Memories pierce the heart: homoeroticism, Bollywood-style.

In this essay, I enjoy using Amitabh Bachchan, perennial idol of the Bollywood screen, as a point of departure for ruminations on the construction of male friendship and male love within both Indian cinema and its primarily male audience (which, in a sense, represents in turn Hindi culture at large). Using translations of songs from Amitabh's films interlaced with my own personal experiences, we see how homosexuality thrives in covert yet recognized places in Indian culture, and how subtler forms of homosexuality are actually engendered under the auspices of normative patriarchal culture. Songs were translated by the author in collaboration with Jia Das.