BOLLYWOOD is breaking its tradition of frothy, coy romantic comedies to release a mainstream film about Aids.
In a movie-mad country where people are shy about discussing sex, Phir Milenge (We’ll Meet Again) features two of India’s biggest stars in the lead roles as young professionals who are HIV-positive.
Shilpa Shetty, an actress normally associated with glamorous roles, plays an advertising executive who contracts the virus after sleeping with an old flame at a school reunion. In the face of prejudice, she then battles in court to retain her job. Her co-star Salman Khan, best known for muscle-bound tough-guy leads, has taken on a role other stars are reported to have shunned, fearing it might harm their careers.
More than five million people in India have HIV/Aids, the second highest number of victims after South Africa, but there is little public discussion of the issue. This may change after today’s release of Phir Milenge, a film with echoes of Philadelphia, in which Tom Hanks plays a lawyer who wins a court case after losing his job because he is HIV positive.
The director is a former actress known as Revathi. She insists that Phir Milenge is about entertainment rather than education, saying: ���This is a commercial film. Information about HIV comes amid the flow of the film. I haven’t concentrated on it.”
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People are learning, though, and she says that test audiences of friends and colleagues have often been surprised to learn that HIV and Aids are different and that people can live for years with the help of medication.
She said: “One of my (HIV-positive) characters is a lively, independent woman who leads an active life.”
Shetty says that it takes courage in India to tackle a role that not only features Aids but premarital sex.
“Philadelphia helped to challenge perceptions and I hope this can make a small change, too,” she added.
Indu Mirani, the Editor of Box Office magazine, believes that Indian filmgoers are ready to be challenged. “If they are currently feeding on escapist fare it is because this is all film-makers dish up. They are prepared for something more interesting.”
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The United Nations Aids programme has enthusiastically endorsed the film, calling it “extremely significant”.
Vivek Divan, of the Lawyers’ Collective’s HIV/Aids unit in Bombay, said that the film “contains the right messages, that this is not a foreign disease and this is everyone’s problem”.
On the legal issues at stake, Mr Divan said that antidiscrimination laws in India applied only to those in the public sector, with a “huge gap” for private-sector workers. The unit is attempting to redress this in draft legislation to be put before the National Aids Control Organisation.
In July Human Rights Watch produced a report, Future Forsaken, detailing children being turned away from doctors, schools and orphanages because they or family members were HIV-positive.
HIV/AIDS TOLL
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South Africa 5.3 million
India 5.1 million
Nigeria 3.6 million
Zimbabwe 1.8 million
Tanzania 1.6 million
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Ethiopia 1.5 million
Mozambique 1.3 million
Source: UN