Summary: A clip from the film Sadak (1991) directed by Mahesh Bhatt starring Sanjay Dutt, Pooja Bhatt, Sadashiv Amrapurkar.
This film has one of the most negative portrayals of a hijra in Indian cinema, as a criminal who traffics young girls into prostitution. Maharani's character is undeniably evil and also obviously camp. Usually hijras in Hindi cinema are portrayed either as laughable or comedic characters or only appear in the picturisation of songs, either around weddings or just as colourful characters that dot the cityscape.
This clip is part of the Queering Bollywood database, an exhibition and demonstration of a collection of queer readings of Indian cinema. This open and collaborative database of articles, film clips, magazine stories, etc., has been compiled by Namita Malhotra, Lawrence Liang and many others at Alternative Law Forum and in Bangalore. For more, see
http://media.opencultures.net/queer/