Sai Kiran K(odcherwar) | Come Out / 2022

an early meeting of love and dove

by Douglas Messerli

 

Sai Kiran K(odcherwar) (screenwriter and director) Come Out / 2022 [13 minutes]

 

In this comedy of coincidence from India, a young closeted gay man has been partying and drinking heavily at his friend Ritesh’s apartment.

    The young man (Arhaan) awakens, hung over, in the filthy, food and bottle-strewn apartment, the sound of his cellphone signaling him; the phone notifies him that he has an important appointment this very morning with a man with whom he’s been texting for some time now, nicknamed “Love,” who, himself long closeted, he perceives might be the man of his dreams and just possibly a way to “come out.”

     He quickly calls Ritesh, explaining that he will lock up the apartment and bring him his keys at the office later in the day, and once he has washed his face, found his shoes, and other articles, he is ready to escape.

     But just as he is about to go out the door, he hears a yawn and clinking of more beer bottles, as under a deep pile of covers another young man, also obviously a straggler from the last night’s party, emerges.

    Frustrated, he attempts to query the slow-moving and unresponsive wreck as he (Vamshidhar Goud) enters the bathroom, pees, and faces himself in the mirror, finally asking if the hurried other man is also a friend of Ritesh.

    Busy with his cellphone, checking on possible messages from his brunch date, he at first doesn’t respond; but finally asked if the two of them had met the night before, the first young man suggests that they didn’t meet, that he drank separately. But again checking his phone he discovers that he is now running late and calls into the bathroom: “Make it fast. I have to go to Madhapur urgently.”

     The second man vaguely recalls that he also has to go to Madhapur and insists that the other drive him there, since he also has an appointment in Madhapur.

      Now frustrated more than ever, the first young man, is forced to wait yet longer for the slow-moving second party-goer, who when he finally seems ready to depart, discovers that he has left his phone somewhere in the chaos of the party.

      Slowly re-tracing his steps, he finally finds it in a nearby bed. But upon checking his messages, he realizes that appointment is private, and suggests that we will get an Ola (India’s largest ride-hailing system consisting of autos, attached rickshaws or bike taxis) or Uber.

     Now, truly angry for having waiting all this time, the first young man insists he will take the other to Madhapur. But by this time both are madly on their phones attempting to explain to their appointments why they are late and reassure them that they will be there soon. In doing so, however, they note that as each of them texts, the other’s cellphone beeps with the message.

     While the first is attempting to contact his “Love,” the second is busy reassuring his “Dove” that he will soon be there.

     After several of these observed beeps, they each try out a further message, reconfirming, that they are, in fact, “Love and Dove.”

     They look up at one another and smile, as the first young man switches on the music, the two ready to dance among the chaos of the night before in which they slept near one another without having yet met.

     If the coincidence of it all seems a bit far-fetched, I would remind readers that in the gay world, not nearly as vast as the heterosexual one, there are far more coincidences possible. And gay men and women often each serve as a kind of network of interrelating connections. Often one finds one living in a parallel universe, where mutual friends unexpectedly meet up. And there is something always charming in the recognition that we share a smaller and more communal world.

     The only question left to ask is, does this mean Ritesh is gay?

 

Los Angeles, May 31, 2026 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2026).