'This isn't just a fantasy world'
Guardian staff Sara Wajid
<p>A new British film depicts a young Asian lesbian whose family is so accepting that her mum plays matchmaker. Is this anything like reality, asks <strong>Sara Wajid</strong>. </p>
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the Guardian
In 1985, Stephen Frears' film, My Beautiful Launderette, caused shock waves in the Asian community and beyond. (In New York, the Pakistan Action Committee demonstrated against its release.) It was the story of a love affair between a British Pakistani entrepreneur, Omar, and a white racist thug, Johnny, and the furtive tone of the sex scenes seemed perfectly of their time. The message was clear: being Asian brought prejudice, being gay brought prejudice, and the combination of the two was alienating, at the very least.

Twenty one years later, though, we are about to be served up Nina's Heavenly Delights, or as Art Malik, one of the stars of the film, calls it, "My Beautiful Restaurant". Set in a Glaswegian Indian restaurant, this PG-rated comedy includes an unapologetically upbeat lesbian relationship, which suggests that times have seriously changed for queer British Asians.

Returning home for her father's funeral, the eponymous heroine, Nina, stays on to save the family business. Meanwhile, she falls in love with her funky business partner, Lisa, over a couple of beers and under the watchful eye of her mother, Suman, who immediately sees what is going on. Suman intervenes only to give her unconditional blessing to the happy couple and help smooth the path of true love.

Nina's lesbian identity is very lightly drawn by director Pratibha Parmar: the character is gay in the same way as Millie from This Life was Asian - ie, not very. Her sexuality isn't the defining marker of her identity and she doesn't carry the heavy emotional and political baggage associated with this double whammy of "isms". In fact, the word "lesbian" is never used in the film. Nina can be read as the first post-feminist depiction of a British Asian lesbian in mainstream cinema: she's so deeply confident and assertive that her supposedly marginal, potentially problematic identity becomes a non-issue. Since 1993, when the character of Jamila, a comically militant lesbian, featured in The Buddha of Suburbia, a whole generation has come of age. An update was long overdue but is there really a new crowd of angst-free British Asian lesbians - with liberal families - out there, or is Parmar just living in a fantasy world?

"I wanted to tell a story with a happy ending, one that would make people leave the cinema wanting to celebrate life, get a curry and go dancing," explains Parmar, who spent most of the 1990s making award-winning feminist documentaries such as the cult classic Khush (1991), which explores South Asian queer identity. "I wouldn't say it's simply fantasy; it's very important to show cinematic possibilities of alternative ways to live. It's about surprising love: sometimes you fall in love with [the person] you least expect, and it might turn out to be a woman."

But does her film represent the majority of Asian lesbian and bisexual women, for whom the simple fact of their sexuality can mean a long, hard slog educating family and friends, compromising, or even having to lie?

"I accept that for the majority, Nina's harmonious relationship with her mother is not the reality," says Parmar, "but a couple of years ago I was at a lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender film festival in Mumbai and so many people were bringing their whole families to the films. One of the organisers introduced me to her mother and brother, who were completely and totally accepting of her sexuality, and always had been. It was the first time I'd met Indian gay men and lesbians with families like that and it was fantastically heartwarming. Culture and traditional values get ossified but they also get dismantled and we're definitely seeing that around sexuality. [Nina's] is some people's story."

Deepa Patel, a 42-year-old lesbian, recognises characters like Nina on the gay scene and feels there has been a noticeable shift in the behaviour and attitude of the younger generation over the past 10 years. "It's a really good thing that young Asian women are coming out much, much younger, and they are more confident and certain of their sexuality when they do come out. For those of us over 40, you either came out, lost your culture and embraced gay culture - which was white, and, back then, racist - or you just didn't. Now it's not that stark all-or-nothing choice: young Asian women can go out on the scene and celebrate themselves."

"I agree that there's a trend for younger women to wear their sexual identity more lightly too," she says. "It's all-consuming for older women because we've always had to fight for the right to come out. In the past it was a political struggle to assert our right to be lesbians. So that identity has more weight and value to us. The younger generation have not had to go on rallies or be assaulted and abused just for being lesbians so it's been easier for them, and not so angst-ridden."

Dipti Morjaria is more cautious. The 34-year-old coordinator of the Kiss group, a London-based social support group for lesbian and bisexual women of South Asian, Middle Eastern or North African descent, (numbering more than 300 members), Morjaria still feels younger Asian women need a lot of support and that political visibility remains a serious issue. "The majority of young women still aren't really coming out, because there's so much fear," she says. "I came out 17 years ago and since then I've just tried to get my family to see me for who I am. Actually," she admits, "they are amazing now. I was and am very uncompromising and I just thought, 'I am your child; accept me as I am because I'm not going to change.' It was they who needed to change their views. They did struggle with it at first but their main problem was with what people would think."

And perhaps the most recent sign that Nina's experience may not be a fantasy is that civil partnerships are proving popular amongst British Asian gay couples, who love a good wedding. Attending the lavish civil partnership of two friends recently, it was impossible not to feel optimistic about the future for British Asian gay men and lesbians. Such a large-scale, official public ceremony (250 guests) simply couldn't happen without the deep, broad support of a community. The extended families of both partners were present, the ornate wedding saris were tailor-made in India, and when the glamorous couple entered the hall for the ceremony the crowd spontaneously erupted in a deafening roar of approval.

The mother of one of the brides had been ambivalent before the ceremony but her daughter said afterwards, "She was afraid for us and afraid that perhaps our friends didn't know we were gay. Coming to the civil partnership took that fear away from her. She was amazed by the response we got when we walked into that room; part of her was trying to disapprove but she was also really really proud."

Who knows, maybe in the sequel Nina will get married.