this poignant streak of being unseen. Despite her success as a medical professional and actor, Haldar juggles being identified as a cosmetic freak and an emotionally present woman. Aneez and Sanam come across as so naive, so raw, it makes you gasp with concern. What might become of these two young women, preparing to take on the world and its robust lack of empathy? Ayushmaan, easily the most self-expressive and maybe irreverent of the lot, seeks companionship, as a narrative around six unconnected stories, converges on the fundamental that love represents. It’s what gives life meaning, its geometry a view of the centre, its horizon a landscape to protect, serve and expect from. Love can wear distinct colours, originate in unexpected places, but it remains translatable and universal. And maybe, hopelessly, invincible.
That said Rainbow Rishta, also indirectly argues about the need to legalize same-sex marriages to offer a tangible framework to what is essentially, a feeling. At best, love is a whimsical idea. It’s given that formidable structure by allowing it the privilege of acceptance. “A house is like the major safe space we should have,” a person tells Aneez and Sanam in a statement that underlines the importance of something that this country believes is invitational by way of social design – personal space. The scars that social scrutiny turns into, are writ large and clear on the warm tone of these stories. Though there is this scripted sense – almost a shallow undercurrent of reality TV choreography – to much of the dating sequences, these stories demystify a world that many consider through the lens of scandal and rumour. How does then one seek love, or define its language in a country that mandates coupling, but in more ways than one, withdraws choice.
How does one seek love, if one has been raised to hate his or her own self-image? It’s a question that Rainbow Rishta explores, in a comforting mix of frivolity and friction. “He’s a boy. I’m into men,” Haldar remarks about a date, in a disarming manner that makes it possible to eye these underdog stories through a relatable streak of personal liberty. Liberty that a lot of us might take for granted. Why must these people become someone’s compromise? Or better still why should they compromise?
Most of us are born knowing who we are, at least in a physiological sense. But for those who have to arrive at it having battled doubt, convention, at times even the depths of death, it maybe feels natural to expect more from this world. That the world continually lets them down is a conversation that fits matter-of-fact rooms trained in separating the soul from the body. Outside of that contentious territory or law and convention, however, love continues to flourish as that evocative, undefinable human quality that injects life, and verve to antiquated, dull definitions that life must be spent fitting into. As much as you cannot choose the Constitution you are governed by, these stories tell us, you can at least choose the person you can resist them with. For now, that will have to do.
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