So is the part where he goes to the doctor and is drugged, given nonconsensual gender reassignment surgery and forced to work as a prostitute meant to be allegorical then?


Not a sarcastic question, I can't tell.

Or I guess not gender reassignment, castration.

I was on a phone when I found this so I didn't get to see it completely.

I would start with the presumption that the film makers are implictly aware that this is something of an urban legend which makes it a good story. There are standard elements here that anyone familiar with India would recognize. The slick middle man is an established archetype. Being tricked and sold into prostitution is also a standard thing in film.

"Allegorical" seems like too fancy a way of saying "we put together some standard parts of culture to tell a story.. nothing here is meant to be an accurate reflection of reality". I suspect the lsecond reflects the film maker's sentiment more accurately.

Makes sense to me.


I watched the whole thing and I agree there's more going on here than just the gay-fear angle (which I still think is a real part of it).


Still think it deserves a WTF India tag though.

What's the "gay-fear" angle here?

That he was abducted, castrated and forced to cross-dress as a male prostitute and it's a cautionary tale. The subtitle is "not even men are safe" implying that the rape is somehow more serious because it is a man being raped by other men.

Unless I'm grossly misreading it, I have to admit I skipped a fair amount of the gang rape that makes up half the running time.

Cross dressing is a culture specific sort of thing. It is well known that many sex workers in India are male and dress in traditional female dress. Is this about making homosexuality more palatable? Hard to say (see Iran). "Not even men are safe" is really just saying that women are almost certainly much more likely to be victims of rape than men. Not that being gay in India is easy.