Badhaai Do
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A gay policeman and a lesbian PE teacher stage a lavender marriage for their families.
Shardul Thakur is a police officer at a women's police station in Dehradun. He is gay and closeted, and now that he is in his thirties his family will not stop pressing him to marry. Suman 'Sumi' Singh, a PE teacher at a local school, comes to the station to report a man who has been stalking her; he found her on a lesbian dating app and is threatening to expose her unless she sleeps with him. Shardul deals with the stalker, learns her secret and makes her a proposal: if they marry each other, both families will leave them alone. The two strangers marry.
In their police flat they keep up the look of a married couple while living their own lives. Sumi falls for Rimjhim, a lab assistant whose family cut her off when she came out, and Rimjhim moves in as a 'cousin'. Shardul, sent to police a gay wedding procession, meets Guru, a lawyer who is proudly out, and they begin seeing each other. Then the relatives start asking why there is no baby. They trick Sumi into a fertility test; Shardul's mother moves in to keep watch; Sumi produces a faked report saying Shardul is infertile, and the families agree the couple should adopt, which is what Sumi has wanted all along.
Shardul's mother walks in on Sumi and Rimjhim in bed and tells both families. Sumi's mother and brother turn on her; her father says nothing. Shardul, who had asked Sumi to keep his secret, defends her before his own family and then comes out himself. Some relatives shun him; his mother does not. At the next Pride march he pulls on a rainbow mask in front of his colleagues. The couple plan to divorce, until the agency approves their adoption, and they decide to stay married to raise the child.
A year later, at the adoption ceremony in their flat, Shardul's superior arrives unannounced and Rimjhim moves away from Sumi's side. Sumi's father gestures her back: a mother must be present at the ceremony. Shardul asks Guru to sit beside him.
Starring
Rajkummar Raoas Shardul Thakur
A closeted gay police officer in Dehradun who proposes a marriage of convenience to escape his family's pressure.
Shardul Thakur’s story
Shardul is the pride of a family that will not stop asking when he will marry. After roughing up the man stalking Sumi, he proposes that they marry, and in their police flat he begins seeing Guru, an openly gay lawyer he met policing a gay wedding procession. At Diwali, cornered about the missing baby, he tells a relative that Sumi is infertile, and soon his mother moves in to keep watch. When Sumi is outed, he phones to beg her not to give him away. Then, facing his own furious family, he defends her, and comes out. Some relatives shun him; his mother holds him. At the next Pride march he pulls on a rainbow mask in front of his colleagues, and a year later, at the adoption ceremony, he asks Guru to sit beside him.
Bhumi Pednekaras Suman 'Sumi' Singh
A lesbian PE teacher who accepts Shardul's proposal, falls in love with Rimjhim and wants, above all, to raise a child.
Suman 'Sumi' Singh’s story
Sumi first appears reporting a man who found her on a lesbian dating app and is threatening to out her unless she sleeps with him. Shardul, the policeman who deals with him, is gay too, and she accepts his offer of marriage. She falls for Rimjhim, who moves in as a 'cousin', and out again when Shardul's mother comes to keep watch. Tricked into a fertility test, she forges a report from Rimjhim's clinic that blames Shardul, and the families agree to adoption. Then Shardul's mother finds her in bed with Rimjhim. Her mother and brother insult and reject her; her father says nothing. The couple plan to divorce until the adoption comes through; they stay married for the child. At the ceremony a year later, it is her father who tells Rimjhim to come back to Sumi's side.
Chum Darangas Rimjhim Jongkey
A lab assistant cut off by her family after coming out, who moves in with Sumi and resents the cover-ups.
Gulshan Devaiahas Guru Narayan
A criminal lawyer who is openly gay, whom Shardul meets while policing a gay wedding procession.
Sheeba Chaddhaas Mrs Thakur
Shardul's mother, who moves in to make sure the couple are trying for a child and, when he comes out, accepts him.
Why it matters
A lavender marriage, a gay man and a lesbian marrying each other so that their families will stop asking, is usually a secret kept in private. Badhaai Do makes it the premise of a mainstream family comedy, and it does not pretend the arrangement is noble. Shardul and Sumi lie, fake a medical report and use the marriage to get what the law would not give them otherwise: late in the film Sumi observes that a single woman can adopt, but that as a lesbian she has no such legal right. The film saves its sharpest look for families, whose pressure makes the lie necessary and whose acceptance, when it comes, arrives in a gesture rather than a speech. It did poorly at the box office, yet it won six Filmfare Awards, among them best actor for Rajkummar Rao and the critics' award for best actress for Bhumi Pednekar.