The truth about Rituparno Ghosh's sexuality

Rituparno Ghosh was paranoid about his sexuality. His experience taught him to be cautious in sending out the wrong signals to actors. He was often afraid of reaching out to actors especially in Bollywood who, Ritu felt, would read the wrong signal.

Ritu and I would often laugh over Bollywood’s homophobia. Once he went to meet this iconic superstar at his iconic residence where his bratty son came right up to Ritu. The superstar-dad’s hearing vision smirked when his son asked him, “Should I call you Ritu Uncle or Ritu Aunty?”

 Such incidents used to hurt Ritu not because he was embarrassed by his sexuality but because he was afraid that his acceptance of his own sexuality had not got a similar acceptance from the Indian film industry. While shooting with Bollywood’s male actors, Ritu would quickly withdraw from the studios in the evening and refuse to see his actors in their hotel rooms.

You never know.

In the past few years, Ritu suffered a double blow. First his mother passed away and a few years later his father followed, leaving Ritu alone in their ancestral home. His only brother Indranil who was happily married and had children, distanced himself from Ritu, leaving the filmmaker alone to grapple with his changing personality and the ensuing truma.

A very close friend of Ritu told me recently, “I am not able to reach out to him. He is undergoing these life-threatening surgeries and they are distancing him from everyone around him.”

In the last few years Ritu became increasingly isolated from all his close friends as he sought to get himself a feminine physique to match his sexuality. In one of my last conversations with him, Ritu sounded terribly unhappy.

 Among his many achievements, Ritu must be credited for being the first filmmaker to come out of the closet. The process of coming out started years ago. Rituda was very fond of dressing up. During one of the innumerable film festivals that Ritu religiously attended year after year, he startled his heroine by attending a party in salwar-kameez and dupatta. This was years ago. In his closing years the woman within Ritu had become far more assertive than just the clothes.

 The Rituparno Ghosh who passed away suddenly on Thursday morning was a very different entity from the Ritu that I came to know very closely in 12 years ago when he was shooting for Shubo Mahurat at a Kolkata studio. We would spend hours fighting, arguing, bickering over the merits of new films.

When I’d write something he didn’t like, Ritu would sulk for months. We would then be back at it, mulling dissecting. Of late, our conversations had ceased. Ritu had become progressively reclusive. All his recent films as director or actor were defiantly homosexual in theme.

 Ritu had taken his personal life to work. But he had no life to return to when he packed up his shooting.

Ironically, Ritu who wanted to look like Rekha ended up living like her.