When filmmaker Raakesh Rawat first read the story, penned by Vishal Nahar, that eventually became his next film, he wasn’t looking for something sensational. His search was for something that felt right enough for him to go behind the camera once again. “I was looking to do something after a long time,” he says, referencing the gap since his 2018 feature Midnight Delhi. “And when I read Vishal’s story, I felt like this is an important story to tell,” he adds.

Almari Ka Achaar, a short film that has just won the German Star of India award in the Short Film category at the Indian Film Festival Stuttgart, is a tender love story between two middle-aged men. The tale is anchored around insignificant acts of love, like making achaar for their partner. “They’re in love, but they’re not proposing to each other. Both characters are so nice, I could feel their intimacy and their innocence when I read the script,” Rawat says. “There’s no big moment. Just those small, everyday gestures: The way they look at each other, how they share space. That intimacy moved me. You don’t see that kind of emotional closeness depicted on the screen any more,” he adds, speaking to us over the phone.

This project, for Rawat, by his own admission, is a shift from what he is familiar with, which was the violent tone of Midnight Delhi. “This was completely out of my comfort zone.” In an attempt to try to do something new, it was this discomfort of the unknown that drew him in. “It’s the kind of film I would never be able to write. So I thought, maybe I should direct it,” he says self-effacingly.