In 2017, Faraz Ansari released the 20-minute silent film, Sisak. Mostly self-funded and partially crowdfunded, it told the story of unspoken love between two men who travel on a Mumbai local. The film won awards at 44 film festivals. Two years later, Mumbai-based Ansari is back with Sheer Qorma starring Swara Bhasker and Divya Dutta, women in love with each other, and Shabana Azmi as Bhasker's mother.

Bhasker and Dutta agree to meet for a chat with Haima Simoes and Shruti Venkatesh, a young lesbian couple from Mumbai. The women work as programme coordinators for One Future Collective, a feminist youth led not-for-profit organisation that works on building compassionate youth social leadership in India, and are occasional models. Edited excerpts from a freewheeling conversation on what it means to be gay in India after 377 was decriminalized, and how realistically straight characters can play queer on screen.