New Delhi, Sept. 4 -- 'Illey Illa', the first song in Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, has a line that translates to "your novenas have finally come true". The word was unfamiliar to me-I later found it's a Catholic term for prayers offered for nine successive days, or weeks. It's one little detail among dozens in the series of vignettes that make up the musical sequence: a busload of passengers held up by a short film shoot; a batter run out at the bowler's end, resulting in a brawl; father and son cooking pork curry; a young woman, friendless in a new town, watching her farewell video on her phone before going to sleep; a grown man proudly clutching stuffed toys won from a claw machine.

Girish A. D.'s Bethlehem Kudumba Unit might be the best In...