Arjun Kamath’s “Coming Out” Photo Series on Homophobia in India

“Coming Out” is a 30-photograph story by the Indian photographer Arjun Kamath about two young women, Maitreyi and Alpana, who step out of a closet into a forest, fall openly in love and are then punished for it. It was made while Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code still made gay sex a crime, and it spread widely online in 2016 as a protest against that law.

The series works like a fairy tale. A wooden wardrobe stands alone among thorny trees, red paper kites drift through the frames, and the colours move from cold grey-green to warm gold as the women grow happier, before turning to fire and smoke at the end. Kamath wrote short lyrical captions for every image; the text below summarises his story in our own words and explains what each photograph shows.

The characters are fictional, but the fear they represent was real for millions of people. Two years after the series circulated, India’s Supreme Court struck down the part of Section 377 that criminalised consensual same-sex relations between adults. Kamath’s pictures are now a record of what that moment felt like from the inside, and of how much depended on that ruling.

The gallery contains staged scenes of violence towards the end, though nothing graphic.

Section 377: the law behind the story

Section 377 was introduced in 1861 under British colonial rule. It punished “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” with penalties of up to life imprisonment, and was used for decades to harass and blackmail gay, bisexual and transgender Indians, even though prosecutions of consenting adults were rare.

The legal battle went back and forth. In 2009 the Delhi High Court ruled in Naz Foundation v. Government of NCT of Delhi that applying the law to consenting adults was unconstitutional. In 2013 the Supreme Court reversed that judgment in Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation, recriminalising gay sex. When “Coming Out” was shared, the question was back before the courts, and many people stayed closeted out of fear of the law and of their families.

Out of the closet

The story opens on a dark, closed wardrobe standing in a thicket of thorny trees, with red kites caught in the branches. Kamath frames it with the ironic line that this is a free world. A hand can just be seen on the door.

Maitreyi, in a dark blue dress, stands inside the open wardrobe holding a lantern. In Kamath’s telling, the air outside is thick with fog, and the moment is less a celebration than a cautious first look.

Alpana, in a rust-red dress, faces the same door with dread. In this frame one woman leans out of the wardrobe while the other draws her by the hand, as a storm gathers in the story’s sky.

The two stand side by side in front of the wardrobe. Alpana looks anxious and watchful, while Maitreyi leans in close, her calm presence persuading her partner that the forest may be safe after all.

They embrace beside the wardrobe, the lantern still in hand. Kamath’s caption reveals that the pair have loved each other for a long time, and that this is the moment they stop hiding it.

Foreheads touching, the women smile for the first time. The light begins to warm, a visual cue that the clouds in the story are lifting.

A black-and-white close-up of a whispered moment is paired with a wider shot of the couple walking hand in hand away from the wardrobe. The closet is now behind them, literally and symbolically.

Seen from behind, the women stand close at the edge of open ground while a large red kite hangs in the foreground. Kamath describes a peaceful new world of green grass, a quiet river and wide sky.

A game of hide and seek

By a still pond, one woman ties a red blindfold over the other’s eyes. The forest has become a playground, and the two decide to play hide and seek.

Blindfolded and laughing, Alpana delights in a new sense of freedom, telling Maitreyi she can now do whatever she wants. Maitreyi’s gentle reply, that she has never stopped her, is one of the tenderest lines in the series.

Two monochrome frames show the blindfold being tightened and the women walking through a shadowy thicket. In the caption, Alpana wishes her partner luck as the game begins.

Arms outstretched, the blindfolded woman gropes towards her partner beside the water. The sepia tones suggest morning sunlight breaking through the trees, matching the story’s description of the couple at their happiest.

A wide shot across the pond shows the chase in full swing, the two small figures reflected in the water among golden bushes. Kamath writes of Maitreyi running and laughing until she is breathless.

A close-up of long white thorns signals trouble, followed by a frame of the women sitting on the grass as one tends the other’s foot. A thorn has pierced Maitreyi as she ran, and Alpana blames herself for suggesting the game.

Alpana holds her partner’s face while Maitreyi winces in pain. Kamath shows her forcing herself to stay calm and pull the thorn out, choosing to be strong for the woman she loves.

In a quiet, affectionate close-up, Maitreyi draws Alpana towards her and reassures her that none of it was her fault. It is the emotional high point before the story turns.

Parivala’s blessing

A third character appears: Parivala, dressed in a pink sari and holding a red kite among the trees. According to Kamath’s caption, she had found her own freedom in the same forest a few days earlier, and she watches the couple’s embrace with joy.

Parivala places a hand on the women’s heads in blessing as they hold each other, then leaves them in peace. Her presence suggests a small, quiet community of people who have also stepped out of hiding.

The couple stand by a shallow pool beneath eroded earth cliffs on what the story calls a new day. Their reflection in the water underlines the growing sense of hope.

Two final happy frames show the women laughing together, one holding up a small hand mirror, first in warm colour and then in black and white. In the caption their laughter echoes through the forest, until they hear something heavy moving in the distance.

The turn: punishment

Men with their faces hidden under red cloth appear across the dry, rocky ground while one of the women sits unaware in the foreground. Kamath calls them the Rakshasas of the forest, after the demons of Hindu mythology, an image for the mob and the law that hunt the couple.

The hooded figures close in carrying chains. The caption states the rule they enforce: the only love allowed is between a man and a woman.

Chains in hand, the men seize the women on the slope as one of them cries out. The story says the couple must now pay for their supposed sins.

In a tight, chaotic frame, the women are pulled through the forest by their hair and arms. Their only offence, the caption notes, was loving each other instead of a man.

One of the women reaches back towards the other as they are dragged apart. Kamath sums up the cruelty in one idea: the love that united them is the very thing being used to destroy them.

The men force Maitreyi and Alpana back into the wardrobe and wrap it in chains, as one woman’s hand presses against the gap. The metaphor of being pushed back into the closet is made literal.

Hands reach out from the wardrobe as a hooded man lights a torch. In the story no one comes to help and no one hears their cries.

The torch is pushed against the wardrobe door. Inside, the caption tells us, the two women hold each other one last time.

The wardrobe stands burning in the middle of the thorn forest. It is a deliberately shocking image of what hatred, backed by law and custom, can do to people whose only act was to love.

The series ends on Parivala, screaming and reaching out towards the flames, too late to save the couple she had blessed only days before. Kamath leaves the viewer with her grief rather than any resolution.

What changed after 2018

On 6 September 2018, a five-judge bench of India’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India that Section 377 was unconstitutional insofar as it criminalised consensual sexual acts between adults of the same sex. The court overruled its own 2013 decision. The provisions dealing with non-consensual acts, sex with minors and bestiality stayed in force at the time.

The fight for equality did not end there. In October 2023 the Supreme Court declined to legalise same-sex marriage, saying that was a matter for Parliament, while urging the government to address the practical discrimination faced by queer couples. By comparison, same-sex marriage had become legal across the United States in 2015.

Why the series still resonates

“Coming Out” is not documentary photography; it is an allegory, with costumes, symbols and a fairy-tale structure. That is part of its strength. By telling a gentle love story first and saving the violence for the end, Kamath makes viewers care about the couple before showing what prejudice takes away. The burning closet stands for every person forced back into hiding, whether by courts, families or neighbours.

Decriminalisation changed the law, but acceptance takes longer. The series remains a reminder that the people affected by such debates are not abstractions, and that a simple act like holding hands in public can still carry real risk in many places.

Sources: Images and story by Arjun Kamath; earlier coverage via Collective Evolution; Wikipedia: Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India; Wikipedia: Suresh Kumar Koushal v. Naz Foundation.