It’s curious that the train has been such an integral part of romances in the Indian imagination. Developed in the colonial era to first transport troops and then cotton, there was nothing dreamy about the railways. They were literally the engines of industry, but quickly, they came to mean much more to Indians than its founders had anticipated. Trains connected the country, making it both smaller and still emphasising its massive expanse. They brought you home just as they allowed you to escape it. On the train, as it juddered and hurtled its way across snaking tracks, you were moving and yet going nowhere.

This sense of being cut off while on a journey made the train a favourite of our romances, particularly in film. It offered strangers a little world of their own that was safe yet exciting; public enough to let one encounter strangers and private enough to let two people fall in love in their rattling cocoon. And so, lovers have regularly met on trains that often helpfully change gears at opportune moments so that two strangers can briefly be jolted into pressing up against one another. Instead of the knight on the white charger, it’s the hero on the iron horse, standing at the door, ready to swoop up the love of his life and chug away. Couples separate at stations and find each other again. The train and its station is a place of possibilities, untrammelled by the cities and villages that it connects.

In Faraz Ansari’s Sisak, the limbo that the train offers lends a poignancy to the film’s fragile love story. On a local train that’s clanking past stations and platforms along Mumbai’s Western line, two men notice each other. One has tears in his eyes. The other has a ring on his finger. Neither of them have words to say to one another. They just take that same late-night train again and again, and stare at each other furtively. Sometimes, they allow themselves a smile. Occasionally, they leave fragments of their public selves on the train, in the hope that they’ll be picked up by the one they desire. Their relationship is contained in this one compartment, unnoticed by everyone else.

Like most love stories, Sisak isn’t realistic and there are moments when it strains credibility. Regular users of local trains will stare enviously at the emptiness of the compartment, for instance. Dhruv Singhal’s portrayal of a tortured romantic is frequently over the top and it doesn’t help that he’s cast opposite Jitin Gulati, who plays his part with restraint. Singhal and Gulati are supposed to be the opposites who attract. So one wears kurtas while the other wears suits. One is delicate and fine-boned. The other is hirsute and solidly-built. It’s a hackneyed premise that isn’t served well by Singhal’s over-the-top performance, but is salvaged by Gulati who manages a heartrending combination of vulnerability and boldness in his portrayal of an everyman with a secret. He’s the one to take a step closer. He stares openly, making almost no secret of his desire. And yet, he’s also the man with the buttoned-shirt and a wedding ring.

There’s one point in the film when the two men stand at the train’s open doorway. The city outside is made of wind and neon-dotted darkness. They’re out in the open and yet protected by the train. As it rushes past neighbourhoods, a limbo is created in which the two men can love openly, but without witnesses. It isn’t quite free of social restraints and expectations, but they’ve blurred in the background. For the time that it takes to get to their stations, there is nothing but their shared attraction. And so they stand, facing each other, with a pole between them. One holds on to the pole. After a moment, the other wraps brings his fingers to the pole, carefully to not touch the other man. Instead, he just grazes his finger over the cool metal as though it’s made of flesh and bone. The scene is vaguely reminiscent of romantic scenes from vintage Bollywood, when the actors would stare at each other with an intensity that left even the audience with goosebumps. Like in those classics, distances are scrupulously and nervously maintained. The fact that propriety doesn’t allow the freedom to touch and satisfy one’s curiosity is what makes the scene so powerful. Longing becomes a tangible, palpable thing. Thanks to the score by Dhawal Tandon, it becomes music.

Tandon’s soundtrack is one of Sisak’s greatest strengths. Richly melodic, it cleverly plays with ideas that have become ingrained, like string instruments with romance, and swelling crescendos with climaxes. Punctuated by real-life noises, the music becomes the perfect soundscape for Sisak because it’s a blend of the everyday and the fantasy that lurks underneath. For a film that’s supposed to be silent, Sisak actually is full of sounds. If anything, the music conveys much more than these two characters could have articulated, had they ever spoken to each other.

Ansari’s decision to not use any words is obviously as political as it is an attempt at showcasing his ability to make a commonplace story feel special. As he states at the end of the short film, “Sisak is a dedication to all those silent, unsaid love stories.” Whatever is between these two men must remain unspoken because homosexuality remains a criminal offence in India, thanks to a law that is, like the railways, a hand-me-down from the colonial era. The silence of Sisak lends the film a tenderness that could have easily been ripped apart by dialogues and speechifying. After all, society is guided by the unspoken. The fact that conversation about sexuality is so difficult is what enables the prejudices and misconceptions that end up informing our attitudes. That silence has led to a situation where Section 377 remains in the Indian Penal Code. Ansari’s decision to make a silent film means that he’s not asking his audience to listen to arguments or logically understand the unfairness. Sisak seeks to make you feel and to this end, the film turns to music (instead of words) to express sentiments.

Sisak turns silence into a fragile but hopeful space, rather than a dark abyss of prejudice and ignorance. In it, you’re allowed to love without being noticed. Although Ansari’s film is very much part of a campaign to decriminalise homosexuality, it’s also a love story. This is a genre that occupies a complex spot in culture. On one hand, there’s nothing more popular or populist than a love story. Yet, because of its popularity, the love story also contains the possibility to be more powerfully disruptive than political manifestos. It can articulate resistance by imagining a world in which the love that is forbidden, can exist. Sisak reminds the audience of how difficult it is for some to live happily ever after and how easy it is to fall in love. The two people on the train could be easily two people kept apart by caste or religion, for instance. As more and more strictures are imposed to guide how we live our lives, perhaps the only space for freedom is made of silences and music.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @dpanjana.