We learn that Priya is an underqualified Brahmin girl, and Bharati might be truly eligible for the role there’s a hint that the latter gets the job because of her dominant caste identity. Bharati (played by Konkona Sen Sharma) is a Dalit-queer person and a factory worker, while Priya Sharma (played by Aditi Rao Hydari) is a new employee recruited to work at the position that Bharati desires for herself. If the Netflix anthology, Ajeeb Daastans (2021), stands remembered till this date, it is because of the nuanced depiction of the intersectionality of caste, class, and sexuality that director Neeraj Ghaywan brought to the screen in his short, Geeli Pucchi, or Sloopy Kisses. It is one of the finest shorts out there that could be a good first step in exploring this genre. The use of colors, insightful imagery, paintings, and gaze fantastically mishmash into this short to generate a realization among us of the marginal but throbbing existence of the queer subculture in Mumbai, one of India’s largest metropolitan cities. Narrated by Rajit Kapur, these sections poetically come together to take us through the closeted and liberalized lives of the gay community of India in the mid-1990s. The film begins with a brief description of Section 377 under the Indian Penal Code, which was popularly used to persecute the queer community. In fact, the film was never commercially released in India because Wadia did not submit it to the Censor Board, believing it would never grant its approval. Directed by Riyad Vinci Wadia and most popularly acclaimed for being India’s first gay film, this 12-minute short film is further divided into a collection of six shorts/segments based on the poetry of R.

The Mansion Mystery by Amit Ray