It is, however, in the way these battles are tackled on film that a regrettable variation is to be found. Karan Johar's segment in Bombay Talkies, for instance, contrasts significantly with my favourite film at Kashish, Keep the Lights On, by American director Ira Sachs. Mr Johar's Avinash, played by Saqib Saleem, thinks nothing of making advances on his friend's husband. Secrets tumble out, relationships end, a sort of forced penitence ensues. There is much chest-beating and furious kissing as Mr Johar, perhaps to atone for his so far frighteningly repressed gay characters, goes for the jugular. It's a lot of sound and fury, justified only because it opens up the possibility of a more nuanced representation from the director in future.
Consider, on the other hand, Keep the Lights On. Erik and Paul go through nine years of intermittent togetherness as they battle Paul's drug addiction and its after-effects. The film is a quiet look at gay life and its anxieties and pleasures. Thure Lindhardt as Erik is excellent, a documentary film maker caught between love and his desire for a secure future. Zachary Booth as Paul is equally wonderful as the lawyer who is trying to clean up, with little success.
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As Paul checks in and out of rehab, Erik is open to meeting other men. Not because he wants to explore - he is simply too much in love with Paul to do that - but because it is allowed. The freedom that being gay bestows, culturally, is a bittersweet push that drives the film forward.
One of Erik's regular dates is into drugs himself and offers Erik a joint on one occasion. Mr Sachs' direction painstakingly brings out Erik's dilemmas and frustrations. He smokes up and is mildly aroused, but, out of a sense of responsibility or perhaps guilt, chooses to leave. That he doesn't is another matter, but Mr Sachs, who is also the film's writer, brings to the narrative a certain gravitas. In another scene, Erik meets a man at a gay bar and chats him up; however, it leads nowhere. Years later, they meet again on a New York street and, though they have no past and no future, their brief coffee date is a most tender scene.
What is striking about Keep the Lights On is its overturning of conventional "good man suffering for bad man" tropes. One wonders if it is really Erik who suffers more. In one sequence, Paul, who has returned from rehab, invites Erik to meet him at a hotel. In the woozy mental space that drug addicts inhabit, he also calls over a gigolo. Chillingly, Erik sits in the other room as Paul and the gigolo go about their business. Paul, out of habit or perhaps comfort, calls out to Erik, who comes into the room and holds his hand. It's a weird, highly affecting threesome.
Why can't gay men in Hindi films be as human? Yes, the instinct to rebel, to go beyond all possible limits of experience - channelled rather melodramatically in Avinash's character - is familiar country to gay men. Be that as it may, what Keep the Lights On does is feature a couple who are trying to belong, to connect in very conventional, very wonderful ways.
"Do not judge others simply because they sin differently to you," I read on Facebook the other day. One might add: "Accept others precisely because they sin differently to you." Keep the Lights On makes no judgements and offers no answers. All it does is lay bare, with a sturdy kindness. Crucially, it places the viewer at the centre of this generosity, forcing him to look at Erik and Paul for who they are, and, in so doing, discover his own shortcomings, his own humanity.
Keep the Lights On reminds one of Weekend, which was showcased at the last edition of Kashish, and is also about two beautiful, star-crossed lovers. Set in New York and London, respectively, both films capture the busy street life and eclectic composition of these wildly diverse cities, while also doffing their hats to the sometimes joyous, sometimes cruel act of being in love.
Mr Johar, we wait, with bated breath!