‘Umas’: How Rachita Gorowala’s haunting short deconstructs bodies with care

A woman rides a scooter on a rainy day in Mumbai, the sides of her raincoat flapping away by the wind. She is a masseuse, who then enters a worn-out apartment to relieve the pain of a crippling, bed-ridden old lady. There’s a strong feeling of grief pouring over its vivid, monochrome visuals as filmmaker Rachita Gorowala casts a tender look at the geometry of touch in her 24-minute short, Umas (Humid), that was screened recently at the Hong Kong International Film Festival 2026.

An alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Rachita has made her fiction debut with the film.She has earlier made the documentaries, Begamon Ka Bhopal and Bahi. Rachita says it was grief that needed an outlet which initially drove her to make Umas. “It was my closeness to an ailing loved that one made me fully present, which acted almost as a gateway for a lot of thoughts and questions that I had about my own body. So, the idea for the film came in like a scream from the stomach,” tells Rachita to The Hindu over a phone conversation.