Much of his strength, Tirthankar Guha Thakurta says, comes from three impressionable adolescent years of his life, when he first confronted the issue of his sexual orientation. It ran contrary to the conventional construct of his friends in school and the society beyond the school gate, which equated being straight with being normal. With his coming out as gay, his immediate world, that at that pimply age still swore by pinups of Bollywood heroines, revolted.  From being a popular mate in St Lawrence School in Kolkata, Tirthankar found himself as the fall guy and ridiculed by childhood friends. “I was completely ostracised. I had nobody to turn to and all my friends left me,” recalls Tirthankar, before adding, “Those three years taught me everything.”

At his home in Kolkata’s Park Circus area, Tirthankar, now having completed his MBBS degree from the prestigious Calcutta National Medical College (CNMC), is visibly relaxed; the resentment surfaces only on provocation. But as a filmmaker, Tirthankar has continuously poked fingers, accused, questioned, scorned and had fun at a society that, as far as he is concerned, refused to see beyond the tip of its nose.

Piku Bhalo Aachey (Piku Is Fine) and his yet unnamed second film that is at a post-production stage, has been Tirthankar’s retort. “You have to see to believe the dedication and single minded-focus he has,” says Richa Mohan, an alumni of St Xaviers’ College’s Mass Communication and Videography course, who handled the camera for Tirthankar’s second film.

With the autobiographical Piku Is Fine, which was selected in the short film section of the 2004 edition of Kolkata Film Festival and was screened at the Alliance Francaise film festival in Chennai in December 2004, Tirthankar achieved his first objective. The film traced the story of Piku, acted by Tirthankar himself, a youngster whose coming out of the closet as gay leads to him being isolated by mainstream society. Much like the way the film ends with Piku finding a support system from similarly estranged quarters of society, as filmmaker, Tirthankar managed to rally around enough support from college friends, who chipped in during the shooting, and his family members, who nodded an unspoken consent. “It is equally true that Tirthankar can go ahead even without others helping him. He is completely driven,” says the Bangalore-based TCS-employee and Tirthankar’s long-time friend, Suman Gupta.

... contd.