Online Indian TV is seeing a revolution with shows like All About Section 377

The YouTube series All About Section 377 released its penultimate episode on May 11 in what was the longest and most meaningful episode of the season.

The series explores homosexuality and sexual rights through the life of sundry Mumbai-based models and strugglers.

There is Amit, a gay photographer, played by the show’s director, Amit Khanna. There is his straight cousin Suresh, newly moved in from Haryana in the hope of becoming a model. There is Amit’s boyfriend, Sid, a successful model who may be bisexual. And there is Chotu, the (straight) household help.

In its early episodes, the series desisted from discussing homosexuality explicitly, restricting itself to a slice-of-life template that, if not new, was nevertheless interesting in that it showcased how young men and women, who come to Mumbai with stars in their eyes, make ends meet.

Suresh is lucky to have a cousin who lets him stay with him, but the little matter of Amit’s homosexuality bothers him. Even so, he is no homophobe and the series tracks a straight guy’s unease at sharing living quarters with a gay couple without resorting to offence. It plumbs rather for humour, most of which is cheeky, some mildly unpleasant, but nothing that is a deal breaker.

This being a photographer’s house, shoots and modelling assignments are routine, allowing Khanna to gay-bait his audience with enough skin show. As often happens with such shows – and not just in India -- the intended audience is almost entirely male, with a lone lesbian storyline that does not move beyond the basics. (Even when lesbian storylines do make it to new-age shows, they are half-baked.)

It was Episode 7, however, that took things up a notch narratively. Watching his boyfriend Sid dance at a party, Amit wonders if he will ever be able to do that with him publicly. (Sid is still in the closet.) Later, he tells Suresh that for the first time, he felt ashamed of being gay, because he could not share a moment as simple as a dance with his boyfriend.

Khanna, who shares more than his name with the lead character, ably enmeshes his personal journey into the show. "I am fat and gay," Amit tells Suresh, "but I have learnt to accept that." Yet, for all the hard-won self-acceptance, the path ahead is never easy. There is a whole world out there that must be educated, and then, there is the partner, love for whom must be weighed against one’s struggles and one’s politics.

All About Section 377 broaches these issues with sensitivity and a levity that has thus far kept the show from becoming a tear-jerker. For all its irritants, it is an important step ahead in the nearly non-existent space of the Indian gay narrative show. Our television continues to be caught in a time warp, with shows and characters that refuse to speak to the young Indian.

Moreover, Indian television produces shows that are laughably issues-resistant. One of the best shows being broadcast on Indian TV right now is Kankar on Zindagi. About a woman who leaves an abusive marriage, it is a triumph of direction and dialogue-writing. Set in Pakistan, its milieu and concerns seem closely Indian, yet it retains a simplicity that sets it apart from garish but largely empty Indian dramas.

In such a scenario, it is the online space that is becoming an exciting frontier for new shows and formats. For some time now, online has provided a ready medium for talented actors and small-time production houses that either do not want to work in a dated television setup, or have been unable to break in. Comedy was the first format to taste success when videos of standup comics performing at, say, the Canvas Laughter Factory, earned rave reviews on YouTube.

Since then, the democratisation of content production and distribution that online engenders has encouraged much fresh programming. AIB’s videos, which tackle everything from sexism to the Indian preference for light skin to the ravages of dowry, are viral hits. The Viral Fever, after producing some excellent comedy, is now celebrated more for its fiction programming like Permanent Roommates and TVF Pitchers. These shows inhabit an irony-filled, urbane idiom that is both instantly recognizable and laugh-out-loud funny.

Television comedy, on the other hand, continues to rely on weekend shows such as those helmed by Kapil Sharma and Krushna Abhishek, whose humour is often tasteless. The only TV show I can think of that approaches comedy with any degree of success is &TV’s Bhabi Ji Ghar Par Hai which incorporates adultery in a safely comic setting.

This need for safety is also the bane of television programming. Worried about reception from the hinterland, Indian television is often chary of tacking themes that long-form programming can successfully approach. Content on relationships, for example, is restricted to the trials and turmoil of running a joint family, as if that were still the dominant family institution in Indian life.

All About Section 377, then, is a beneficiary of the new renaissance overtaking the online space. The show has its faults: it is often poorly scripted and the acting is mediocre at best. Yet, by tackling an issue that is invisible in conventional programming, it opens a much-needed space for shows about alternative sexuality.

Next week’s finale is likely to be overtly political, with a discussion of the Section after which the show takes its name.

While that is welcome, the series, by showing us the day-to-day lives of gay men, has already made a dent in the narrative of "difference" that gives ballast to that discriminatory law.