Queer Romance in Bollywood: Conversations About Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga

Conversation begins: 3:22 Following a special screening of Bollywood’s first lesbian love story — co-written by the trailblazing trans filmmaker Gazal Dhaliwal — members of the South Asian LGBTQ+ community join us for a roundtable conversation about inclusivity and representation in mainstream Bollywood. LGBTQIDENTITY Guest Indu Vashist Indu Vashist has been the Executive Director of the South Asian Visual Arts Centre since 2013. She has been active in many social and economic justice movements since the mid-1990s and has published extensively on issues of art and social justice. Previously, she was working in both India and Canada. In Canada, she programmed and hosted a weekly South Asian arts and culture radio show. In India, she worked with artist, queer, and feminist circles, including the Bombay-based Queer Nazariya International Film Festival and the Marappacchi Theatre Group, based in Chennai (formerly known as Madras). Guest Amita Handa Amita Handa has a PhD in sociology and has worked as an equity officer at one of Canada's largest school boards for the past 11 years. Previously, she worked with youth in the area of sexual health and with the South Asian community in the areas of health promotion and HIV/AIDS prevention work. She is also a DJ and the author of Of Silk Saris and Mini Skirts (03). She worked for 20 years as a radio host and producer of Masala Mixx and was the music columnist for the Toronto Star’s Desi Life magazine. She currently hosts a podcast called Moksha Mix. Guest Berkha Gupta Berkha Gupta is a transmasculine queer South Asian who has come to consider the GTA home for the last 17 years. They are currently the Executive Director of the LGBT Youth Line, a youth-led organization that affirms and supports the experiences of 2SLGBTQ youth across Ontario. Gupta is also a collective member for a colour deep, a grassroots group that creates spaces — online and offline — for queer, trans South Asians. Gupta is grateful for other queer South Asians that share in their complicated love-hate relationship to Bollywood and is looking forward to sharing space. Guest Aaditya Aggarwal Aaditya Aggarwal is a writer, editor, and film programmer based in Toronto and New Delhi. He was formerly Festival Programmer at the Regent Park Film Festival, and Programming Coordinator at the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival. In 2016 he was the Online Editorial Intern at Canadian Art. He has contributed writing to The New Inquiry, Ethnic Aisle, and publications by Trinity Square Video, the Koffler Centre of the Arts, South Asian Visual Arts Centre, and FADO Performance Art Centre. Aggarwal currently works at Images Festival.

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