Bollywood's pioneering lesbian drama

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Bollywood film "Fire" was the first in Indian history to depict a lesbian relationship. Released in 1998, the movie sparked a row over censorship and then a wider debate about LGBT rights in a country where homosexuality was then illegal. In 2015, Lucy Burns met Bollywood superstar, Shabana Azmi, who played a lesbian in "Fire".

PHOTO: Shabana Azmi (AFP)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.
0:30.9	Hello. Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service
0:39.2	with me Lucy Burns.
0:41.2	As part of our series of stories from LGBT history, I'm taking you back to 1998
0:46.8	when a Bollywood film caused a scandal by depicting one of the first lesbian relationships
0:52.1	in Indian cinema.
0:53.2	When the movie Fire was offered to me as a script by Divamata. I was really moved by it, but I did
1:07.1	know that it could prove to be controversial.
1:10.3	Actress Shabana Asme was one of the stars.
1:13.0	At that time, we did not speak about same sex relationships at all.
1:19.0	We dealt with these issues by just hiding them under the carpet and pretending that they don't exist.
1:25.7	Shabana Asme is one of the Grand Dam of Indian cinema.
1:29.7	By the time she made fire, she had already been in the business for more than 20 years and won the National
1:35.7	Film Award for Best Actress four times.
1:39.2	She was also known as an activist, particularly for women's rights.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.