Whatever happened to India’s first full-fledged gay movie Adhura?

It was made way back in 1995 and has evidently fallen through the cracks. Produced and directed by art gallerist and occasional actor, Ashish Balram Nagpal, Ahdura featured Irrfan Khan and Nagpal himself as same-gender lovers. Revolving around an industrialist and a journalist involved in a gay relationship, the film had made news in the mid-‘90s. According to reports, in the film the relationship breaks up and culminates in a tragedy.

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Whatever happened to India’s first full-fledged gay movie Adhura?
It was made way back in 1995 and has evidently fallen through the cracks.

Produced and directed by art gallerist and occasional actor, Ashish Balram Nagpal, 
Ahdura featured Irrfan Khan and Nagpal himself as same-gender lovers. Revolving 
around an industrialist and a journalist involved in a gay relationship, the film had 
made news in the mid-‘90s. According to reports, in the film the relationship breaks 
up and culminates in a tragedy.



Designed as a compact 90-minute film, which could be released theatrically or shown 
as a telefillm, it had been banned by the Censor Board. There has been no update 
since then.

When Nagpal was asked about the vanished film, he has always ducked the question, 
“Please, don’t remind me of that,” adding a terse “no comments.” Irrfan, too, 
has never commented on Adhura which he acted in during his period of struggle in 
showbiz.

Now although Aligarh, which has been adapted from a real-life gay relationship, has 
been garnering acclaim on the preview circuit, and mandatory hiccups with the 
censors, Adhura continues to remain in the cans.

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