Hasta-prāpya-stabaka-namito bāla-Mandāra-vṛkṣaḥ

Show: Mehandī Hai Racanevālī. Pallavi's first husband Mandar Deshmukh is in conversion therapy when she and her new husband Raghav Rao discover that Mandar is alive. Mutual attraction blossoms between Raghav's secretary and loyal friend Farhad Nawaz and Mandar, who recovers his memories as he returns to his family. Mandar is disturbed to learn that Raghav tormented Pallavi, and offers to rescue her, hiding his homosexuality. While Mandar wants answers for why he was made to disappear, and Farhad encourages Mandar to come out as gay, Pallavi seeks legal advice to sort out her marital status respectably, and Raghav is trying to atone for his broken promises with the help of his imaginary personality, Luṅgīvālā Raghav, and an intuitive dog named Damayanti.

The title is a line from Kālidāsa's poem Meghadūta; the language is Saṃskṛta. At the gate of a lover's home stands "the young Mandar-tree burdened with flowers within hand's reach" (translation of "hasta-prāpya-stabaka-namito bāla-Mandāra-vṛkṣaḥ"), which his wife has lovingly raised as their child. A closeted gay person's lovable qualities are like unplucked flowers that only burden the young tree and bend it down.

Cover Credit: @KoeliDalmiya