[Watch] Pradeep Sarkar's 'Others' beautifully depicts world of transgenders

Exactly two years back, in a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court of India recognised the "transgenders" as a legitimate socio-sexual category and directed every government and bureaucratic offices to include the box "others" in their forms and applications. That extra box, just another tick in a mountain of paperwork any individual ends up with, but a giant step for India as a whole, particularly for its LGBTQ community that still lives under the shadow of overt discrimination and prejudice. 

Pradeep Sarkar's Others is a beautiful depiction of this world of transgenders, that often collides with ours, but which we systematically ostracise to cull out any sexual deviation from what we have long seen as the norm. That binary - of "male" and "female" - has been serially punctured through ages, but the law in independent India caught up only in April 2014, when the landmark judgement was passed by the top judicial body in the country. Despite the legal provision, there remains much "othering" in socciety at large.

The five-minute short film premiered at the two-day India Today Conclave 2016, which was held on March 17-18, 2016. It was released as a part of the "India Tomorrow" series, wherein five filmmakers, including Imtiaz Ali, Meghna Gulzar, Hansal Mehta and Rohan Sippy, in addition to Sarkar, were asked to share their visions of India in the near future. The artists focussed on themes such as nationalism, Dalit politics and students struggle behind Rohith Vemula's suicide, questions of feminism and body in the issue of sex work, the prejudices that die hard in our perception of "hijras" as well as what gets peddled as "news" by the omnipresent media.

Sarkar's Others also pays tribute to 26-year-old Rithika (name changed) who fought three court cases to become the nation's first transgender sub-inspector.

India Today salutes the braveheart.