Zara Nazar Utha ke Dekho

The documentary juxtaposes personal narratives of cruising from the LGBTQ community, against diverse visuals of Indian public spaces, revealing the complex facets of urban cruising. It provides intimate and tactile experiences of public spaces in which mostly invisible communities negotiate with potential sexual/romantic partners. Through subtle hints and furtive movements, people transform the most public of spaces into private ones, with their own codes and rhythms, which the film effectively recreates. Through its explorations of cruising spots across the country, and a variety of voices across gender, age and space, it serves as an ode to the human spirit and the need for love and companionship. It puts desire in focus and celebrates it unabashedly, evoking its thrill, excitement, secrecy, pleasure and pitfalls. It travels through cruising spots that those who belong form an instant connection with and those who do not feel intrigued by. In a country that, at the time of the making of the film, considered non-heterosexual sexuality criminal, the tone of the film is confident and assuring, speaking directly to the hegemony of the state over identity, love, sexual expression, desire and institutionalised heteronormativity. In the way that the narrative develops, the city in itself becomes desire.