Manoj Bajpayee: This verdict is a karara jawaab to all the stereotypical minds

How much did Aligarh sensitise you to the issues faced by the LGBTQ community?
It wasn’t as if I got sensitised to this while shooting for 'Aligarh'. From my younger days, I always thought that this is a natural part of society. It doesn’t define someone’s identity – sexual preference has nothing to do with anything else. And it kept getting consolidated with time.I had so many teachers who were gay – teachers who contributed so much to my learnings, who contributed so much to making Manoj Bajpayee who he is today.
And when I got to play Professor Siras, I was very sure that I was not going to give a stereotypical characterisation to his character. I had to emphasise on the person that he was, rather than giving him a stereotypical walk or posture. All the gay teachers or friends I have, none of them behave in that stereotypical way. So many films that I have seen in the past, Bollywood or Hollywood, gave me the creeps in the manner they depict gay characters.
This verdict has validated the fact that people like me who have been looking at the community as a part of our society, as people no different from us – we were right. And it has validated the fact that no matter who else goes wrong, the Supreme Court doesn’t go wrong in our country.
It was a unanimous verdict.
It was a unanimous verdict, yes!
Der aaye, durust aaye! These kinds of primitive laws don’t reflect well on a democracy.
You see it as a legal victory or a sentimental turning point?
A sentimental turning point, most certainly. The past law had given the right to all conservative and stereotypical minds to come down very heavily on the community. Now, nobody will have the right to treat the community unequally. It’s a karara jawaab to all the stereotypical minds. And to all the people who said this is a disease that can be cured by yoga!
This isn’t a victory for just the community, is it?
No, it’s a victory for all of us, for people like me who always thought that this law needs to go – it has no place in our society. Verdicts like this give us faith, make us feel that no, we are not going in the wrong direction as a society. There is hope! Young minds, when they discover that their preferences aren’t the same as others, they don’t know how to react, how to handle it. This verdict will send a message to their parents, to the society that judges them, to welcome children who are different from us in any way. It’s a great relief and an amazing, confidence-building verdict for them.

The character of Professor Siras is a fine character – he is a great lover of literature, a learned man, he knows right from wrong. He is happy having his whisky in a closed room as he listens to Lata Mangeshkar. But in 'Gali Guleiyan', this man is losing touch with reality. He is living on too many levels, in too many layers. So 'Gali Guleiyan' becomes difficult at many levels as an actor – it gets difficult to get into that space in your mind. And I made it all the more difficult by not contacting a psychiatrist. I tried to travel with the character, in his mind, in his search for sanity. He doesn’t know which layer is right and which is not. Living the graph of his mental decline was very daunting as an actor. Now I know why Christian Bale refused another role like Machinist – it takes a great toll on your mind. You are scared of getting into a zone like that again. After playing Prof Siras, I came out a more evolved, a more improved person. But after playing Khudoos, you come out bruised!